Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The ship hummed with a tired sort of loyalty, its panels were warm to the touch, and its lights were just a little dimmer than the ship manual had promised. Kevran sat cross-legged on the grated floor beneath the central controls, sleeves rolled up, with a sonic stylus clenched between his teeth. He was muttering something under his breath about thermal regulators as he tweaked open the secondary conduit.

Behind him, Khandi lounged across the faded control seat like a cat in a sunbeam. She'd shed her heavier outer coat, revealing the char-stained flight gear she never bothered to replace. Socket drifted nearby, its legs bent inward, emitting a low diagnostic ping every few seconds. There was no fault to detect; it was merely a matter of being bored.

"Let me guess," Khandi looked down at her fellow Time Lord. "You've rerouted the flux capacitors through the parity manifold again."

Kevran grunted without looking. "Only temporarily. The circuit's sulking."

Socket bleeped once. "The circuit is sulking because you programmed it to share your temperament."

Kevran spat out the stylus. "What did I tell you about sarcasm?"

"Error," said Socket, "memory of prior conversation had been erased. Cause of erasure: unbothered by threat."

Kevran smirked before reaching for the stylus again.

Khandi laughed, the sound echoing slightly off the narrow walls. "I can't believe this rustbucket still flies."

"She has character," Kevran replied, patting the floor fondly. "You can't quantify that in schematics."

"I could," Socket hummed, "however, the results would depress even space-faring construction workers."

The conversation lulled for a moment. Outside the viewport, the stars bled in slow motion. They were like blurred threads of light, caught in their own warps of time and distance. The utility cruiser was moving so comfortably in a quiet drift through space. The deep, open, endless void of space. For once, no alarms were sounding anywhere in the ship. The system of the cruiser actually didn't require anything for the first time in ages. Everything was finally stable. Everything was finally safe.

Khandi spoke again, more quietly this time. "I've been meaning to ask... we've been meandering a long time now. You know, jumping from one spot to the next, going system to system. I know we're looking into Epoch, but it is beginning to feel like we're just aimlessly drifting."

Kevran didn't respond at first. He stood, stretching his arms with a slight groan, then leaned against the console, rubbing his hands dry on his coat.

"I have been avoiding something," he said finally, "but that something is where we are finally going."

Khandi's eyes widened slightly. "Wait. Kevran actually deciding to focus on something and stop getting distracted by everything in between? Are you sure you can do that?"

"I am," Kevran's voice was uncharacteristically confident. "I have danced around the truth for long enough. I need to get to Karn. The Sisterhood knows something about Epoch, about Gallifrey, too, I imagine. Maybe they know something about Valyss or his untimely death. Something was secret enough for him to be killed over, and they know about it."

Khandi sighed. "To think, this all started as a murder investigation..."

"I have faith that Siri is doing everything in her power to push the High Council into sharing their dirty secrets with her," Kevran's voice lifted as he said her name, "but regardless of what is happening elsewhere, whatever the future holds for us, and for this Epoch... I just know that the only people who can pull back the veil are the Sisterhood."

"And you trust them?" she asked, carefully.

"No," Kevran admitted, giving a smile that didn't reach his eyes, "but I trust the truth to find its way out, even from a group of cultists I don't particularly like the sound of."

Socket whirred softly. "Your optimism is statistically irrational."

"And dangerous," Khandi folded her arms.

"Maybe," Kevran said, "but when you come face to face with the living embodiment of your own inner fears, and the parts of your past that you shut away and never share with anyone - even with the people you love - I suppose it makes you reconsider if cowardice is the right way to live through life."

Khandi and Socket watched him, but didn't respond. Kevran broke eye contact with them and looked out at the stars.

"I think that Gallifrey might be breaking," he continued. "It was broken for centuries, but Epoch and Valyss just made the cracks begin appearing in the public view. If there is even the slimmest chance we can help close those cracks, maybe repair the damage done... then I think it will be worth whatever the cost is."

Khandi studied him, then nodded. "Alright. But I would like to reserve the right to say 'I told you so' when we end up surrounded by creepy, mind-possessed priestesses that turn out to have murderous intent towards us."

"Deal."

Socket beeped. "Probability of death: moderate. Probability of sarcasm: high."

Kevran grinned, scratching the top of the droid's spherical form. "Always so poetic with your words, Sock."

"I hope not," Socket's gears grinded.

As the ship pushed towards the pale light of the binary star system ahead, a sense of calm settled over them. Their destination, Phaidon, was merely one more way station. It was nothing but a pit stop before the real journey began.

None of them noticed the silent drift of a vessel just beyond the reach of long-range scanners. A dark, dormant thing that was curled like a seed. It absent-mindedly drifted on the cosmic winds of the system's gravitational pulls; dead, silent, and mundane.

The descent into Phaidon's atmosphere was gentle. The planet glistened and shone below like a half-sunken pearl, caught in the unending pull of its twin stars. One sun was golden and hot, the other was pale and cold, and their twin lights cast a fractured glow across the surface. Half-lit in warmth, half in chill, it was a world that seemed indecisive about which season should be dominant, and as such, it lived perpetually in a state of modest comfort.

Kevran guided the ship down with quiet precision. For once, the stabilisers didn't groan in protest, and the landing gear protracted without need for additional encouragement. The weight of the ship tugged downwards as the planet's gravity gained a firm hold on it, but none of the passengers aboard were in any panic. Kevran's piloting skill had improved over the course of their voyage, and Khandi's newest coping mechanisms meant that the ship's sudden jolts no longer caused intense panic in her chest.

"Atmospheric density is stable," Socket reported from its cradle underneath the main panel, "landing coordinates received from Phaidonian Port Authority. Message being transmitted and translated: Welcome to the Thirteenth Archipelago. Please enjoy your stay, and do not attempt to manipulate local time structures without a permit!"

Khandi leaned over the screen. "You know, for a species of ghostly time symbiotes, they run a surprisingly tight bureaucracy."

Kevran smirked. "That's what happens when you live outside of time. You value what little structure you can claim."

Khandi's datapad pinged. Kevran didn't notice, but just in case, she walked away before taking a look. It was an update on a command execution she had initiated three days prior. The decryption key she tried using to crack open the Epoch file had failed. This wasn't the first time. She had run so many attempts, so many different possible keys, that she had lost count of what variation she was trying next. It had been months since she obtained the file. She still hadn't told Kevra about the Epoch finding, or about the potential war Gallifrey had been planning. She just hadn't found the right time.

Kevran had seemed so focused and preoccupied with flying around aimlessly that she just assumed he didn't want to know, or that he wasn't ready to. It had felt like running for so long that she just thought he wasn't interested in Gallifrey anymore, about what they were planning or what they were hiding under the name Epoch. In fact, their conversation today had been the first time Kevran had even uttered the word since their escape from the horrifying space station. Half of her thought he'd just forget about it, the other half hoped he'd given it up. She debated whether to plug in another decryption key, exhaled deeply, and put the datapad away without taking any action. Instead, she walked back over to Kevran.

The ship angled towards the island chain spread across the central ocean; it was a spindly finger of rock and forest, dotted with glassy structures and anchored platforms. As they descended, a luminous lattice shimmered just below cloud cover. It was a planetary-scale timeweb, rippling faintly with the locals' - the Warpsmith's - latent energies.

"I studied this place once," Kevran said softly, "a long time ago, maybe three hundred years or so. I eventually got kicked out of the pre-admission library for trespassing, but it was fun while it lasted. Their integration of natural temporal flux is... astonishing."

"And we're just here for fuel," Khandi muttered, brushing dust from her clothes.

Kevran glanced at her. "That's the main reason."

She raised a brow.

"Well," he shrugged, "meeting the Warpsmiths is an exciting prospect too, but seriously, we can't go to Karn with half a tank."

Socket chimed. "The cruiser's fuel reserves are depleted to just thirty-two per cent capacity. A jump to Karn without refuelling would result in heat death, event collapse, or accidental fusion with a nearby star."

Khandi patted the ship controls gently. "We get it, girl, you're just a little dramatic."

Kevran adjusted the final descent protocols, eyes scanning the sensor feed. That's when he noticed something.

"Hold on," he murmured, "what's that?"

Khandi followed his gaze. The radar scan showed a blip. Small. Unmoving. It was just beyond the gravitational curve of the western hemisphere.

"Debris?" she guessed.

Kevran tapped through the magnifiers. The image resolved into something clearer. It was a derelict vessel, drifting with no signal pulse. Its design was incredibly old. There was visible scarring on the plating, flickering stasis lights, and no visible insignia of ownership.

"Is that... local?" Khandi asked.

"No," Kevran answered, "and it isn't listed on the Port Authority's logs, either."

He hesitated. His old instincts were twitching, the ones that got him in trouble with Siri, with the Academy, and with nearly everyone he had ever known. His mind briefly thought about his last conversation with Siri.

"I say we don't investigate," he said suddenly.

Khandi blinked. "Really?"

He nodded. "Looks like an abandoned merchant ship. No life signs. No emissions. Something must have happened to the crew long ago, and now it's a dead ship floating on cosmic winds. When it enters the atmosphere, it will burn up before causing any damage. We're not here to poke at space corpses. We need fuel and a safe jump window to Karn."

"Now you're the one being boring."

"Growth," he said with a grin. "Terrifying, isn't it?"

Khandi tilted her head. "Kinda. You sure?"

"Absolutely."

He was lying, not about the ship, but about being sure in his answer. Something did feel off, but he was trying to learn when to listen to the quiet itch in his spine, and when to respect that not every question was his to answer.

They broke atmosphere minutes later. The cruiser skimmed across Phaidon's skies, the twin suns blazing through the clouds in opposite hues. Down below, the great spires of crystalline resonance towers reflected brightly, and at the heart of the Thirteenth Archipelago, the landing platform waited. It was polished silver and pale blue, with swirls of temporal energy rising from the ground like mist.

"Welcome to Phaidon," the automated voice chirped from the dock interface. "Please remember: all body-sharing agreements must be legally registered. Consent is chemical, not just physical. Violators will be exorcised."

"That's not creepy at all," Khandi muttered.

Kevran powered down the ship's core and stepped onto the platform. The air was warm but thin, with a soft buzz to it. The buzzing wasn't necessarily a sound, but rather the sensation of sound waves, as if the temporal energies hummed just out of sync with the moment.

"I never realised how strange this place would feel," Kevran smiled.

"Peaceful, though," Khandi added.

Socket whistled.

None of them noticed the faint ripple in the sky; a curve in the clouds where something else was watching.

The city of Miraxis wasn't a city in the traditional Gallifreyan sense. It had no firm ground, no rigid walls or spires reaching to dominate the skyline. Instead, it hovered. There was a series of interlocked lattice bridges, floating sanctums, and suspended platforms that shimmered in the ambient temporal field like dewdrops caught in gravity's slow forgetfulness. There were no roads, no transportation. All that surrounded them was the air they breathed and the constant hum of time at peace.

Kevran stood at the edge of the civil threshold, taking it all in. "This place is like a musical note come to life."

Khandi frowned. "A little high-pitched for my taste."

A shimmer of blue-white light pulsed beside them, followed by a sudden shift in temperature. It wasn't a sudden heat or chill, but a memory that never quite reached the skin. A humanoid shape coalesced. They were translucent, loosely shaped, and their eyes glowed faintly from a form made of shifting refractions.

The Warpsmith did not speak with sound. Instead, it emanated thought. It was like a broadcast of consensual language, laced with politeness and scent-like impressions of what would otherwise constitute emotion and vocal tone.

"Visitors from the Citadel. You honour us with your arrival."

Kevran inclined his head. "I'm Kevranko. This is Khandikin. We're here for refuelling. We've submitted clearance with your Port Authority."

The Warpsmith gave a bow. The energy zapping around them seemed to ripple like light through a soft, silk-like material.

"We are grateful for your respect. I am Olysiir, a liaison of the Sixth Harmonisation Council. Please... follow."

Together, they moved across the floating pathways. Each step triggered a faint ripple in the air beneath their feet, as if walking on still water. Under them, the ocean glistened with a bioluminescent current, and a strange angular shape - the origin being either architectural or organic - twisted just beneath the surface.

Khandi whispered. "How do they even build anything here?"

"They don't," Kevran replied with a beaming grin, "they coax. Time and matter are suggestions here, not absolutes."

They arrived at an open-air meeting node, a soft platform surrounded by curved glass petals that gently rotated around a central plinth. Another Warpsmith was waiting, more tightly shaped and grounded in its form than Olysiir appeared.

"Ah," Olysiir projected, "this is Beglis, of our Historical Preservation Office."

Kevran's eyes widened. "Beglis? As in the Beglis? As in the Beglis who wrote Temporal Bridges and the Politics of Migration Between Time-Locked Cultures?"

Beglis pulsed a pale purple. "You read my paper?"

"Oh, absolutely, I did. I loved the chapter on..." Kevran scratched the back of his neck, realising how Khandi was staring at him. "Well, parts of it. The footnotes, mostly."

"Then you are among the few," Beglis' aura shimmered with a faint amusement. "Come, we have already begun distilling the fusion vapour for your ship."

As they were led up to a transparent platform overlooking a massive energy spiral - a refuelling rig built into the sea's own gravitational pulse - Khandi crossed her arms.

"I have one question about this whole merging thing," she said bluntly. "How do you choose who to merge with? You're incorporeal. You need hosts, I get that. What's the process?"

The Warpsmiths paused. Kevran looked back at her with a quizzical look. Olysiir responded, its tone gentle.

"We ask."

Khandi raised a brow. "What, and they just say yes?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes not. We never impose. To merge without consent is a violation beyond death. We are guests, not masters."

Beglis added to Olysiir's words. "If proper cohesion does not exist, harm can befall a Warpsmith as much as their host. We have many organics who serve as volunteers to the merging process."

"It's not slavery, then?"

Kevran turned sharply. "Did you think it was?"

"I've seen what Gallifrey calls consensual," she said, "and it usually just means that you've signed something before being able to read it. A real masterclass in manipulation."

Olysiir's glow dimmed slightly. "Then, your world sounds... cruel."

"It is," Kevran said simply, "and it will never change. But, there are good people there, too."

The Warpsmiths stopped moving sharply. Their colours shimmered in multiple colours, and their forms faded briefly before returning to normal. Khandi was confused, and Socket whirred, but Kevran merely waited patiently until they were ready to continue.

Beglis tilted its form. "You are both marked by time's gravity. There is something devastating near you."

That caught Kevran off guard. It wasn't something he expected to hear.

Khandi tensed. "That obvious, is it?"

"You carry future sorrow. It folds and surrounds you like ash in a sandstorm," Olysiir added.

"I hope I wear it well," Khandi puffed.

Olysiir's colour shifted. "I was not referring to you."

There was a silence. After a moment, Kevran cleared his throat.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry for being so rude," Kevran smiled, placing a hand on his stomach. "I'm not sure about you, Khandi, but I am starving!"

Olysiir offered no protest. "Then allow us instead to offer food. Your kind still nourishes biologically, yes?"

Khandi smirked. "He does. I just eat because it annoys people when I don't."

They were led to a crystalline hall where energy-dense foods pulsed with inner light. Tastes wrapped in harmonics, designed to feed thought as much as body. As they ate, the Warpsmiths projected memories, offering them glimpses into Phaidon's long peace. It told of centuries of harmonic accord, spiritual partnership between hosts and hosts-to-be, a civilisation that lived within its planet, not atop it.

Kevran leaned back, for a moment allowing himself to enter the fantasy of it all. Phaidon. A world where memory and choice were revered. A world where time moved with purpose. A world where anyone, even outsiders, could be welcome without judgment. There was no violence, war, hatred, or paranoia. He hadn't had that feeling since before he and Siri had fought. Since before they found the first logs on the mysterious Epoch. Since before Gallifrey's true colours began to shine through the cracks.

Socket, meanwhile, stood silently near the window, scanning the horizon.

"Kevran," it said, voice lower than usual. "The derelict ship is closer now."

Kevran turned. Far off in the clouds, there was a shadow. It was still and unpresuming, but it was definitely there.

"Probably just drifting."

Even as he said it, he felt the wrongness settling in his gut. It had neither a tether nor natural momentum. Based on the direction it travelled from, it should have been pulled in and swallowed by one of the twin suns, but instead, it was there in the orbit of this planet now. It wasn't crashing.

It was waiting.

Chapter Text

The fuel lines purred softly beneath the hull like a chorus of well-oiled mechanisms that, for once, gave Kevran no reason to be nervous. The ship was resting on one of Phaidon's many floating platforms. They were a great marvel of Phaidonian engineering. They were a giant ring of minerals and metals held aloft by gravitational columns, suspended underneath the twin suns that made the water below burn bright like molten sapphire.

Inside, Kevran sat on a folded-out bench near the diagnostics station, with one boot lifted and lazily resting on a pile of maintenance cloths. It didn't take long for Socket to discover him there and move closer, scanning the latest internal system report as it approached.

"Fuel levels rising at expected increments," the little bot chimed, its voice both flat and unbothered. "Once refuelled, I suggest completing a journey without running from a debt collector or nearly colliding with a black hole this time."

"You know what Khandi would say," he smiled, "where's the fun in that?"

Socket gave a beep that Kevran could only interpret as a sigh.

Despite the calm of it all, there was still an itch on his spine. It wasn't the dangerous kind, not yet, but it was the kind he usually got when his instincts were quietly poking at the back of his mind to do something. His mind craved something to focus on. Now, he was being plagued by this annoyance in his skull. A tug of memory, perhaps, or a phantom of a decision made too quickly. He glanced at a nearby Port Authority navigation screen, its soft blue glow displaying their approach vector from the earlier landing.

There it was again: the derelict ship.

"Socket," he said, almost absetly, "pull up that telemetry we got when we passed that wreckage earlier. The one drifting near the planet's edge."

"I thought you didn't care," Socket asked. "You said, to summarise a quotation: it looks abandoned and unimportant."

"I was being sensible," Kevran replied, rubbing his eye, "which, in hindsight, feels wildly out of character."

The screen blinked to life again, and the ghostly shape reappeared. It was a ship of sorts, tumbling gently through the gravitational flux between two suns. Its surface registered no emissions, no signals, and no heat. It was just a blank presence, but something about it just felt too neat for Kevran's liking.

"Still nothing," Socket confirmed after a moment. "No movement at all. Scans indicate it is just floating. It appears unnatural; however, no life signs are still being detected. Strange, it you ask me."

Kevran frowned. "Of course I'm asking you, Sock. You were literally built to be asked things."

He leaned back, staring at the grainy image. A vague, jagged silhouette that refused to resolve into anything recognisable. It didn't match any known classification from the Archive, which was - when not busy - precisely the sort of thing Kevran had always chased down with reckless enthusiasm. Yet this time, he hadn't.

He had ignored it. He had waved it off. He was trying to be better, to avoid unnecessary danger that could harm him, Khandi, or Socket before reaching Karn. He didn't want to derail their entire trip over the ghost of a maybe-ship, and he had been putting off Karn for too long already. He needed answers about Epoch. Now, though, it was this derelict wreckage that bothered him.

"You're dwelling," Socket said, shifting closer. "History dictates that you only dwell like this when you've done something labelled: particularly stupid. Other instances in this folder include the time you tried to reprogram a traffic satellite in mid-orbit."

Kevran groaned. "That was one time."

"You recently mistook the surface of a moon for a landing pad."

"It was shaped exactly like one!"

"Kevran," Socket's eye-lenses rotated and shrank as its tone became surprisingly gentle, "you cannot blame yourself for not following every hunch."

"I can when the hunch is all I'm good at," he murmured. "Everything else? Plans, protocols, politics... those were Siri's thing. Khandi's thing, too. I'm just the idiot who pokes abandoned objects until they explode."

"Then, maybe it is good that you haven't poked this one, yet," Socket replied.

Kevran narrowed his eyes. "Yet?"

"There is still time," Socket whirred as it wheeled towards the door. "We can investigate after refuelling. Also, you have not experienced an explosion in several weeks. You are overdue."

Kevran didn't smile, but something flickered at the corner of his mouth. He stood, stretching, and walked up beside Socket. Outside, the twin suns were beginning to tip toward alignment, casting long golden light across the sea and the distant floating platforms of Phaidon's scattered settlements.

"Do you think I've changed?" he asked quietly.

Socket blinked twice. "Scanning nutritional levels... you eat less cheese and you go to bed earlier. That is... progress."

"I meant, like, really changed. Personality. Attitude. Have I changed? Have I changed for the better?"

Socket paused for a moment as its gears turned faster. "You passed up a ghost ship. You are taking care of Khandi. You have also refrained from hacking anything ancient and forbidden for nearly three months. Conclusion: Yes, you have changed. However, my sensors indicate that you are looking at that derelict wreckage as though it is speaking to you."

Kevran looked back at the screen. The image hadn't shifted, but he imagined he could feel its presence, like there was something poised and waiting to act. His stomach knotted, but it wasn't fear that crept inside of him. It was regret.

"We should've gone to look," he sighed.

Socket's eye-lens lit up. "You still could."

"No," Kevran said, turning from the screen, "not now. I need Karn. Khandi's already pretending to be fine when really she wonders why she came along at all. I won't derail us for another one of my half-baked excursions."

Socket stood silently for a moment before responding. "Not every shadow needs chasing."

He nodded, but the look on his face said he wasn't sure.

Khandi stood near the edge of the platform, letting the twin suns' refracted light bathe her face. Their warmth was strange here. It was such a clear and constant thing. On Gallifrey, even the light was filtered through layers of bureaucracy, ozone, and the protective sphere, but on Phaidon, there was nothing except clarity. There was honesty in its elements, and truthfully, she found something comforting in that.

She heard the rustling of incorporeal wind as Olysiir approached. The Warpsmith did not walk or float; they simply appeared and moved like a shimmer in the air, humming with gentle resonance.

"You are contemplative," Olysiir said, the words vibrating inside Khandi's head more than reaching her ears.

"I'm always contemplative," she replied, arms crossed, "that comes with being Gallifreyan and stuck in a universe full of lies"

Beglis arrived behind the two of them, his physical form moving with surprising weight for someone who hosted a being of light and time. The host's face was lined and serious, but their eyes sparkled with something Khandi couldn't quite name. It looked like a strange mixture of exhaustion and hope.

"You say lies," Beglis offered, "however, Gallifrey has always been mythologised to us as a world of order and symmetry. A beacon of something to strive for."

"Beacons burn," Khandi said, "but the High Council wouldn't illuminate anything unless it actively served them."

Beglis smiled sadly. "Then, perhaps it is time someone lit the flame in another direction."

Khandi glanced at him. "That's dangerously poetic for a civil servant."

"I was a poet once," he admitted, "before bureaucracy dulled me."

"You may be dulled," Olysiir teased, "but less than most."

Beglis gave a dry chuckle. "I have always wished our two species could have been allies. Both are bound by time, both shackled by ritual. There could have been power in a partnership like that."

Khandi felt the weight of that, but shook her head. "I'm not part of the diplomatic corps, Beglis. I can't promise you alliances."

"But you believe in them."

She didn't answer at first. The silence stretched.

"I believe in people," she said firmly, "not councils, nor chambers. And Gallifrey? Well, Gallifrey is too fond of speaking for its people rather than listening to them."

"That is a wound we share," Olysiir muttered. "The Harmonisation Council here speaks with one voice, but few of us feel it echoes our own."

Beglis gave a slight nod. "You would be surprised by how many among us long for something more equal, more honest."

Khandi frowned slightly. "That kind of talk would get you exiled from the Citadel."

"And here? It would earn me applause."

Olysiir gave an agreed nod before excusing herself and disappearing, leaving just the Time Lady and the Civil Servant. Khandi looked into Beglis' eyes. This was what it looked like, the merging of the incorporeal Warpsmith with their organic hosts. A pair bound together by agreement and trust. There was no sense of dominance, no ownership. They were truly unified.

"Do you ever get tired of sharing your body?" she asked.

They smiled gently. "I do not share my body. My host and I occupy different spaces of the mind in harmonisation. It is not like your kind and their rebirth. There is no surrender or reset. It is a conversation."

"I envy that," Khandi said. "Time Lords never ask. We just take the next form, ready or not. There's no discussion, at least not in my experience."

"But perhaps," Beglis said, "there should be."

The thought sat heavily in her mind.

She felt safe here. It was strange to feel secure, being in a place so unfamiliar. It made her wonder just how much she had been conditioned to accept the paranoia of Gallifreyan life as normality. To see trust as weakness and view loyalty not as a devotion, but as a compliance; that was the Gallifreyan way.

"What would you do," she asked suddenly, "if Gallifrey did come asking for alliances?"

"I would petition your leaders without hesitation," Beglis began, "but I know what the answer would be."

"Do you?" Khandi raised a brow. "Gallifrey's leadership is always in flux. The walls of the High Council are shaking, and there is something big on the horizon, and the Time Lords know about it. If the scale is as large as it implies, alliances might be what they need."

Beglis narrowed their eyes in thought. "Spoken so well for someone who claims not to be an ambassador."

Khandi scoffed, but it wasn't cruel. "If I ever join the diplomatic corps, hit me with a wrench."

"I do not recommend violence."

"It was a figure of speech," Khandi smiled despite herself.

There was a pause, then Beglis turned toward the distant shoreline, toward the distant silhouette of the derelict ship.

"I may say now, with Olysiir gone," Beglis said, "that there is an unease on the wind. I do not know the shape of it yet... but something watches."

Khandi followed the gaze. The vessel was far, nothing but a speck against the blue. It looked small and meaningless.

"We passed that on the way here," she said. "Probably an old trade gone horribly wrong, or a life support system failure."

"Perhaps," Beglis replied, "or perhaps we've mistaken silence for peace."

The suns had begun to dim over Phaidon's coastline plains, and the horizon exploded with a wash of golden pink. A cooling breeze, if it could be called that on a planet like this, swept across the tower's outer promenade, and Kevran stood alone at the edge. He was standing dangerously close to the edge and was not equipped with the necessary safety gear for what he was doing.

He was just staring out toward the distance outline of his ship, half-buried amongst the blooming clouds of gold and blue. He smiled at the peace of it all and briefly looked down at the ground far below him before sharply returning his eyes to the distance. He agreed with himself that he was never going to do that again for as long as he remained at that height. He took a deep breath to steady himself before taking a few steps back from the edge.

"Well. I'm certain this is against several hundred policies," came a voice behind him.

He turned. Olysiir's incorporeal cloud hovered just above the walkway. Glints of ambient light gently outlined its form.

"Probably," Kevran said sheepishly. "I apologise for the disrespect. I'm not very good at following policies."

Olysiir replied. "That is precisely why I found you out here."

Kevran smiled faintly. "Not one for rules yourself?"

"I've bent one or two," Olysiir said, "or perhaps I've just floated between their definitions."

Kevran chuckled, and Olysiir joined him, the aura of her form rippling in pale blues and greens to symbolise a similar laughter. They shared a joyful moment, one that didn't fully mask the truth they were each holding close. There was something about Phaidon at dusk that encouraged confession. The silence wasn't empty; it was listening.

Kevran turned back towards the sky. "You know, I've seen the biological breakdowns for your kind. The ones in the Archive back home."

"Cold diagrams. Flattened truths."

"Yeah," he looked back at Olysiir, "a species designed to conjoin and coexist with others. You are a bit of an anomaly in my understanding, though. Nothing in any of the books mentions members who aren't merged. I find you quite fascinating."

Olysiir pulsed softly in colour, a kind of emotional blush. "Books rarely speak of unconventionalities."

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Kevran shifted on his heels. "It is strange. Your people merge with others and live in unison. My people split and reform, rebirth after recycle, with each version leaving echoes behind. And yet-"

"We are both afraid of ourselves," Olysiir finished for him.

Kevran nodded. "Exactly."

Olysiir floated closer. "Have you experienced this splitting you describe?"

Kevran hesitated, then shook his head. "No. Not once. I am simply the first. Been close, though. A few tight scrapes and some foolish decisions. But this face? It's all I've ever known. It feels like all I am."

"I understand," Olysiir spoke softly. "I have never merged, either."

Kevran blinked. "Really? I thought non-merging caused you to weaken and die?"

"A myth."

"I see," Kevran nodded. "May I ask why?"

"There is a song in the process. It is a melody of minds joining in harmony. But, I've never heard the right tune," Olysiir paused, "and I fear what would become of my own voice in the choir."

Kevran leaned on the nearby railing. "Sometimes I wonder who I might be after regenerating. I wonder whether I'd still love what I love, hate what I hate. Would I still remember the things that made me who I am?"

"Do you fear forgetting?" Olysiir turned to face him completely.

"I fear becoming someone I wouldn't like."

That earned a more profound, resonant silence between them. It stretched. It wasn't awkward. It was a meaningful quiet that they both had earned.

"I've seen others of my people after changing," Kevran said eventually, "and sure, some of them come back fine. However, some are softer, while others are colder. Some were... just broken. I had a professor once, back in the Academy. Regenerated after a lab accident and poof, no longer recognised his - well, her - own students anymore. Started calling us names we never had. Claimed that the sky tasted wrong."

"It sounds as though she had not yet harmonised with her own timeline," Olysiir stated. "It can happen, I understand."

"That's not comforting," Kevran murmured.

Olysiir shimmered gently. "Nor is being adrift in your own skin."

A moment passed.

Kevran asked. "Do you want to? Merge, I mean."

Olysiir turned toward the horizon, where the derelict ship still floated like a speck of dust on the eye.

"I don't know," Olysiir answered honestly. "There is a beauty in the intimacy, yes, but there is also a violence in surrendering one's shape. If I merge, it will not be lightly."

Kevran gave a small, solemn nod. "I can relate to that more than you could understand. Death is scary, but it's also inevitable. If I'm going to die anyway, I want to know that it mattered. I need to know that whatever next version comes out, they aren't spending their life running from the mistakes that I made."

"You are not unlike us," Olysiir comforted.

Kevran turned, raising a brow.

"You speak of change as a death, and yet you embrace the dangers of curiosity as a form of life. You are, perhaps, a Warpsmith with bones."

"And you," Kevran replied with a smirk, "might be a Time lord with better manners."

Olysiir's shimmer brightened in laughter, a warm ripple of colour and vibration that flooded the space around them with joy.

"Maybe we're all just trying to become the parts we envy in others," Kevran said.

"Let us hope," Olysiir answered, "that we only borrow the good."

The moment lingered between them like a secret stitched into the evening air. Then, somewhere below, a klaxon began to sound. Distant at first, just a faint tremor in the atmosphere, but it was growing. There was a sudden tension in the air, and it was building fast.

Kevran straightened. "That alarm isn't from my ship, is it?"

Olysiir dimmed, listening. "No. That is from the Thirteenth Archipelago itself."

Kevran's mouth went dry. They exchanged a glance, Time Lord and Warpsmith, as each suddenly sensed that the hour of quiet was drawing to a close.

There had always been an understanding that the Thirteenth Archipelago was the quietest part of Phaidon's entire surface. Even for people without mouths, the Warpsmiths had recognisable idioms, and amongst them was a phrase whispered in tonal hums across interlinking incorporeal minds: even echoes slept in the Thirteenth.

The archipelago - twelve sprawling islands of floating stone and quartz, anchored by tether-threads to the lower atmospheric mantle - was sparsely populated, inhabited chiefly by surveyors, port custodians, and energy archivists. No warriors or soldiers, because there was never any need for such people. On the edge of its lowest isle, where the air grew thin and the orbit of the lesser star cast long spectral shadows across the horizon, the derelict ship hung in stillness.

It had arrived in the Phaidonian system several days earlier. There had been no response in communication efforts, and no signals indicating that any systems were online at all. The model matched no known registry in the Port Authority's logs. It was a ghost vessel, harmless and mute, drifting aimlessly through the system and being slowly pulled in by Phaidon's own gravitational tugs.

Now, however, it moved without the sound of engines or the noise of life, and especially without any warning. In one breathless moment, its hull shimmered, with ripples distorting reality around its bulk. The Warpsmiths on station WHX-Diode, orbiting above the edge of the archipelago, saw the illusion peel away like a snake shedding an old skin. The rot beneath glinted in the starlight.

It was not derelict at all. It was a warship. Metallic fins aligned with magnetic precision. Black casings shimmered with the lustre of absolute death, and without any further warning, the bottom hatches unlocked and released, ripping open after many quiet days of dormancy. In an instant, the sky began to bleed fire as the ship released what was being carried aboard this whole time without ever being caught. The cargo was not an object, nor some deadly gas or toxin. The ship had the end of the universe itself. It carried the greatest threat to all of existence.

Daleks.

Gunmetal grey casings caught the starlight in cold gleams, their dome-lights flaring like crimson eyes. Bands and hemispheres of the same deep, blood-red tone pulsed faintly with the hum of power; each rivet and panel was built for the act of warfare. The colour spoke of slaughter - a breed engineered for one purpose, and one purpose only.

There were dozens of them at first, then it became hundreds. They dropped like mercury rain, spheres of annihilation falling towards the serene and peaceful islands below. By the time the Warpsmiths on WHX-Diode sounded their alarms and turned on their communication relay to warn others, the first exterminations had already begun.

Meanwhile, on the surface of Island Seven, a pair of Warpsmiths manning the spire-guard platform saw the approaching assault for what it was, only a few seconds before the first blast was fired. There was no time for reason, no chance to warn anyone. One moment, they were spectral forms that rotated harmonically, and the next instant, they were utterly disintegrated by a column of energy that had fallen from above them.

Their host bodies, borrowed from tourists to the planet, collapsed in smouldering heaps. The incorporeal Warpsmiths themselves screamed through dimensional rips as their very essence was torn apart, their timelines unravelled mid-stream by calibrated Dalek energy. No armour. No defences. No plan. The Thirteenth Archipelago was being massacred, and there was nothing that could be done to stop it. No one could save them.

Olysiir's form flickered violently as they hovered at Kevran's side on the upper promenade. They hadn't yet spoken, but their body language said everything. The hum of fear. The sudden chaos in their shape. Kevran reached for his datapad and heard Socket's voice almost immediately.

"Query: Are you seeing this?"

"I'm seeing it," Kevran replied grimly. "Daleks. That ship... I was wrong. I should have..." he stopped himself. "We need to warn the Harmonisation Council."

Olysiir pulsed in protest. "The Council may already be hit. The Thirteenth Archipelago is where the Warpsmith leaders were gathering this week. It was the Festival of Folds."

Kevran blanched. "They waited until the majority were gathered..."

"The attack was calculated," Olysiir paused. "Perfectly timed."

An explosion rocked the distant horizon. Fire bloomed across one of the floating islands as an entire plateau began to collapse inwards, the anti-gravity tethers failing under the intensity of the bombardment.

Socket crackled again. "Hostiles detected moving across multiple vectors on the island. They've reached the outer settlement perimeter. Calculations predict... we have minutes, perhaps less, before they reach this sector."

Kevran turned to Olysiir. "We need to get to the other tower. Khandi is still there. I have to evacuate."

Olysiir pulsed sharply. "No! We must help others get to safety."

Kevran shook his head. "I- I'm sorry, I need to make sure my people are safe."

Olysiir dimmed. "Then, I shall accompany you."

Elsewhere, on Island Nine, Beglis watched in horror from the main observatory as the sky opened up. They'd been coordinating with the civil distribution units, preparing a farewell gift for Kevran and his crew, when the attack suddenly sprang upon the planet. By the time the towers fell and the first Dalek patrol breached the compound, Beglis had already ushered half a dozen unmerged Warpsmiths into a temporal shelter. It was a shielded chamber built decades earlier as a precaution against incursion.

It wouldn't hold for long; they all knew that. This was an assault unlike anything the Phaidonians had seen in their vast history. The Daleks advanced through the white quartz halls, their weapons firing with relentless, clinical precision. Some Warpsmiths attempted to flee, detaching from their hosts too soon, but it made no difference. The Dalek beams weren't just designed to kill matter; they had been laced with chronon pulses. The kind of energy that dissolved beings made of incorporeal time.

Beglis took in the death, the fire, the crackling hum of obliteration. Amongst it all, in the middle of the apocalypse, he felt a strong sense of betrayal. They hadn't even been given a warning. There was no negotiation. There was no chance for peaceful surrender. There was only death.

Kevran and Olysiir reached the far tower just as Socket managed to unlock and open the door, its mechanical arm-extension already protected in anticipation of a fight. Thankfully, there were no Daleks inside.

Khandi stood by the central podium in stunned paralysis. "Daleks... here..."

"There's no time," he said. "We need to evacuate. The entire planet is under siege."

"What about the Warpsmiths?"

"Khandi, there is an army of Daleks out there. What do you expect me to do?" he looked into her eyes. "The ship refuelling has finished. If we are lucky, we can break orbit and jump before the Daleks have time to turn their beams on us."

"We can't just-"

"I am not a hero!" Kevran's sudden burst of anger caught everyone in the room off guard.

Khandi looked at him hesitantly and stepped backwards.

"I- I'm not a..." he spoke again, his voice suddenly soft and shy. "I am one man, I am a coward, and I am very afraid. Death itself just dropped out of a ghostship in the sky, and I am powerless to do anything about it. We are powerless."

Olysiir gently hovered closer, offering a solution. "There are shuttles in the low-hold. We could escort people to them, we can get them out of here if we move now..."

Khandi didn't look at Kevran when she spoke. "I won't abandon them."

Kevran grunted in frustration as he turned on the spot.

"You think you're the only scared person here?" Khandi spat. "Think about it, Kevran. How many people are out there? How many children? Are you going to turn your back on them, too? All because of how you feel? We might not be able to save everyone, but saving someone should surely be enough, shouldn't it?"

Kevran thought for a moment. All eyes were on him. Internally, he screamed and berated himself for somehow finding a way to get into danger even when he hadn't been chasing anything. How had this happened? How had he still found himself in harm's way when he had been actively choosing to ignore the normal curiosity he fed like an overweight pet? He just wanted to leave. This wasn't something he could deal with, and he didn't have the mental capacity to try.

This was a very sudden and deadly threat. He was just an archivist far away from home. What could two Time Lords and a robotic assistant do to combat a horde of Daleks on a planet of demilitarised pacifists? He could feel Khandi looking to him for a decision, and the Warpsmiths held a lot of respect for the Time Lords based purely on mythical tales that whispered through the cosmos. This was a lot of pressure to fall upon his shoulders, and it was Olysiir's gaze that finally got him talking again.

"Can you pilot these shuttles?"

Olysiir pulsed. "Yes. However, it is a long trek on foot."

"I will get you there," Kevran said, looking to Khandi with an uncertain confidence. "Socket, form up."

"At your side!"

Outside, the sky continued to burn. Daleks swarmed like insects across the vast, floating cities, exterminating everything in their wake. However, even in the shadow of extinction, there was purpose. There was movement. A race to survival had begun, and it was not a race that anyone on Phaidon was going to be taking lightly.

Back on Island Twelve, a Warpsmith known only as Jel-Voa watched from within a dissolving temporal shelter dome as a single Dalek moved closer.

"YOU WILL BE ELIMINATED!"

Jel-Voa, whose body was currently a Phaidonian volunteer named Trestin, stepped forward.

"I am not armed."

"YOU ARE A TIME-ACTIVE ENTITY! ALL SUCH FORMS MUST BE PURGED!"

Jel-Voa tilted their burrowed head. "Why?"

"YOU ARE A SUPREME THREAT TO DALEK SUPREMACY!"

"We seek no supremacy."

The Dalek hesitated only for a fraction of a second, but it was long enough. Jel-Voa launched themselves forward. It was a desperate attack, ill-fated and brief, but they struck the Dalek's weapon arm before the beam discharged, sending the energy bolt into a nearby wall. At this exact moment, in a single beat of history, resistance existed. Then came the arrival of a second Dalek, and that historic beat was over.

The towers of the Thirteenth Archipelago crumbled one by one. Time-warped screaming echoed into the abyss as incorporeal minds were ripped apart mid-thought. Daleks stormed across the skies, and their proclamation rang across the communication channels of every standing tower, every unbound outpost, and in every corner of Phaidon.

"EXTERMINATE THE TIME-BORN! PHAIDON SHALL FALL!"

Chapter Text

The storm of destruction had come quickly to Phaidon, and now it fell like ash.

Kevran crouched behind the rusted edge of a cargo rail, his breath shallow, eyes locked on the shadowed horizon of the platform ahead. The thudding reverberations of Dalek engines hummed through the durasteel beneath him. They were rhythmic, menacing, and mechanical. His hearts beat a twin tempo in his chest. Just ahead, one of the scout Daleks glided past, its eyestalk swivelling left and right in slow, sweeping arcs. He dared not breathe too loudly.

Beside him, Khandi pressed flat against a column of stasis coils. Her hands were covered in thick dust, or perhaps it was the ashes of those who had already fallen nearby. Socket had attached itself to her like a backpack, its ocular lenses dilated in alert mode, scanning for infrared movement and electromagnetic pulses. It was safer this way; its wheels would make too much noise as they squealed along the ground. It wouldn't have taken the Daleks long to detect it and find them all.

Olysiir played their part as the ever-hopeful Warpsmith, filled with an unshaken determination to survive and save Phaidon. They floated just an inch from the ground. The glow of their presence was suppressed into nearly nothing at all. They shimmered faintly like light disturbed by air, and even their heartbeat - a millimetre-sized ripple in the cloud - was buried beneath the silence.

None of them had spoken for twenty-three minutes, but it had felt like hours.

Kevran raised two fingers to indicate movement. Khandi nodded. Olysiir shimmered forward, gliding ahead of them with a perfect weightless grace, scouting the corridor. Kevran followed a moment later, moving low, with silent bootsteps. Every creak, every hum of machinery, felt like a scream against the void of death.

A twisted fragment of architecture lay scattered across the walkway, a remnant of the initial Dalek assault. Half the gantry had collapsed under the pressure blast from an orbiting strike. Kevran remembered walking through this very intersection just hours ago, joking with Socket about naming constellations after his favourite professors at the Academy. That lightheartedness felt like a millennium ago now.

They passed the body of a young woman who had been hosting a Warpsmith when they died. The incorporeal half had long since fled, leaving the biological shell behind, slumped against a loading rig with a chest blackened from a Dalek blast. Socket processed the scene and offered a soft whirr of sympathy. Kevran didn't look. He couldn't bring himself to.

They reached the edge of the sub-hanger junction. Khandi pressed her palm against the sensor plate, her voice still absent but her eyes asking a thousand questions. Kevran held up a hand: wait. Down below, two Daleks stood over the remnants of a timeship. It was scorched and twisted, its temporal core cracked open and leaking radiative light. The Daleks scanned the wreckage, then began sweeping the area with their menacing eyestalks.

One of them paused, looking up in the direction of the group. Kevran dropped to his stomach, motioning for the others to do the same. The Dalek's searchlight passed within centimetres of their locations, but no alarm followed. They held still for another full minute before Kevran gave the all-clear.

Olysiir rejoined them, dropping slightly to share a small mental projection with Kevran. It was a schematic of the sub-decks of Phaidon: two more corridors, three sentry paths, one alternative route. Kevran studied it intensely. His finger traced the alternate path, leading through a dormant freight tunnel, barely wide enough to fit them, but shielded from external scanners.

He nodded. They all moved again in silence, passing the bodies of hosts and abandoned organics. A child host cradled a broken Warpsmith amplifier, his eyes glazed over. Khandi froze when she saw the scene, then, with a breath, forced herself to push onwards with a tightened jaw. Socket briefly projected a soft beam of light as a gesture of remembrance to the fallen who surrounded them.

As they entered the freight tunnel, the sound of extermination echoed behind them. Kevran gritted his teeth. Every second they lingered here was a second closer to death, perhaps something worse - if such a thing existed. Olysiir hesitated at the tunnel's far end, spying faint movement just beyond their sight. The Warpsmith shimmered forward again, scouting through the bulkhead. After a long pause, they returned with a nod. The pathway was clear, for now.

They emerged onto a maintenance platform which stretched toward the base of the primary hangar bay. The temporal fields were already fluctuating wildly, and it was clear that the Daleks were using some kind of disrupter signal to prevent escape. A crushed timeship lay like a wounded animal at the centre, its sleek shell was bent inwards. Kevran stared at the wreck.

Socket chirped once. A nearby transponder had activated, and that could only mean one thing: there had to be other survivors.

Kevran raised a hand. The group moved into cover behind a collapsed stanchion. From this position, they could see them. There was a huddled group of Warpsmiths, perhaps two dozen, hiding beneath a collapsed jetway. Kevran gestured to Khandi. Her eyes widened in recognition; she had seen some of those hosts during her earlier talks. They were engineers, scientists, and low-ranking dockworkers. 

Kevran turned to Socket. There was a soft click as a message was transmitted to the transponder: Stay low, we'll lead you out.

All Kevran could wonder was whether there was anywhere left for them to go.

The door hissed shut with a reluctant finality. Beglis stood motionless in the half-light of the shelter's antechamber, their host's hand still on the override switch. The air was stale already. The walls were lined with phospher lighting strips that hummed with stress-induced flickering.

Dozens of Warpsmiths, some in hosts while others shimmered as incorporeal signles, huddled within the curved confines of the room. Their forms pulsed with distress, subtle but unmistakable. The smell of singed ozone lingered in the air. One of them coughed, even though it was only their host who needed to breathe.

Beglis had stopped shaking minutes ago. Numbness had replaced his fear. Duty, regret, and cold clarity were all that remained. He stepped back from the console and faced the group of tired and scared survivors. 

"This shelter will hold," Beglis proclaimed. "The Daleks don't have clearance codes for vault-sealed chambers."

A Warpsmith in the host body of an elderly female raised their voice weakly. "Will they search for us?"

Beglis hesitated. "They might, but rest assured. I've rerouted all power signatures to mimic reactor waste. They'll think the structure's been scrapped."

The silence that followed was filled only by the soft keening of one incorporeal Warpsmith credling the body of their former host, still refusing to let go completely. Beglis wanted to go to them, wanted to say something comforting or hopeful. Instead, their mouth opened, and no words came out. The truth had eclipsed any comfort they could bring. They had been outplayed, outpaced, outgunned, and all in the space of fifty minutes.

Beglis checked the chrono embedded in the host's bracer. They'd opened five shelters so far. Each one had been harder to reach than the last. The Daleks had swarmed through the archipelago with grotesque efficiency, burning corridors and killing hosts before the Warpsmiths had time to flee their flesh. Beglis tapped their communicator. Static. They tapped it again. A soft pulse served as a greeting before a voice crackled through the noise.

"Shelter Four... overrun... we couldn't-"

Nothing.

Beglis turned away so the survivors wouldn't see his face. They moved back through the corridor toward the surface, stepping over rubble, avoiding flickering conduits that spat electric arcs across the floor. The smell of death was growing stronger. It wasn't the decay of flesh, but instead a metallic stink of burning neural interfaces, scorched stabiliser circuits, and ruptured host cores.

Reaching the blast doors at the surface junction, Beglis keyed in a code and peered out cautiously. The world beyond was no longer Phaidon. This was nothing but a graveyard in the making.

Clouds of rising smoke curled through the support struts of the platform above, casting dim and terrible light across the low district. Buildings had been carved open by plasma fire. A column of Warpsmiths, some glowing blue, others inside soot-streaked bodies, marched in retreat formation towards the cliff-tier. Before they could make it, a Dalek patrol swooped in from above. The robotic screams of their war cries were followed by bolts of energy that flew through the air, illuminating it. Beglis flinched, turning away in an instant. This couldn't be the end.

Turning back down the corridor, Beglis made their way toward the auxiliary tramline, where a skeletal track system still connected scattered emergency response depots. Along the way, he passed the burned-out hulk of a transport pod, its outer shell blackened, its grav-stabilisers cracked and humming softly. Inside, two Warpsmith hosts lay intertwined. They were dead. It looked like one had been trying to shield the other from a blast that had come too fast to escape. Their incorporeal companions had fizzled into ash nearby.

Beglis didn't linger. They reached the tramline and stepped onto the emergency pad, overriding the access lock. The console chirped with surprising compliance. Perhaps the Daleks had overlooked this section, or maybe they didn't think it was worth their time. The pod surged forward and halted just before them, opening the doors quietly as though the mechanisms were aware of the danger any sound would conjure.

Outside the windows, destruction rolled past like a moving diorama of death. What once had been gardens of thought and public sanctums of memory were nothing now but blackened craters. Sculptures twisted inwards from the heat of desolation. The sleek, gleaming spires of Warpsmith design staggered like melting pillars of wax.

Beglis tightened his fists. They had been a civil servant to the Harmonics Council for seventy years. They had drafted cooperation treaties that never came to pass. They had authorised reforms that no one bothered to read. They had drafted petitions for the High Council of Gallifrey more times than they could count, always for peace, always for recognition. The Time Lords had turned their backs, always. But now? Now, Beglis' people were dying because of all of those different moments of indifference.

The pod decelerated with a soft jolt. Shelter Three. As he stepped out onto the platform, a sound came long before any sight of trouble. A deafening silence followed a low, thrumming sound. It wasn't a peaceful quiet; instead, it signalled the aftermath of something dreadful.

Beglis rounded the corner. The shelter was open. The doors had been forced. Inside, the lights were out. There were no survivors. A thin smear of something biological trailed across the floor, still sizzling faintly from an energy discharge. A Dalek had been there, potentially more than one. Beglis stepped carefully; their host's throat was tight.

In the back of a chamber, someone had carved something into the wall with a sharp tool. It was written in broken Phaidonian, but the message was clear enough for translation.

They found us. We ran. Some made it. Tell them we fought bravely.

Beglis reached out and touched the words gently. The Warpsmiths had died here, in the dark, believing they had at least bought time for others. It was all too much. Beglis turned away and stepped back outside. The communicator buzzed again. It was a short-range transmission originating from the council.

"Beglis... Council... they're gone. They're all gone!"

The voice on the other end choked mid-sentence.

"They struck at the tower. The delegates... all dead. No command left... you're the next senior..."

Beglis stood in stunned silence. The Harmonics Council, the entire upper strata of Phaidon's leadership: the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Secretary, and Domestic Welfarer. All of them had been erased. The Dalek strategy had been absolute. There was a deep pause for thought and grief, when the voice suddenly spoke again.

"You're the only one left."

Beglis closed his eyes as the sound of a Dalek beam silenced the transmission. There was no time for grieving, not yet. The overbearing weight of inevitability was enough to feel without adding to the distress. Now, Beglis was the government.

The pod behind him still hummed. The shelters still needed unlocking. The people still needed saving. There were a thousand reasons to collapse, and not one that would have helped anyone if they had. Beglis turned back toward the tram and punched in another destination code. One thing was sure in his mind: this would not be how Phaidon ends.

The chamber doors ground open with a sound like dying machinery. Dust billowed out from the darkness within, thick with an air that hadn't been disturbed in generations. Beglis' host coughed once, waving a hand across their face as their boots crunched over shattered glass and old rubble. The vault had survived the first wave of Dalek bombardments, mostly by virtue of being forgotten by history.

Flicking on the dim beam from the host's bracer lamp, Beglis stepped cautiously through the archway and into the forgotten depths of old Phaidon. The walls were lined with archival-grade alloy, etched with the names of the Founding Nine: the original pacifists of the planet's peaceful era. Beyond that, beneath the floor plating, lay weapons no one had dared touch in generations.

Beglis had never seen the vault in person. The only reason he knew of such a place existing was thanks to the nature of their work on the Emergency Response Advisory Board. Once, Beglis had drafted a protocol for accessing these old chambers, back when such contingencies were purely theoretical. That had been a different time, a different life. Now Beglis input the final code, an override meant for the highest levels of command. With the Harmonics Council dead, he was the last living official with valid credentials.

The floor groaned and retracted with agonising slowness. Cold vapour hissed out from within the revealed hatch as the primary weapons repository rose up from its underground cradle. The rack spun open like a blossoming flower, revealing polished rifles, plasma-forged blades, ionic war-discs. All these tools of devastation were older than Beglis himself. Staring for a long moment, he reached out and picked up a rifle, checking the charge. The weapons were still live.

Across the vault, a soft shuffling of boots echoed. Beglis turned sharply, raising the rifle, but made sure not to fire. A young Warpsmith host stood in the doorway. The face was thin and bruised, maybe no more than a hundred years old, with pale eyes and a torn civic robe. Behind them stood six more, Warpsmiths who had followed a distress beacon Beglis had sent fifteen minutes earlier.

"Is it true?" the first asked. "The Council is gone?"

Beglis nodded slowly. "All of them. You're looking at your new acting government."

The group shifted uncertainly. One of them, a Warpsmith whose host was a woman wearing the tattered remains of a research uniform, stepped forward.

"You called us for shelter."

"I did," Beglis said, "but now I'm calling you for something else."

There was a pause as they all looked upon the room of weapons.

"I need soldiers," Beglis admitted.

There was a pause as, one by one, each Warpsmith looked amongst each other before stepping forward with a determined zeal. They didn't ask for plans. They didn't ask what difference seven people could make against an invading armada. They didn't ask if they would survive. All they asked was which weapons they should carry.

Two hours later, Beglis stood on a ruined balcony overlooking the western supply hub. The air was thick with smoke, but the long-range optics in his scope showed what they all needed to see: Daleks on patrol, in threes and fours, following strict grid patterns across the open yards. They had not yet detected the small squad of Warpsmith hosts moving along the broken rail tracks beneath the platform.

Beglis lowered the scope and turned to the newly formed squadron. Each host's expression was grim yet resolute. 

"We move on my mark," Beglis said. "Two teams. I'll take the decoy position with Valt and Renari. The rest of you, proceed to the shelter under the supply hub and evacuate as many people as possible. Once we've drawn fire, wait no more than ten seconds. No heroics."

Valt grinned darkly. "Only recklessness, sir."

Beglis almost smiled. He clicked the power core of his rifle into place and took a breath.

"Mark."

The Warpsmiths moved as one. Beglis and the two others split from the main squad and ascended the broken life shaft by handholds and cables. When they reached the midway platform, they crawled onto the metal grating, just twenty metres from the main square, with the Daleks positioned within it.

Beglis held up three fingers.

Then two.

One.

Beglis stepped out and fired the first shot. The bolt slammed into the rear casing of the leading Dalek. It wasn't enough to kill, but enough to make them stagger. It screeched in rage and spun towards them.

"HOSTILE DETECTED! EXTERMINATE!"

Beglis fired again. It was a clean shot through the Dalek eyestalk. The casing exploded. The other two Daleks opened fire, but Valt already had the shield drone active, buying precious seconds.

"Now!" Beglis shouted into the comms.

Below, the second team surged into the shelter entrance, guiding panicked Warpsmiths out into service corridors. No one screamed. Everyone moved fast and silently. Beglis recharged the rifle, ducked, and returned fire. A blast skimmed the host's shoulder, burning cleanly through the edge of their clothes but otherwise leaving them unharmed.

Behind them, Renari fell with a grunt. Hit in the chest, the host was dead instantly. The incorporeal Warpsmith shimmered for only a moment before fleeing to the safety of the ruins. There was no time to mourn.

The second Dalek exploded under Valt's sustained barrage. The third screeched a warning and retreated, but not before transmitting its location. Beglis' bracer blinked red. More Daleks were coming. None of them waited. They regrouped and vanished into the ruins, and disappeared before the second wave arrived.

Later, Beglis sat alone in a hidden alcove beneath a shattered tram station. The squad had rendezvoused with survivors from shelter eight, now numbering fifty Warpsmiths. The group had taken up refuge in the dark, with emergency lights off and all energy signatures masked. Beglis stared down at their hands, still holding the rifle, and wondered what it was that he had transformed into in just a few devastating hours.

A fighter. A general. A government. All in one. The people of Phaidon had no one else to turn to.

Beglis reached for their communicator, patched into a secure Warpsmith frequency, and broadcast a message out to any still-functioning communications.

"This is Beglis of Phaidon. I speak to any who still resist, who still hide, who still live. We have arms. We have shelter. We have the will to fight. If you can hear me... you are not alone."

The descent into the depths of the low-holds began in total silence. A single rusted stairwell spiralled from the edge of an observation platform, descending through ancient steelwork ribs and fog-smeared ducting into levels below. There were no more floodlights down there, just weak pulses of amber glowing from failing wall nodes, flickering like dying stars. Every noise felt louder in the low-holds. Every breath was an alarm.

Kevran led the way, clutching a borrowed tool from Khandi's utility belt, its soft, yellow tip casting enough light for his immediate footing but not enough to risk detection. Khandi and Olysiir followed close behind. Socket brought up the rear, its eyes dimmed to minimal luminescence. None of them spoke, still.

Somewhere above them, on the platform proper, a Dalek screeched in fury. The sound of their war cry warped through the metal and echoed harshly. Khandi's shoulders tensed. Olysiir froze, but Kevran raised one hand in warning: Don't move. Don't panic. They waited in total stillness for the sound to fade away, and once it had disappeared, they continued.

The air grew heavier as they moved deeper through the corridors of the low-holds. Moisture was coated along the edges of the ducts. Distant hums from fusion conduits whispered beneath their feet. The low-holds were old, pre-dating the Warpsmith's second renaissance, and few of the upper castes had ever walked there. These were places of service, of function, where the machinery of the archipelago churned away unnoticed. It was also where another set of auxiliary hangars was, and where Kevran prayed that the remaining timeships waited.

The stairwell ended at a long, narrow corridor: metal-framed and partially collapsed, its walls had succumbed to time and neglect. Socket scanned ahead with a pulse of soundless sonar, then silently indicated a safe path to the upcoming left. They moved as a group. The scared Warpsmiths from earlier followed behind them by a few paces. They were all terrified, but they looked to Kevran and Khandi for guidance on their safety.

For the next thirty minutes, they darted from alcove to broken console bay, weaving a path through storage zones and cargo pipelines, avoiding any open spaces where Dalek optics might scan. Once, a Dalek patrol passed just above them. Their shadows stretched through a grid-slit in the ceiling. Every single Warpsmith froze, even Olysiir, whose shimmering outline threatened to scatter into view from the stress. The Daleks passed. Only when the shadows faded again did Kevran let himself breathe.

Eventually, they reached the hatch to the secondary loading deck, the last known location of the surviving Warpsmith timeships. Kevran leaned against the bulkhead and held up the shining tool to the control panel. It didn't respond. He mouthed the failure to Khandi, and quickly she retrieved her own sonic probe. She moved forward, placing the end of the probe against the panel's input recess. The sonic device made a noise that whistled and rippled through the air. There was a short burst of static and some sparks, then a heavy click, and the hatch creaked open.

"This thing isn't working," Kevran wiggled the tool in his hand.

Khandi shook her head, smiling faintly. "Because that, Kevran, is a torch."

"Right," Kevran lowered the device slowly.

Inside, the floodlights flickered on, triggered by movement. What they saw inside made them pause. There were even more Warpsmiths, at least three dozen, some incorporeal and swirling in containment fields, others inhabiting battered bodies of various origins. Most turned at the noise. Kevran instinctively raised both hands, palms forward.

"We're not here to harm you," he whispered. "We're here to get you out."

One of the Warpsmiths, a tall form cloaked in blue light, stepped forward. "There are still some ships docked. We've been trapped down here for hours. The upper access has been sealed, and we feared being trapped and starved."

Khandi looked past them. Fifteen ships sat in the hangars. They were sleek, silver, and clearly of Warpsmith design. Each one hummed quietly. They were all fully fuelled.

"You should all start boarding," she said. "Now."

No one argued with her. Olysiir helped guide several of the incorporeals into their stasis pods while Kevran and Socket ran ship diagnostics. Khandi knelt beside a wounded Warpsmith in a borrowed body, checking their pulse with a practised calm. There was urgency, of course, but also a sense of renewed hope. It was working. The Warpsmiths began to pile into the ships, two at a time, as Olysiir and Khandi observed them.

Suddenly, the hangar doors blew inwards. The sound shattered everything. Steel bent, alarms blared, and fire burst from the western wall as three Daleks quickly charged into the bay. Their weapon arms were already charged. The Warpsmiths screamed. Kevran spun on instinct, grabbing Khandi and pulling her behind a pillar as a beam scorched the floor where she'd been standing.

"Warning: We have been found," Socket alerted loudly, wheeling behind the same cover.

A blast zipped past Olysiir and tore through a row of stasis pods, the glass splintering into the surrounding area. A Dalek spotted the ships and screeched in fury before opening fire. Kevran barely had time to react before one of the ships was hit, erupting in a cascade of burning energy. The shockwave flung Warpsmiths backwards. Another Dalek fired into the crowd, cutting through a dozen forms in a single sweep.

Khandi reached into her utility belt and activated a sidearm. It was a sonic disruptor, non-lethal, but she fired it regardless and watched as it overloaded the eyestalk of one of the Daleks. It shrieked and turned towards her, but Kevran leapt out, reaching into her kit, and fired another device at the thing first. An eruption of electrical energy sparked forward, striking the Dalek and shattering the casing with a direct hit. Kevran looked at the device with confusion.

"What the hell is this?"

"A voltaic spanner."

Kevran turned to her. "I'm sorry, you did what to a spanner?"

Socket whistled as it jabbed the back of Kevran's knee with a quick shock, dropping him to the ground before a Dalek beam struck where his face had been a second earlier. Khandi ducked down again, too. Kevran pocketed the spanner.

The Daleks were dangerous when together; dealing with one would just give another time to open fire, and he didn't want to go out like that. He didn't want to die. He watched in horror as a second ship was destroyed before it could launch, then the third, and the fourth. One by one, the ships began to erupt in flame.

"Retreat!" Kevran shouted. "Everyone into cover! Socket, get to the far ship. Override the-"

Before Socket could move, one of the other Daleks charged its weapon. It never fired. Gunfire tore through the upper gantry above the hangar. Crimson bolts rained down with precision. A single shot hit the Dalek's casing from behind, and another struck the weapon arm, rupturing the trigger. It exploded in a storm of molten metal.

Kevran looked up. There stood Beglis. The civil servant wasn't alone, either, as behind him stood two dozen Warpsmiths in battle attire, armed with functioning weapons. A final shot echoed through the bay, and before long, there was a well-earned silence.

"Is anyone hurt?" Beglis called down.

Kevran looked around. A few were wounded, and some had died. Most were, thankfully, still moving.

"We're alright," he called back, "thanks to you. Good timing, Beglis."

Beglis nodded grimly. "We need to hold this place."

Khandi shook her head. "The Daleks are aware of us, here. If they come back, we risk losing the last of the timeships. We need to move somewhere else first. Regroup and catch our breath."

"Very well," Beglis agreed, "but know that we are done running. Phaidon is not lost, yet."

Just like that, the first sparks of hope lit up from within the ashes of devastation. The massacre had ended; the war had begun.

Chapter Text

The passage of time on Phaidon no longer followed the rhythms of the binary suns. Instead, it pulsed to the beat of survival: the measured hum of stealth fields, the sudden blazes from detonations, the cold whine of Dalek weapon beams. Too much time had passed since the invasion had begun. So much calamity had arrived since the derelict ship unveiled itself as a Trojan horror and rained metal death upon a peace-loving world. Yet, in the shadow of that horror, the Warpsmiths had adapted.

Beglis had not planned to lead a militia. A civil servant at heart, his days had once been filled with logistics and schedule management, orbital dock quotas, and cultural permits. Now necessity forged new callings. He became a commander, a strategist, and an inspiration for the other Warpsmiths. From the floating ruins of the Thirteenth Archipelago, they built a resistance of survivors: host-merged warriors, former engineers, Warpsmiths in flesh and in light.

Khandi was rarely far from his side. Though not born of Phaidon's soil, she had become essential to its defence. She had managed to reverse-engineer captured Dalek technology, reprogrammed sonic disruptors, and designed new camouflage pulses that could shield shelters and trap corridors. Her Gallifreyan mind worked like a forge, her hands constantly busy, and her coat sleeves forever scorched and smudged. She did not seek praise, and yet received it tenfold.

Socket, silent and tireless, roamed between battalions and bunkers doing all the work of a wartime intelligence officer. It carried blueprints, relayed warnings, and patched into Warpsmith systems with perfect precision. At first, many mistook the robot for a mere mindless automaton, but within weeks, the resistance had come to regard Socket as a commander in its own right. There was something comforting in its presence. There was a sense of certainty from Socket, a sense of loyalty not found anywhere else in the universe.

Kevran remained hidden behind the lines, away from any fighting. He was not idle, however. Within each hideout, he created quiet sanctums of logic and metal, constantly tinkering with damaged equipment, mapping excavation routes, drawing up hypotheses for shield harmonics and stealth-field convergences. His hands often bled from burnt circuits. He did not fight, but he ensured the others could fight better. Socket kept him company between missions, always returning to him with a dry wit and subtle updates on Khandi's condition, as though to soothe a worry neither of them would confess to.

Victory and loss came in equal measure. A Dalek supply vessel was downed over the Korrin Plateau - a Warpsmith saboteur had merged with a Sargen Beetle and had been the successful operative to plant charges beneath the ship's hull. Beglis had led the celebration in whispers, deep underground where Dalek sensors could not detect. Three days later, the hollowed-out Temple of Twelve Stars was discovered. Eight hundred refugees were vaporised in their sleep.

The resistance learned to adapt again. New shelters were built deeper, cloaking fields rewired to oscillate randomly. Olysiir often volunteered to scout. She had mastered the art of being almost entirely unseeable as an incorporeal. While her fears remained, the guilt from not helping more grew sharper than any blade. She helped without ever touching, always watching, always returning. When she drifted into the hideout, it was Kevran that she chose to visit. Quiet evenings were spent discussing probabilities, hypotheticals, and the nature of fear and courage.

The Daleks had expanded their grip over the planet. Tall towers of black and iron rose from the floating platforms, their function unclear, their purpose ominous. Energy pulses surged into the sky. Beams lashed down into the oceans. Some said they were terraforming, others whispered of temporal anchoring. None knew for sure, and none had time to find out.

It felt like every few weeks, the hideout had to move again. First, it was from the lower Thirteenth Archipelago into the fissure-burrowed cliffs of Anorien's Reach. From there, they had migrated again to the deep mag-caves below a crashed orbital port. Then, again, they moved to a long-forgotten maintenance grid, hidden beneath the rusted skeleton of a solar skimmer yard. Each location offered them safety, but ultimately led to their death. Each one was left behind with scorch marks and memories.

Kevran had stopped counting relocations after the third. He instead counted losses, sectors abandoned, projects half-completed, and Warpsmiths who didn't return from missions. Each morning, he awoke to a vast wall of blueprints which was updated meticulously with new theories and escape trajectories, and a list titled 'remaining options.' That list grew shorter with every passing month.

Yet, amid the ruin, the Warpsmiths endured. Under Beglis' leadership, they had struck back. Mobile ambush units used atmospheric distortions to scramble Dalek sensors. Cloaked canisters filled with resonance mines drifted silently through occupied corridors. Resistance fighters emerged from phase-shifted doorways, striking hard and vanishing just as quickly. Always, though, there were reminders of defeat.

An entire communication outpost was wiped out by Dalek plasma rain. Olysiir returned once with news of a weapons cache that had been discovered and destroyed. Khandi remained silent for a day and a half, her communicator having been damaged during a firefight against the enemy. Eventually, Socket had returned with her, limping, her clothes half-burnt, and her eyes colder than before.

Through it all, Kevran never stopped working. When the Warpsmith engineers needed help reprogramming cloaking harmonics, it was Kevran who solved the recursive interface. When Socket detected faint Dalek signal bursts, it was Kevran who began designing a frequency-matching intercept device. It was a chance - however slim - to hear what the enemy was saying. He built it alone, never mentioning it, never asking for permission. It was a small act and a personal mission for himself.

By the eighth month, silence had become a language. The group no longer celebrated victories with cheers, but instead shared a few looks. Mourning became a nightly routine: names recited, even those lost months ago. Ratios grew tighter. Medical supplies dwindled. Even Socket's usually upbeat whirring had become quieter and more servered. Kevran stood at the hideout's narrow window, peering through a long-perished panel of stained photoglass. Rain slicked the outer hull. Somewhere far above, Phaidon's suns still shone, blocked now by the endless clouds of war and ash.

He looked over his notes, his blueprints, and his increasingly cluttered desk. Behind him, Socket chirped softly as it returned from wishing Khandi well on another excursion into the battlefield beyond. The little bot paused and tilted its head, as though it could feel a new weight pressing down on the air. Kevran exhaled deeply. Eight months, and still no end in sight.

The hideout was buried beneath the broken husk of a once-glorious observatory, its dome now collapsed inwards like a skull fractured in combat. Inside, faint lights blinked quietly from one terminal, casting long shadows along the cracked stone walls. The air always smelled faintly of charcoal and melted metal, like a reminder of the battle that had raged outside the walls only a few days previously.

Kevran sat with his back hunched over a chaotic workbench of scattered tools, crystalline nodes, and tangled wires that pulsed weakly with static energy. Socket hovered nearby, projecting soft blue light across schematics layered in a dozen transparent panes in the air.

"You've cross-wired the dampener relay again," Socket whistled, voice low out of caution. "You're trying to make a cloaking system, not a kettle."

Kevran didn't look up. "I know what I'm doing."

"History suggests otherwise."

He muttered something unkind under his breath, but not with malicious intent. It was spoken with the same frustrated affection one might reserve for a friend who knew how to press exactly the right buttons.

The cloaking system was finicky work. There were only two surviving timeships, and every adjustment to the cloaks meant rebalancing the intricate harmony between the fuel matrix and the temporal slipstream projectors. He couldn't afford to make a mistake, but the disconnected nature of the tools wasn't aiding him. Gallifreyan technology was designed to integrate seamlessly with organic systems. Phaidon's engineering was crystalline and geometric; elegant, but incompatible. It was like trying to retrofit a harp to work as a shield generator.

Kevran leaned over Socket's body as the droid rerouted an incoming Dalek signal through a crude filter attached to a different device on the desk. A flicker - too fast to catch - pulsed in the stream, like a shadow on paper. Socket's optics brightened for a fraction of a second before returning to their usual steady glow.

"Something wrong?" Kevran asked.

"Negative," Socket said quickly, "just lag."

"Kevranko?" Olysiir's voice drifted gently from the corridor, interrupting the Time Lord's thought.

He turned to see the Warpsmith, still an incorporeal form, phasing gently like shimmerlight. It was much like watching a ripple of heat over stone, except in the shape of a humanoid. She had taken to wearing a veil of patterned energy that mimicked clothing. It was ornamental and respectful, trying to appear more familiar to him.

"You're not bothering me," Kevran said, preempting the usual awkward apology.

"I just... I needed somewhere quiet," Olysiir floated further into the room, her glow a little dimmer than usual. "It's getting louder out there. Not just the guns, but the voices."

Kevran nodded. "More survivors?"

"More dead."

That gave him pause. He didn't ask what that meant. He'd seen enough over the course of this siege to know the Warpsmiths were beginning to carry the trauma in ways even they hadn't anticipated. War, to beings of time, was like acid upstream in a river. It burned through their chronology. Memories collapsed on themselves. Refugees wept for people who had not yet died. Children watched their parents die and then be born. Time was fraying, not just physically, but emotionally as well.

Kevran returned to his project, letting the silence settle back in like a cloud of ash.

"You never leave the hideout," Olysiir said after a time.

Kevran made a noncommittal grunt. "I'm not built for fieldwork."

"That's not true," she replied gently. "Your people trained you, no?"

Kevran shot a glance over his shoulder. "I was trained to be a librarian, not a soldier."

"That's still more than I was ever trained to be."

He turned then. Olysiir watched him from the far wall. "You've still not decided to go out and join the fight yourself?"

Her glow flickered slightly. "No."

"Still afraid to merge?"

"Still afraid I'll lose myself," she paused, then smiled. "Khandikin has been very active these last few months. She seems unafraid of danger or the risk of splitting."

"Yeah. She's brave."

Olysiir's mind briefly flickered back to their previous conversation. "Are you afraid she will lose herself?"

"Maybe," he answered honestly. "Time Lord regeneration... it's not just a face or a body. It's the chemistry, the wiring. Your instincts shift. Your attachments break. Priorities change. You remember who you were... but you're not them anymore. Not entirely, anyway."

"You seem to know much of the effects," Olysiir spoke softly, "especially for one who claims never to have experienced such things."

"Yeah, well, I like to ask questions," Kevran half-smirked, "and there were few people in my life who would answer."

They shared a silence again. It was a bond, unspoken but deeply acknowledged.

"You ever think about it? Have you felt the urge to share since the war started?" Kevran asked.

"I would like to say I have, that I have become braver since the Dalek invasion began, but I fear I am too cowardly to merge and fight," her voice lowered as she spoke. "I still cling to the anxiety that I might forget how I sounded before joining someone else's song. I like being Olysiir."

Kevran gave her a genuine smile. "I like you being Olysiir, too."

There was a gentle flicker as Olysiir drifted closer, inspecting the tangled mess of wires on the table. "What is this?"

"A cloaking array," Kevran said, "for the timeships. If I can just get the resonance balance tuned, we can sneak out two ships of refugees without the Daleks noticing. Then, land somewhere safe, and come back for the next load."

"That's a huge deal."

He shrugged. "I've been playing around with some ideas. It's nothing, really. Not until it works."

Olysiir leaned forward, her gaze fixed on another device. "And this part?"

"That's... something else," Kevran admitted. "Just a little side project."

Olysiir's colour shifted at the sound of that. It seemed intriguing, and quite exciting, actually. Noticing the change, Kevran reached over and picked up a small spherical node, its interior flickering with muted pulses of red.

"I've been trying to tap into Dalek command signals. Most of their transmissions are locked behind quantum encryption, but... I figured if I could isolate a pattern, maybe I could listen in."

"Have you heard anything yet?"

Kevran shook his head. "Not yet, but it flickered last week. Briefly. Just static and noise. Could've been nothing, in honesty."

Olysiir stared at the device, then smiled faintly. "You're very clever."

Kevran looked away. "That's not really true. You should've seen the grades my classmates got at school. Much better than mine, I'll tell you."

"It is true. And it is okay to be afraid, you know."

"I'm not afraid."

Olysiir said nothing.

Kevran adjusted a tool, then quietly continued. "I'm just a very cautious person. You've only got one life, Olysiir. I... I can cheat death, be reborn. But you? You're pure time energy and much more temporary. Plus, maybe I'm not as clever as you think, because if I were, I'd have found a way to get us all out of this mess long ago."

Olysiir hovered close; her pulse was soft and warm. "Kevranko... you being here, trying, that is what matters. You give us hope. That is more than most Time Lords ever gave to our civilisation."

They shared another quiet moment, this one much heavier with emotion. Kevran turned his head away from the Warpsmith for fear she'd see the single tear that had escaped from his eye. He closed his eyes and took in a slow, deep breath.

Olysiir's glow dimmed a little, pensive. "Can I ask you something personal?"

Kevran raised an eyebrow, wary. "You can try."

"You say a name in your sleep sometimes. Forgive me, but I've heard you mutter it many times when you've succumbed to exhaustion at your desk," Olysiir's colour briefly flashed brighter. "I believe the name is Siri. Does that sound right?"

Kevran froze for a moment, then looked away. He began to busy himself with a piece of wire he didn't need to adjust. "Yeah? I never realised."

"Are they someone important to you?"

Kevran didn't answer right away. His hand slowed, then stilled. The flickering lights of the workbench played across his face, painting his expression in quiet melancholy.

"She was my best friend," he said finally. "Still is, I hope. Back home. Gallifrey."

Olysiir remained quiet and patient.

"I met her when we were both barely starting out at the Academy," Kevran continued, despite himself, his voice softening. "She was brilliant. At the top of our class. She was born for politics, born for power, and to do something good with it. And me? Well, I was the complete opposite, I suppose. Barely scraped by. Only passed after Siri managed to convince a professor to give me some extra marks here and there. I was the sort of person they all expected to vanish into the lower halls, become forgotten, become a mister nobody."

"But she noticed you," Olysiir's voice was quiet and intimate.

A faint smile ghosted over Kevran's lips. "Yeah. She did. I don't know why. I wasn't clever or useful, or anything. Everyone knew she wasn't using me for my lecture notes or revision techniques. I was just myself, but she seemed to enjoy my company. She said I had a way of seeing things that was new to her. I liked to ask questions about things she had never considered, said I helped her to stay grounded."

"Was she dear to you?"

"I don't know," he said after a guilty pause. "I cared deeply for her, but I never said it. I danced around things for decades. Always almost something, but never quite."

"And now?"

Kevran laughed, small and broken. "Now I don't even know what she is doing. I left. I ran away from home because I was being chased for asking questions that people more powerful than me didn't want answered. And... well, we fought over it. She was only trying to protect me, I see that now, but in the moment, I was so blinded by my curiosity that I didn't listen to her."

"The more you speak of it," Olysiir shivered, "the more I dislike your Gallifrey."

"Yeah," Kevran nodded. "I know Gallifrey, though. Things will have changed in the time since I left, I just don't know how yet. No doubt that Siri will be doing something impressive and amazing. Gallifrey has always been full of bullies, but Siri was never one to play nice with monsters."

Olysiir drifted a little closer, her shimmer softening like a hand on the shoulder.

"I wish that we hadn't fought," Kevran said. "I wish I had listened to her and been more honest with her, instead of pretending that we had forever."

Silence settled again, but this time it was warmer.

"She must be very extraordinary," Olysiir whispered.

"She is," Kevran replied, "and I miss her more than I have ever admitted."

The descent into the access tunnels was steep with condensed vapour and the heavy scent of oxidised fuel. Khandi pressed her hand against the wall for balance, breath shallow behind her respirator. Renari led the way, phosphorescent readings on their scanner blinking softly as they approached Dalek patrol paths above.

The four of them - Khandi, Beglis, Renari, Valt - moved in near silence. Any sound above a whisper could echo into the grating and betray their position. Khandi carried the explosives in her bag, each charge calibrated and modified by her own hand, and improvised by elegance. They were crude by Gallifreyan standards, but more than capable of reducing a facility of this size to rubble.

Renari signed with quick gestures, glancing over their shoulder: tunnel splits ahead. Khandi nodded. She took the right fork, Beglis behind her. Dalek shadows passed overhead, their harsh mechanical voices echoing through the vents.

"RECALIBRATE PATTERNS. NO ORGANIC LIFE DETECTED."

They reached the foundation cradle of the Dalek stronghold, a vast, ribbed lattice of dull grey duranium and heat-shielding, bolted into the bones of the floating platform. Valt lowered themself onto the access girder and unrolled a pack of tools. Khandi knelt beside them and handed over the first of the explosives.

Beglis crouched, eyes scanning the thick shadows. "You're sure this will be enough to collapse the whole structure?"

Khandi answered without looking up. "Placed correctly, yes. It'll crack their reactor core and bring the whole compound down on their heads."

"You're terrifyingly competent," Beglis murmured, only half-joking.

She gave him a tight smile. "It's a matter of duty."

One by one, the charges were fitted into place. Five charges, spaced precisely, each affixed to the load-bearing joints. Khandi's fingers moved with practised surety, even as sweat beaded at her temple. The oppressive heat of the Dalek reactor above them made the tunnel feel like a furnace. Renari signed: Thirty seconds until the patrol loop resumes.

They turned and began the retreat, swift but silent. As they reached the tunnel's midpoint, a clanging echo stopped them cold in their tracks. The whine of a Dalek float-drive. A beam of yellow light flared across the corridor.

"INTRUDERS DETECTED!"

Renari cursed. Valt swung their rifle around, but Khandi shoved it down.

"No!" she hissed. "They'll hear the shot."

Multiple shadows slid into view. Three Daleks, all gliding towards them from the fork they had passed before. Khandi's hearts began to pound.

"We're boxed in," Beglis said, voice tight. "The other end will be crawling soon."

"We need another route," Renari muttered, scanning frantically, "or a distraction."

The Daleks turned their eyestalks directly towards them, and one even began to approach.

Khandi's mind raced. "The vent."

She pointed upward to a narrow grating half a metre above them. It was an old thermal exhaust, clogged with debris, barely wide enough to crawl through, but it wasn't being watched yet. Valt moved fast, hoisting themself up, followed quickly by Renari. Khandi handed the stachel to Beglis, then grabbed his wrist.

"You go," she said.

"What about you?" he asked, eyes narrowing.

"I'll cause a distraction."

"No. Absolutely not."

"There's no time to argue. If we're all caught, the charges don't matter. You need to get back and tell Kevran to get that damn cloaking device sorted."

"Khandikin, I-"

"It's not a suicide mission," she smiled faintly, "just a very loud detour."

He didn't move.

She took his hand. "Beglis, please."

Behind them, the Daleks screeched. "INTRUDERS WILL BE DESTROYED!"

Renari leaned back down. "We have to go!"

Beglis held her gaze for one heartbeat longer, then climbed. Khandi waited until she saw his boots disappear into the shaft before turning around. She sprinted down the tunnel. Dalek fire rained around her, sparks fluttering and metal shrieking. She ducked behind a corner, grabbed a shock-pulse grenade from her belt, and lobbed it towards the oncoming patrol. The explosion lit the corridor in ultraviolet flashes. One Dalek cried out as it collapsed, but the others kept moving forward.

"TIME LADY IDENTIFIED!"

Khandi froze.

"ORDERS RECEIVED. BIOLOGICAL PRIORITY TARGET. SHE WILL BE TAKEN ALIVE."

Her eyes widened as the Daleks closed in. They weren't trying to kill her? This was something new and unexpected. It scared her more than the prospect of death. The Daleks knew what she was, and they wanted her alive because of it.

She didn't hesitate. Her hand shot to the plasma arc holstered at her thigh. In one fluid motion, she aimed and fired. The closest Dalek exploded in a shower of metal shards and burning liquid. The other reacted instantly. A searing blast cut through the air, striking the weapon clean from her grip. It clattered across the floor and vanished into the smoke.

Khandi staggered back, hands raised, teeth gritted. "Why?" she demanded. "What do you want with me?"

The Daleks said nothing. Their eyestalks pointed down, scanning her with clinical detachment. Then, all of them advanced together. They corralled her between them, driving her back with silent precision. The corridor trembled with their weight and whirring motion. She swallowed hard. They were taking her no matter what. She had no weapons, no backup plan. She had expected death, but not this.

"TARGET SECURED!"

There were no chains, and no commands, but she understood entirely what they wanted from her. Khandi was now a prisoner of war, and the Daleks had a purpose for her that she didn't want to live to see.

The workshop buzzed with quiet life. Cables twisted like veins along the curved walls, draped from copper brackets and woven through old conduit slots. Lights pulsed faintly from overheard panels, not Gallifreyan gold, but the soft teal hue of Phaidonian power. Beneath them, Kevran was still hunched over the workbench. He fiddled with a mismatched web of transceivers, frequency splitters, and fragile crystalline nodes he'd scrounged from the remains of half a dozen destroyed listening towers.

Docket was charging silently in the corner, low on power after spending some time running heavily intensive diagnostics on the latest cloaking prototype. That left only Olysiir, drifting like smoke in the background of the room. Their incorporeal form softly hummed, visible only as a shimmer in the air.

"I still do not understand how you managed to build this," Olysiir said, her voice warm and curious. "Do they train all librarians in signal warfare?"

"Nope," Kevran didn't look up from the wires. "I was trained to catalogue artefacts, write footnotes, and correct bibliographical inconsistencies in ancient prophecies. Very glamorous work, if you're in the right mood."

Olysiir let out a laugh, a musical rippling in the air. "And yet here you are, listening to the whispers of our executioners."

"Trying to, at least."

The device in front of them stuttered sharply. There was a single crackle of static that shivered through the air. Kevran sat up straight, the noise startling him. The monitor shimmered with blue glyphs, most of them gibberish, flickering like a haze of heat. The sound sharpened into a pattern: distorted pulses, a harsh monotone rhythm interspersed with mechanical screeches.

"Wait," Kevran whispered, "this is something new. Something's coming through."

Olysiir floated closer, instinctively lowering her voice. "Dalek?"

Kevran nodded once. "Encrypted. Complex structure, triple-layered quantum encoding. This isn't idle chatter, not with security like that. This must be something military-grade."

He adjusted the frequency band, hearts pounding. Suddenly, a word broke through the static.

"...OBLITERATE..."

Kevran's spine stiffened. Another burst of signal followed, this time fast, urgent. Most of it was still beyond translation, like heavily compressed bursts of data stitched into a pulse tone.

"...COORDINATED STRIKE... FINAL PHASE... ALL RESISTANCE NODES..."

The glyphs flickered red for a moment before the signal cut.

Kevran leaned back in his chair, eyes wide. "They're planning something."

Olysiir was still, unusually so. "Something decisive?"

"Yes," Kevran ran a hand through his hair. "I can't decode the source coordinates, but whatever they're planning... it's big. Massive. This isn't a sweep or patrol order. This is something much worse than that, I can feel it."

Olysiir pulsed faintly, like a breath. "That is what they have been building towards this whole time."

Kevran nodded. "They've been waiting."

There was a pause. Olysiir went to move forward, but Kevran's slamming fist on the desk stopped her.

"I was wondering why a massive army like that was laying siege instead of just sweeping through and killing everyone," Kevran snarled at the air. "They wanted Beglis to rally the people, to think that they had been delaying their own demise. They wanted the Warpsmiths to feel hope, so that they could wrench it from them in one final move."

He pushed away from the table, walking over to the far wall and pressing both palms against the surface. The copper plating felt warm beneath his hands. Olysiir went to speak but couldn't find the right words to comfort him.

"I should've done this sooner," he muttered.

Olysiir tilted. "Done what?"

"This," Kevran gestured to the workbench. "Listening in. Getting ahead. I've been wasting time with cloaking systems, access routes, and logistics. Things anyone could've worked on. But this? Hearing them, learning their plans... that's something only I could've done."

Olysiir hovered beside him, quiet.

Kevran looked up. "I let myself get distracted with useful things. I let myself believe I could be a cog in a machine, and that it was enough. But I should have been doing this all along. Anticipating them. Learning them."

"You've done more than enough," Olysiir said softly. "Without you, our timeships would be scrap. The power cells wouldn't still hold. The cloaks wouldn't function. You built up a hope we never would've had. Without that hope, it would've taken hours, not months, to be in this position."

"And yet I still feel like a failed librarian pretending to be useful," Kevran exhaled slowly, eyes falling to the floor. "Sometimes, I can still hear Zigawatali reprimanding me for not having my mind in the right place for a task. And now... well, maybe he is right about me."

"Don't say that!" Olysiir snapped, displaying genuine anger. "You are not a failure. I've watched you. I've seen how much of yourself you have poured into helping my people. You never once asked for praise. Never once demanded authority. More than half the soldiers out there now carry equipment they have no clue was crafted by your hands. You care."

"I don't know," he said, "maybe I'm just trying to make up for old mistakes."

Olysiir's shimmer pulsed, like a nod. Kevran walked back to the table, sat down slowly, and looked at the half-finished cloaking device. He ran a finger over the etched lines in one of the crystal nodes.

"Siri always said I was wasting my potential by working in the Archive," Kevran spoke softly, almost mournfully. "She thought I could apply myself to bigger things. I was always trying to make her laugh, trying to pull her away from the politics, just for a moment. She's a High Councillor, you know?"

Olysiir didn't respond. She watched and listened.

"Once, about a hundred years ago," he paused, eyes distant, "she pulled me out of a wrecked ship on a collapsing hangar platform because I'd gone digging through pre-Rassilon data packets. She yelled at me for two hours straight while applying medical gel and regenerative plaster to my wounds. Called me the stupidest man alive... then, she made me tea."

Olysiir continued to watch him, letting the weight of the words hang in the air.

"I think part of me hoped, maybe, when all this was over, I'd go back and find her again. Say the things I never said," he left another pause, "but maybe it's too late now."

The device crackled again. It was a faint static, barely as loud as a whisper. Kevran turned back towards it, eyes hardening.

"Whatever they're planning," he said quietly, "I'm not going to let them get away with it."

"No," Olysiir said, "we won't."

Chapter Text

The mountain air was thinner than it had been a week ago. Ash still clung in the high-altitude wind, left behind from the bombing of Outpost Nine. The scorched residue gave the ridgelines a bruised hue beneath Phaidon's twin suns, like a reminder that the war had left no place untouched anymore.

They came trudging through slowly: Beglis at the front, followed closely by Valt and Renari. None of them spoke as they crossed the final switchback path that led to the observatory's northern entry. Their bodies, marked by dust and grime, bore none of the triumphant energy of return. Every footstep was heavy. Every glance was downcast. Above them, the once-proud observatory domes loomed like hollowed-out crowns, relics of a quieter age.

Olysiir drifted forward from her perch at the overlook, phasing into partial solidarity as she caught sight of the group. The soft blue light in her incorporeal form fluttered nervously.

"You're back," she said, cautious relief in her tone.

Olysiir scanned them with what might have been described as joy, but the expression shifted when she noticed that the group was smaller than it had been when they first set out that morning. The trio paused, not even at the entry doors yet. No one answered the question behind Olysiir's stare.

From deeper inside the observatory, footsteps echoed with a renewed determination. Kevran emerged into the corridor, flanked by Socket, who clanked behind him on metallic wheels. Kevran had dust smudges on his hands and face, remnants of whichever half-disassembled rig he had been elbow-deep in. He looked up from the interception device clutched in his hand and saw Olysiir and the others who had returned from their mission. They looked worse for wear, but alive. He frowned.

"Where's Khandi?"

Silence was the reply. Renari bowed their head. Valted gritted their teeth, looking away shamefully. Beglis stepped forward, eyes fixed on Kevran's.

"She didn't make it back," Beglis said flatly. "She covered our retreat. She gave us time to escape an incoming Dalek patrol."

There was a pause that stretched just beyond the point of breaking. Kevran blinked, his brow furrowing in disbelief.

"You left her behind?"

"She insisted, Kevranko," Beglis replied, voice low and tired. "We didn't have a choice."

"There's always a choice!"

His voice bounced off the hollowed walls, making everyone flinch. Even Socket, used to Kevran's occasional outbursts in the comfort of the Archive, turned its head to face him and dimmed its optics.

Kevran took a step forward. "I let her go out there with you. She trusted me... I promised to keep her safe, and I let her walk into that hellhole."

"We don't know what happened," Beglis said, firm but quiet, "but there were no shots, not screams. We think-"

"You think!?" Kevran cut in bitterly. "That's what you're left with now, is it? Thinking?"

Beglis didn't react. He took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. Kevran's hands were clenched at his sides, and a pulse beat visibly in his temple. He turned to Valt and Renari.

"You were with her. You let her go? You just ran?"

Renari flinched. Valt started to respond before stopping themself.

Beglis stepped in front of the pair. "We didn't abandon her, Kevranko. She made the choice none of us could. And she did it to save us."

"She shouldn't have had to," Kevran's voice broke slightly on the last word.

The silence that followed was thick and brittle. Olysiir floated closer, reaching out to him gently.

"Kevranko..."

He shook his head, slamming the device into the nearby table. "No. Don't. Just... just don't."

He turned abruptly and stormed out of the chamber. Socket gave a glance to the others before skating after him. The door hissed shut behind it. Beglis exhaled again, long and slow.

Vlat leaned against the wall, wiping dust from their brow. "He's not wrong. We should've stopped her."

"No," Beglis said quietly, "you saw the patrol. You saw how fast they were closing in. If we'd hesitated-"

"She saved us," Renari whispered.

Olysiir remained still, flickering faintly with sorrow. None of them noticed the interception device on the table, crackling softly in the far corner. Then suddenly, the device cut through the room like a knife. A sharp burst of garbled signals buzzed from the speakers, loud enough to make Renari jump. Everyone turned to stare at it.

"... DESIGNATED PRISONER... TAKEN... ALIVE..."

The signal cut off.

Beglis stepped closer to the table. "Was that... a Dalek?"

Olysiir shimmered. "Kevranko's side project. An interception device, for us to listen to their communications. It is not fully functional yet."

"Never mind that," Valt piped up, "you hear what they said? A prisoner. Alive."

Olysiir's face went pale blue with realisation. "Khandikin."

Beglis turned to the door where Kevran had disappeared just minutes before. He wouldn't have heard it from the workshop; the sound was too soft, and the room was too far. The weight of the news sank into the room like a storm cloud.

Olysiir closed his eyes. "We must tell him."

No one moved.

"Leave him be for now," Renari said.

"Yeah," Valt agreed, "no doubt chasing him will only do someone harm. You've heard the rumours about how harsh that Time Lord fury can be."

"He is not like that!" Olysiir glistened in annoyance.

"Enough," Beglis commanded.

The room fell silent.

"For now, we leave him be," Beglis said. "Even alive, Khandikin is still gone. Our Time Lord will need time to process that. She is the only other of his kind here. For now, we proceed as normal. Olysiir, check in with the refugees and ensure their comfort is being met. Renari, long-range scouting with me. Valt, man the communications for now, I need to know how our other hideouts are getting on."

"Of course," Valt nodded.

Olysiir watched as Beglis and Renari left through another door towards the old tower. It was a useful place where destruction had opened a small break in the wall, just enough to spy on Dalek movements without being easily spotted.

Valt briefly looked to Olysiir before turning to find the communications relay. It was a jury-rigged station, but it got the job done. Khandi had built it after Kevran managed to design a small signal transmitter from the scraps and salvage he looted within the observatory when they first took refuge there. It was rather ingenious, so Olysiir thought.

The lone Warpsmith moved to the corner, picking up the interceptor, and began to make her way down the halls towards the workshop. When they reached the door, they did not enter. The sound of loud banging and aggressive yelling could be heard on the other side. Kevran wasn't yelling at anyone in particular. Olysiir knew it was directed at himself. She placed the interceptor down on the ground in front of the door and calmly floated back down the hallway.

In the far western fringe of the Thirteenth Archipelago, a lone outpost began to blink a sole transmission light. A message was being broadcast to the observatory, slowly, due to the condition of the local area. A storm had refused to relent in the region for days. It wasn't a meteorological storm, but a temporal one. Waves of distortion rolled across the land like invisible tsunamis. Even in the safety of their outpost, the walls groaned with flickerings of displaced matter. Still, the Daleks pushed forward.

Valt was crouched in the signal chamber when the transmitting data began to connect with the speakers, and static started rolling through the air like a tidal wave. Their host's fingers adjusted the receiver, and the familiar stuttering chirp of Warpsmith shorthand began to come through in packets of encrypted feeds. Valt connected each one and started listening, writing down the information that was being provided.

The outpost was requesting immediate connection directly to Beglis or another ranking commander in his absence. According to the transmission, observations had begun on a spreading affliction causing multiple Warpsmiths to become extremely ill. The outpost reported twelve confirmed cases thus far, with an unknown cause and an even more unknown treatment. The report suggested that, while the Warpsmiths were falling ill, the unmerged organics remained entirely unaffected.

Valt's brow furrowed at that. They increased the volume, pulling the receiver closer as the voice feed packets started to stammer and stutter - an unfortunate side-effect of Phaidon's temporal storms. According to the transmission, the signal sender was a Warpsmith named Nalrassi, who was merged with a trained field medic and was helping to treat the affected Warpsmiths.

The initial symptoms included time disorientation. The victims were claiming to feel dislocated from the flow of the present, with momentary stutters in their own timelines. Some Warpsmiths described it as the sensation of being a few seconds behind others in the room, unable to synchronise with ongoing events and conversations. As the description continued, Valt tapped in a passcode and began to record the audio of the packets, realising the depth of this particular report.

Nalrassi continued. "Phasing instability follows this symptom at a random time, but anywhere from minutes to hours. Light-warp sheens appear on the surface of the host body. In several cases, unbound Warpsmiths flickered mid-sentence, their patterns failed to hold cohesion, and this was heightened greatly under stress. Three victims involuntarily unmerged from their hosts due to the pain, resulting in host death due to cerebral backlash."

A hard swallow passed down Valt's throat. They glanced over to a sleeping Warpmsith and host pairing near the corner of the signal chamber. The pair breathed in perfect tandem. They were healthy.

Nalrassi's voice cracked on the recording. "More troubling are the advanced symptoms. Memory bleeds. Confusion about personal history and timeline. One spoke of events that never happened, battles that never took place. They insisted on being addressed by names from centuries past. We had a couple of the sick claim to be still living in a time of peace, their consciousness seemingly transported back to before the invasion began. And one-"

Static briefly overtook the feed. Valt smacked the communication station.

"... began haemorrhaging chronal energy through their host's skin. They lit up like a flare, pure time bleeding out of them in slow pulses. We had to isolate the whole chamber. They screamed like they were dying over multiple years at once."

Valt stood abruptly. The receiver fell with a clatter, but they'd already hit transmit. The file bounced up through the emergency channel and straight to Beglis' personal communicator. Valt couldn't believe it. There was a sickness now? One of the Dalek's designs, no doubt. This was something new, something unexperienced.

They didn't bother with proper protocol or tact. Sprinting down the inner hallway, they passed several other Warpsmiths mid-patrol. A young one paused to ask if they needed any help; however, Valt had barely noticed the offer. Their boots clanged up the spiral steps towards the reconnaissance tower.

Beglis stood at the edge of the observatory's highest platform. His figure, slightly hazy in the murk of ion clouds, looked like a sculpture of stone. Binocular lenses attached to his mask focused on the Eastern approach of the building.

"Report?" Beglis said without turning.

Valt handed them a device. "There's a message from Outpost Twenty-Seven. It's... bad."

Beglis activated their communicator and read through the transcript at incredible speed. The tower was silent, except for the hum of distant explosions and Dalek artillery, and the whisper of datafeeds as the Warpsmith commander's eyes drifted through each sentence with due care. When Beglis pulled his sight away from the transcript, his face was more translucent than usual.

"That isn't extermination," he trembled, "it's just pure sadism."

Valt leaned against the wall. "They're breaking down our people. It's only affecting us, not the organics. Only the merged organics suffer."

"That's the test," Beglis nodded grimly. "They want to see what happens when you pull the spirit from the shell, atom by atom. They're toying with us, destroying our morale until there is no more will to fight."

"Have we seen anything like this before?"

"No. Not as far as I can tell. That means this isn't something usual. This is a targeted deployment, a biological weapon specifically designed to target us. Either we stay merged and kill two lives, or we separate from our hosts and can no longer carry weapons."

Valt's voice shook. "So that's it? The war is lost?"

"Never," Beglis said, "this fight remains for as long as a single Dalek threatens the lives of our people. We will never surrender to them, no matter the cost."

"But the others? This fight is killing them without them even being soldiers. The people are dying without ever facing combat."

Beglis nodded, unsure how to respond.

"We need to face the truth," Valt sighed, tearing up slightly. "This isn't a fight we were ever going to win. We fought off the Daleks' first wave, so they sent more waves. We destroyed their ship; they sent a dozen more. We are delaying an inevitability. We were always going to lose this world to them."

Beglis gently rested a hand on Valt's shoulder. "It's okay. It's alright. I understand that you're tired. I understand that you are shaken and scared. I will not allow anything to happen to you. Do you understand? You have stood by me for eight long months, and I have yet to let a single host of yours fall in the line of fire. I will ensure that remains true, but only if you can maintain the strength to follow me."

Valt hesitated, swallowed, then nodded softly. There was another silence. Far below, someone fired a burst round. The sound was distant from them, almost far enough to be irrelevant. Beglis rested their forehead against Valt's. Both of them closed their eyes. For just a few moments, the war was out of sight, and the only thing in Valt's mind was Beglis' comfort and kindness in a world of trenches and devastation. On the horizon, another round of artillery rained on the landscape, but Beglis' grip ensured Valt didn't jump too harshly.

Beglis opened his eyes. "We need another mind to help us with this crisis. Where is Kevran?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him for a couple of hours, not since he decided to shout at us for coming back alive. Probably inside his little workshop."

"Come. We'll find him."

Together, they descended the tower. As they reached the main floor, they passed by Renari, who was just returning from a short break.

"Renari, back up the tower," Beglis ordered. "I need extra eyes on the perimeter. Keep an ear out for your communicator. I'll be forwarding you a report shortly."

They didn't hesitate. "Understood!"

Sprinting, both Valt and Belgis ran through the observatory corridors in search of Kevran's workshop door. When they finally found it, they stopped just outside, spying the little robot standing by the door, almost like it was waiting. As Beglis approached, the droid buzzed, suddenly powering back online when detecting proximity movement.

"Ah," it said in a dry voice, "prediction: you are here to discuss the missing archivist, correct?"

"Missing?" Beglis exclaimed.

Socket extended a scanning tool, humming briefly. "Kevran's life signature is... not within the walls. He seemed to have left an hour ago."

Valt's stomach dropped. "He's gone rogue."

Socket tilted slowly. "Not exactly. Chemical readings would indicate... heartbroken."

Valt turned to Beglis. "Do we send people after him?"

"Negative," Socket interjected. "I believe he is, as one might say, letting off steam. It may be beneficial to hold off until he is finished with his emotional expression."

Beglis' eyes burned. "No, Valt. Ignore the droid. Fetch Olysiir; she tends to have more luck speaking with him than we do. See if she can find him," he turned to Socket. "Please, accompany her. Help her find him and bring him back here at once."

Socket whislted. "I would not advise-"

"No," Beglis interrupted, "but I did not ask your advice. I am making my own decision, one that matters for the importance of my people's survival."

Valt ran down the hallway to find Olysiir. Beglis watched briefly before looking down at the droid.

"Assessment complete. Angering Kevran further may cause a great drift in the stability of our alliance," Socket chirped. "I would recommend a brief pause in the current plan. The probability of your objective succeeding reduces the longer that Kevran remains in this state."

"Angry or not," Beglis huffed, "my people are dying in new ways. A Time Lord's grief is going to have to wait."

The observatory's curved horizon fell behind him, dwarfed by the rising silver mist of the valley ahead. Kevran walked alone, accompanied only by the crunching of his boots against the charred soil of the lower slopes where Warpsmith hosts' blood had soaked deep and evaporated into residue that glistened in the light of destruction. The air was thinner than he remembered it, but the breeze was much harsher. He welcomed the gusts.

He kept his eyes forward, his hands tight around the casing of the signal interceptor. It hadn't spoken since the last time he managed to eavesdrop a message from the Dalek's crackled vocals. Now, it was just a dead weight that he couldn't seem to let go of. Each step echoed his thoughts. He should have gone with the others on that mission. It should have been him instead of her. This was all his fault.

He had promised Khandi safety when she agreed to leave Gallifrey with him. He told her that they could get through anything together after they survived the nightmare on Echo Drift Station. Yet, he knew that his actions did nothing but undermine his promises. While she had fought for strangers, for the Warpsmiths she had only just begun to understand, he had sat beneath iron rafters fiddling with schematics and half-broken mechanisms.

The slope grew steeper. Ahead, just past the crumbling defence barricade, Dalek territory began. The remains of old floating platforms had cracked here when the anti-gravitational engines failed, forming jagged, unstable bridges made of Phaidonian alloy. The occasional bolt of distant weapon firing hissed through the wind; a constant reminder of all the people braver than him who were risking their lives while he sat inside and hid himself away in the hopes of surviving to see another sunrise.

Kevran adjusted the strap of the voltaic spanner across his waist and paused just long enough to whisper under his breath.

"She trusted me."

He took the thought, pressing his thumb into the side of the interceptor. A red spark buzzed, flickered, and vanished. It was silent.

"Of course you are."

In a sudden motion, Kevran hurled the device down the slope, watching as it spun once, twice, and slammed into a broken girder. The casing cracked, but he no longer cared.

"You're as bloody useless as I am!"

Behind him came the soft crackling of wheels pressing over the same decimated soil. Socket was faster than he was, bounding forward with surprising agility for such a squat machine. Olysiir followed more cautiously, her form shifting slightly in the light; her blue-green shimmer was more subdued under the ash-grey sky.

"Kevran," Socket called out in a flat register. "Your current trajectory leads directly towards enemy territory. This is either a case of bravery or deeply flawed decision-making. Probability leans towards the latter."

Kevran didn't turn. "Go home, Sock."

"You are the one who needs to go home."

Olysiir moved beside him, pressing gently against his sleeve. "You shouldn't be out here alone."

"I'm not. I've got a thousand Daleks to keep me company," he muttered, then finally turned, his face lined with a tired sort of anger. "Besides, I have you two to drag me back now, haven't I?"

Olysiir's voice was soft. "Why didn't you wait?"

Kevran looked away, jaw clenched. "Because I don't want to hear it again. The apologetic stares. The condolences. I know what happened."

"You don't know everything," Olysiir said carefully.

"She was left behind!" Kevran snapped. "Whatever else happened, that is what I know. That is all I need to know."

Olysiir flinched slightly, her light dimming. Socket rolled a little closer and extended a small manipulator arm.

"We understand your emotional disarray. However, it is unwise to be at these coordinates. Placing yourself in suicidal proximity to Dalek patrol zones is unwise, even by your low standards of survival."

"I wasn't trying to die," Kevran said quietly.

A thick silence fell over them.

"I just needed... just needed to be out of there. Just for a moment. Just to feel the wind and hate myself in peace."

Olysiir tilted her head. "We don't blame you, Kevranko."

"Well, I do."

"You're not the one who pulled her away from safety," Olysiir said gently, "you are the one who tried to build a way out for everyone."

He looked down at his hands. His fingers twitched slightly from the adrenaline that still pulsed beneath his skin. He clenched his hands into a fist for no reason other than to hide the shaking from his own eyes. He couldn't bear to see it right now.

"It's not enough," he sighed.

"Then make it enough," Olysiir said, moving closer. "You still have that chance."

Kevran looked back at the observatory, barely visible through the smoke in the distance. Lights glowed faintly under the domed roof. The others were in there - Beglis, Valt, Renari - all doing what they could in the effort of protecting the planet from Skaro's empire. After everything they had done, it wasn't fair to ask them to do anything more without him to support them. This division wasn't going to save Phaidon, and his outburst did nothing but waste time while more innocents were killed.

He swallowed. "Alright."

Socket gave a pleased beep. "Good. I did not prepare a speech to read for your eulogy."

Olysiir smiled slightly as some warmth returned to her shimmer. Together, the trio turned and began walking back towards the ridge. The sound of their footsteps seemed more comforting now that they were all marching in unison. They had only just crested the hill when the wind shifted behind them.

"Huh. That is odd," Socket whistled.

Kevran paused. "Odd?"

Socket shook its body like a wet dog. "Minor subroutine anomaly. Most likely debris in my signal buffer from the last skirmish. I will clear it later."

Kevran grunted, about to respond, when his mind was distracted by a sudden, sharp sound. The broken, discarded interceptor device on the slope below crackled loudly with a sudden burst of energy. They all turned at once. Static from the device flared across the surface as it rippled with electrical pulses. Eventually, a voice broke through the noise like a light in an endless darkness.

"SUBJECT IS A TIME LADY. PREPARE BIOLOGICAL STABILISER."

Kevran froze. He blinked once before tilting his head and considering the message. He made sure he had heard it correctly and looked to Socket for confirmation before letting his body move. He finally leapt forward and let himself slide down the slope, grabbing the fractured device, which now pulsed with a faint green light. The audio came again, another Dalek voice, slightly clearer this time.

"PRISONER CLASSIFICATION: GALLIFREYAN SPECIES. INITIATE SEQUENCE ONE-NINE-SIX-THREE!"

"Khandi..." he breathed. "She's alive. They took her alive!" Kevran broke into a giggle of disbelief.

Socket moved quickly beside him. "This confirms prior events with Beglis. Khandi has not been killed."

Kevran stood, gripping the device hard in one hand. "They didn't just take her by chance. This is something deliberate. Did you hear it, too? Biological stabiliser... they're planning to do something to her."

Olysiir hovered forward, her voice suddenly trembling. "That sounds... medical."

"Or mechanical," Kevran offered, "or experimental. Either way-"

"She is still alive," Socket interrupted, sensing another of Kevran's thoughts falling into a spiral of possibilities. "That is key datum. She is still alive."

Kevran stared out towards the valley, past the destroyed platforms and smoking ruins. For a moment, none of them spoke. Kevran pondered the possibilities of what Daleks would want with a Time lord, and more importantly, what it would have to do with their biology. His mind raced with thoughts.

He had never encountered Daleks before Phaidon. He had never even read about them in books. The only mention of them he ever heard was in whispers he was never meant to hear when walking past doors he shouldn't have been near. The Daleks were a conundrum to him, a lethal riddle with fatal consequences if the wrong answer was given.

"Do you think this biological stabiliser might have something to do with the sickness?" Olysiir asked.

Socket whistled. "Probability: moderate. Mentioning something biological in short proximity to the outbreak of a Warpsmith plague may indicate a possible correlation. More data may be required for a final assessment."

"Let's go," Kevran said.

They followed quickly, relieved at his change of mind but deeply concerned about the Daleks' plans. The observatory loomed overhead once more, but now, the ache in Kevran's chest had changed. There was no longer grief for a fallen friend, not anymore. It had been replaced with something else. This was something colder and sharper than he had ever felt before. It was the ache of resolve. He would find Khandi, and he wasn't going to rest until he put an end to whatever the Daleks were planning to do with her.

There was then a sudden pause as Kevran halted mid-step. He turned to Olysiir and Socket, raising a single, quizzical brow.

"I'm sorry... did you say sickness?"

Beglis stood patiently and watched as Kevran finished listening to the recording of the field medic Nalrassi and slowly lowered the earpiece from his head. He clutched the small device in his hand and fidgeted with the interceptor in his other hand. The dim light of the observatory's central room pulsed against the curved walls like a fading heartbeat. He placed the cracked device at the edge of a table and scanned his eyes over his hastily written notes on what he had just heard.

Valt entered the room quietly as Kevran nodded his head slowly. He looked between Olysiir, Valt, and Beglis before looking back down at his notes. Valt quietly placed a pile of printed medical scans that they had managed to get after successfully making brief communication with Nalrassi in Outpost Twenty-Seven. Kevran picked up one of the scans and cross-referenced it with his own notes.

He didn't look up when he spoke. "How many outposts are reporting these symptoms now?"

"Six," Valt answered, "but possibly more, if you count the signal blackouts in the northern belt. It's the same pattern each time: loss of coherence, time-lag in memory recall, destabilisation of the host-body link."

Beglis crossed his arms. "And it's only afflicting Warpsmiths, not the unjoined organics. That's the part that makes no damn sense."

Kevran finally looked up. His face was drawn, but more focused now. "It does make sense… if you stop thinking of this like a weapon."

Olysiir tilted their head. "What else would it be?"

"A system," Kevran said slowly. "Something designed not to kill outright, but to erode. Rot you from the inside out. Not your body, per se, but your sense of being. A corruption of identity."

"You're saying they're targeting the Warpsmiths' time signatures?" Valt asked.

Kevran nodded. "I think that whatever's affecting them is temporal. Dalek tech that scrambles their inner sense of chronology. They lose sync. Lose cohesion. Eventually, the merge breaks down, or worse."

Beglis frowned. "We've heard about that. Hosts waking up mid-merger, confused. Other hosts scream as the Warpsmith bleeds through their body."

Kevran exhaled. "That's why I think they need Khandi."

The room stayed quiet as they all looked at him.

"She's Gallifreyan," Kevran continued, "and not just that, but she's a Time Lady. Her biology's tied to the Vortex, tuned into temporal harmonics. I suppose that's what happens when you're eight years old and forced to stare into the Untempered Schism. Happens to us all, eventually."

The Warpsmiths all looked at each other, uncertain what he was referring to.

"Anyway. She is the stabiliser. That's what the voice said. Biological stabiliser. If they've built some kind of time device," his voice hesitated slightly, "then, using her would make perfect sense. She'd let them weaponise temporal decay and control it. For what purpose? I don't know. But messing with time in such a way is bound to have collateral damage."

Valt ran a hand through their hair. "Sorry, are you suggesting that this sickness could just be a side effect of something else entirely?"

"Maybe," Kevran said, "or perhaps it is a test of some new biological weapon. Either way, they're close to something big, and Khandi's in the centre of it."

Beglis narrowed his eyes. "How do we stop it?"

Kevran looked down at the cracked casing of the interceptor before locking eyes with Beglis. "We find Khandi. We get her out. If I can gain access to the technology they're using, whether shipboard or planetary, perhaps I can even reverse-engineer it. Blackout the signal, slow the sickness, or even isolate the mechanism entirely."

Valt folded their arms. "You make it sound simple."

Kevran gave a small, hollow smile. "It's not. However, we already have one piece of their signal. That's more than we had yesterday."

Beglis placed a hand on his shoulder. "You really think we can pull her out of this?"

Kevran's eyes didn't waver. "I'm not letting her become fuel for a machine that ends a species."

Olysiir moved closer. "And the afflicted Warpsmiths?"

Kevran looked at them. "If we move fast enough, we can save them too."

No one else asked any questions after that. The resolve in the Time Lord's eyes was all the convincing that they needed to listen to him. Kevran took a breath. This was new for him. He was in a room on a planet under siege, and rather than hiding away or waiting to be told what to do, he was devising plans and issuing orders. It wasn't something he was comfortable with, but he knew that he needed to step up if there was any hope that Khandi was going to get out alive. He promised he would keep her safe. Now, he promised himself that he would face the Daleks.

"Beglis," he said.

The Warpsmith looked at him eagerly.

"Those timeships. The cloaking devices aren't perfect, but they'll do something. Fetch them from my workshop," Kevran paused, thinking of what else to say. "Take Valt and Renari. I need the three of you to collect as many of the refugees and soldiers as you can and get them on those ships. If you squeeze real tight, you can fit maybe one… two thousand per ship."

"There are only two ships," Beglis replied.

"I know, and I'm sorry, but it is the best we can do. You ship as many as you can to a nearby asteroid or orbital station, somewhere the Daleks aren't looking, and then fly back for the next lot," Kevran turned to look at Socket. "Hey, pal, I need you to do something crucial for me, okay?"

"I am prepared to add your next request to the label: particularly stupid," Socket chirped.

"Yeah, thanks," Kevran smiled as he tinkered with the interceptor. "I need you to head back into the centre of Miraxis. Our ship. It's still parked there. All this time, and she's just been sitting there, waiting. You leave right now, and as soon as you get there… count for, I don't know, eighteen minutes, and then begin transmitting your location with as strong a signal as you can give, okay?"

"Daleks would lock onto my signal in minutes."

"I'm aware, but you won't have to broadcast it for long," Kevran inserted a small device into the transmitter.

"Kevran, I am uncertain-"

"Please," Kevran looked at him, "trust me, Sock. Lives are depending on it."

Without another sound, Socket wheeled out of the room and began the long, dangerous journey to the centre of the city of Miraxis.

Kevran called out to it as he watched the little robot leave. "Please be safe!"

Olysiir watched as Kevran used the voltaic spanner to zap the small device into the interceptor gently. "What do you need from me, Kevranko?"

"Your help, and maybe a little bit of bravery."

"Of course."

Kevran nodded. "I need you to come with me. I will need an extra pair of eyes where I'm going, and right now, there is no one I trust more to keep up the stealth than you."

"Where are we going?" Olysiir asked.

"Oh, you know," Kevran hammered the interceptor with the spanner, "I thought it'd be nice to pay that Dalek ship a visit."

"What?!" Beglis exclaimed.

"I'm serious," Kevran looked to Olysiir, his eyes softening. "Do you trust me to keep you safe?"

Olysiir looked to Beglis before turning to Kevran again. "With everything."

Kevran smiled, a mixture of relief and pain. He'd heard that response before. He said nothing else, but he managed to give a nod of thanks.

"Excuse me, Kevranko," Valt said. "Just how exactly do you plan on even getting to that Dalek ship?"

"Oh, right. Well, you see, that is pretty simple really," Kevran gestured for Olysiir to move closer to him. "It's like I told you already. We have their signal. Signals have an origin point. I just need to hope that the ship is exactly that."

Beglis exhaled. "Even still, how will that help you?"

"Well, this little device has that signal stored in it for interception purposes. All I have to do is press this button, hope the transmitter I just installed works, and in a few seconds, Olysiir and I should-"

In a flash of light, he and Olysiir disappeared.

Valt's head snapped to Beglis. "Where did they go?"

"Exactly where he wanted," Beglis replied. "Come on. We have ships to prepare."

Chapter Text

The chamber was silent apart from the hum of power coils thrumming beneath the blackened steel floor. Light from overhead sensor strips shimmered against the curved walls, pulsing in rhythm with the central column of machinery. The air reeked with the scent of scorched ion and oil. It was a cold, mechanical smell that underscored the absolute inhumanity of the design. Two Daleks glided into the core chamber, assessing the situation.

"BIOLOGICAL STABILISER AT NINETY-FIVE-POINT-EIGHT-SEVEN PER CENT," said the first, its voice echoing against the towering walls.

"FINAL CALIBRATIONS UNDERWAY. SUBJECT REMAINS VIABLE," the second replied, turning towards the rows of data-nodes embedded along the curved walls.

The screens flickered with readouts in circular Gallifreyan and Dalek numerals: pulse rates, neural feedback, entropy compression levels.

"ACTIVATION WILL COMMENCE ONCE GALLIFREYAN RESPONSE IS CONFIRMED."

There was a moment of cold, mechanical silence.

"WE WILL FORCE THEIR WAR INTO BEING."

"WE WILL ERADICATE THEIR FUTURE BY ERASING THIS PLANET'S PAST."

The two Daleks rotated in unison and exited the chamber, their casings gliding smoothly over the inlaid floor. Behind them, the stabiliser continued to pulse with quiet menace, feeding on the low, fading temporal signature of its captive.

A moment later, light glistened in the far corner of the room. A hum, low and strange, vibrated through the steel. Kevran appeared first, half-kneeling with his eyes tightly shut. A heartbeat later, Olysiir followed, her incorporeal form flickering briefly before settling into an uneasy peace aboard this strange, alien ship. The two of them landed hard as the aftermath of teleportation rattled the floorplates under them.

Olysiir suddenly dropped towards the ground, her colours flashing and changing almost uncontrollably.

Kevran turned quickly. "Olysiir!"

The Warpsmith's face was pale and looked unfocused, much like one experiencing dizziness. "Do you feel it?"

Kevran knelt down and examined her. "You're not used to physical teleportation, are you? I'm sorry, I should have calculated for temporal energies and-"

"No," Olysiir spoke with a shaking voice,  "this isn't disorientation. This... this ship hums with a wrongness to it. Something is here... something that is hurting the very skeleton of time."

Kevran glanced around the chamber. It was circular and cavernous, lined with intricate mechanisms he couldn't decipher. Nothing about it looked especially out of place; it was just more cold Dalek infrastructure that he had become used to seeing on Phaidon's surface. Despite the initial perception of the room, he knew better than to dismiss her instincts. Perhaps whatever was causing the sickness in the Warpsmiths was affecting her now. He hadn't considered that proximity might quicken its effects.

"We'll figure it out, I promise," Kevran said, "but first, we find Khandi."

He took a cautious step forward, scanning for any sensor feedback or movement. The small device in his hand gave a faint pulse. It detected no nearby energy spikes or motion signatures. The Daleks who had just left had not looped back yet, which meant they had a window to move further into the ship.

Kevran shifted to the far side of the chamber and knelt beside a control panel, plugging in his datapad and using it to download any available data. Olysiir paced behind him, still uneasy. The hum of the walls, whatever temporal turbulence they sensed, had not abated even after the Time Lord's calm promises.

"She's close," Kevran whispered, narrowing his eyes as he skimmed the unfamiliar Dalek language, "at least, I think she is."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because this chamber is like a heart, and she is what it's beating for," he paused and turned back to Olysiir. "You felt it. I can't explain it, but this ship's alive with something that is wrong. I'm betting Khandi is at the core of it."

Olysiir moved to a wall and pressed their form flat against the chilling surface. "I can feel her, too. The signal is weak... fading."

Kevran turned away, clenching his jaw. "Then we're not too late."

The two of them crossed silently to the corridor on the opposite side, peering through the narrow viewing slits that littered the walls. A vast hallway stretched out before them, lit by eerie red panels that pulsed with warning signals. Somewhere down that corridor was a row of prisoner holding cells. Kevran recognised it from a set of Dalek floor schematics he'd glimpsed weeks ago during an operational briefing.

"You sure you're ready for this?" he asked.

Olysiir gave a shaky nod. "I have never fought, Kevran. I am not made for war, but I am ready to stand for you."

Kevran offered a faint smile. "That is enough."

He turned back towards the corridor and marked a new path in his head using the memory of the map. These prisoner holding cells were empty; he knew it. There was no sound coming from the other side of any of the doors, and Olysiir hadn't mentioned sensing any other Warpsmiths near them. The Daleks never took prisoners, unless to use them for a dark, twisted plan. The fact that they had these cells felt like nothing more than a sick joke.

One corridor at a time, he scanned and found nothing. One chamber at a time, they hid and they moved silently. They were far deeper than just beyond enemy lines by this point; they were in the hornet's nest, and one sting could send them both into the arms of death quicker than either of their minds could process. Every time they came up empty, Kevran continued to feel like they were just one room away from someone he thought he would never see again.

The rain had stopped two days ago, but the clouds above the Thirteenth Archipelago still hung low and brooding, shot through with intermittent flashes from Dalek disruptor fire. Beneath the darkened clouds, what had once been a grand network of floating walkways and suspended cities was now a half-collapsed husk of steel and broken dreams. The ruin lay unspoken sorrow beneath a sky too ashamed to shine, its shattered bones whispering of fire and fury, as if the planet itself had forgotten what it meant to hope.

The ruins of Miraxis loomed ahead - what was left of it. Its outer tiers sagged like a dying lung, its lower spires shattered and strewn across the ocean's surface. Only the inner plate remained partially intact, held aloft by emergency stabilisers that blinked in soft amber rhythm. From a narrow side-ridge carved into the foundation ruins, Beglis crouched and motioned with two fingers. Behind them, Valt and Renari moved quickly, guiding dozens of civilians across the broken path in near silence.

They had walked a very long distance in a short space of time. Not one of them had spoken for the duration. Beglis' eyes swept the horizon. Across the broken avenues, they could see faint glints of Dalek patrols circling like hawks and scanning for any signs of movement. Occasionally, a beam of light, similar to a warship's, would sweep through the black and catch a fragment of metal or clothing, and the humming Dalek propulsion would increase in pitch. They hadn't been spotted yet, but that would change. Their luck never lasted forever.

"Two minutes," Beglis whispered, his voice barely carrying over the wind. "We break left through the collapsed wall, take them down the utility path."

Valt moved beside him and nodded. "Tunnel routes haven't been checked in weeks."

"They'll have to be checked now."

Valt gave one final nod and signalled again. The refugees moved in small bursts - ten at a time, then fifteen, always hugging whatever cover they could find. The soldiers ensured the refugees were always close enough to fall into an open shelter, in case the screaming of Dalek engines filled the air.

Renari brought up the rear, eyes wide and weapon close. "Any sign from the others?"

"None," Beglis replied, "which means we're alone out here."

There was no anger in his voice, only the cold and dark truth. Kevran and Olysiir were aboard the Dalek ship now, somewhere far overhead of them all. Socket was nowhere to be seen either, following instructions from the Time Lord's hastily put-together plan. If they failed, and the evacuation didn't succeed... Beglis didn't finish that thought.

One of the children stumbled and nearly collapsed. A Warpsmith caught them, flickering faintly from the stress as their temporal echo trembled in places. Beglis hurried forward and helped them both up, placing a hand on the child's shoulder.

"Almost there," Beglis smiled. "Stay quiet, and stay moving. You're doing great."

The tunnel was within reach now. A narrow hatch, almost overlooked between two torn-open plating girders. It had once been a waste chute maintenance path, now repurposed for emergency evacuation. Beglis pressed their hand to the control pad and keyed a code. The hatch buzzed, failed, then whined open with a screeching moan that was louder than any of the distant fighting.

"Inside!" he called, voice still low but firm.

Refugees poured through in small numbers, descending the angled ramp beyond. The last of the group entered after what felt like an eternity. Valt ducked in beside them, and Renari followed. Beglis took one final look behind as the wreckage of Miraxis glowed with a scattered fire and followed after everyone.

The tunnel was dark and slick, lit only by dim emergency strips that blinked every few metres. Valt led the way now, checking corners and intersections as the group moved in batches. Somewhere above them, the echo of a Dalek engine thrummed and reverberated faintly. It was moving away from them, but the civilians still held their breath until the sound had dissipated entirely.

"How much further?" Renari asked.

Beglis checked his tracking unit. "Two levels down. If we keep the pace, we'll reach the timeship access point in less than half an hour."

Valt nodded. "That's if the Daleks haven't already found and claimed them."

"Then we take them back."

The three moved ahead together, guiding the group downward with silent gestures and urgent glances. A flickering map projection on the wall revealed their proximity to one of the last surviving hangars: Bay Twelve. This was where the two surviving timeships had been relocated in hopes of avoiding detection. Their condition was unknown, but they were flight-ready, and that was enough.

"We'll need both ships," Beglis muttered, "even if they're crowded."

Valt looked at their commander grimly. "They'll be packed in like sardines."

"They'll live," Renari added, "that's what's important."

They reached a junction where three corridors split into uneven arcs. Beglis held up a hand to the group.

"Valt, check the eastern path. Renari, take the north. I'll hold position here."

They nodded and split off from the group.

A Warpsmith approached quietly behind Beglis, their incorporeal form quivering slightly within their host.

"President Beglis," they said.

"I'm not President," he replied. "I'm just like you. Just trying to survive."

"We look to you to lead us."

Beglis looked at them all for a long moment. "Well, let's survive long enough for it to matter, first."

The Warpsmith bowed their head and returned to the crowd. It didn't take long for the group to rise in panic, however, as a scream echoed from the northern corridor. Beglis turned with his gun raised. A moment later, Renari came sprinting back into view.

"Dalek patrol. Two units. They didn't see me."

"How far?"

"Sixty metres. Coming our way."

Valt appeared next. "East is clear. Doors are sealed. I saw no movement."

"We move east," Beglis ordered. "Fast and silent. If those Daleks hear anything, we won't get a second chance."

They began moving again. There they were, a group of refugees and warriors, all Warpsmiths bound by nothing now but fear and fragile hope. Somewhere deep in the dark above them, unknown to their peers, an engine pulsed. Something sinister and wrong was awakening, and no one yet knew how little time they had left.

The doors sealed behind them with a hiss of cold vapour. Kevran pressed his back to the metal wall, holding up a finger to signal stillness. Across from him, Olysiir leaned heavily against a nearby bulkhead, the shimmering haze of their incorporeal nature still unsettled from the teleportation. Their current strength was faltering, and though they felt an intense disorientation, at no point did their mind fill with any regrets about coming along. Their form twitched and flickered under the continued strain.

Kevran leaned close. "You alright?"

Olysiir nodded shakily. "Something… this vessel is thick with distortion. Time bends around its walls. I feel it pressing against my mind."

Kevran gave a soft, reassuring smile. "Try to stay anchored to my time signature. You're safe while we're together."

They shared a silent look. Olysiir nodded again, this time more firmly.

With slow, measured steps forward, Kevran led the way down a dark corridor. The walls pulsed faintly with red light every few seconds. It wasn't in a particular rhythm; it was just a mechanical heartbeat designed only to unsettle. Panels etched in Dalek code flickered occasionally, reading energy flows and processing sequences. A low thrum vibrated through the floor. It was subtle, but constant.

"Where do we go?" Olysiir whispered.

Kevran tapped the Dalek interceptor device clipped to his belt. "This way. I've picked up faint traces of something. The command cluster should be three decks ahead."

They moved carefully, sticking close to shadowed edges, ducking behind large metal piping and protrusions where possible. Dalek sensor nodes glowed along the ceilings, but Kevran had learned long ago to tell when they were active. These were in a passive state, monitoring but not actively scanning.

The silence stretched on as they passed through one corridor after another. Here and there, they paused to let patrols pass. Two Daleks glided down a hidden side-passage, barking distorted commands to their invisible subordinates. Kevran and Olysiir stayed frozen, barely breathing for fear of detection. Just as Kevran stood up to move again, the sound of more Dalek speech forced him back down again.

They spoke without the usual battle tones, instead sounding more strategic in their words. They sounded from just beyond an intersection, out of sight for either of them to see. Kevran motioned for Olysiir to stay back as he slowly crept toward the corner and peered around, hoping not to be found out. He saw two Daleks standing beside a black-glassed interface screen; the symbols scrolled rapidly, too fast for him to read from that distance.

"STATUS OF PLANETARY RESISTANCE?"

RESISTANCE IS FRACTURED. TARGET ZONES IN SECTOR EIGHTY-EIGHT ARE NEARLY EXTINGUISHED."

"CONTINGENCY IS NO LONGER NECESSARY. THE FINAL PHASE SHALL COMMENCE."

"WHAT OF GALLIFREY?"

Kevran's breath caught. His eyes narrowed.

"GALLIFREY REMAINS SILENT. DELAYED RESPONSE IS ANTICIPATED. STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE INCREASES."

"ACTIVATION OF THE ENGINE WILL PROVOKE MAXIMUM RESPONSE. THIS WILL BE WAR."

"CONFIRMED. DALEKS SHALL CONQUER TIME ITSELF."

The two Daleks rotated and glided away. Kevran ducked back and pressed himself against the wall, his eyes were wide in surprise and concern. Olysiir moved up to join him, seeing his posture and body language shift in an instant. He glanced at her, visibly paler than before, and swallowed hard.

"Did you hear that?" he whispered.

Olysiir nodded. "They're hoping to extend this war to your people."

"Not hoping; they're ready."

There was a moment of silence.

"Engine," Olysiir said softly, "they said engine. Not ship. Not weapon."

Kevran looked at them. "I'm sorry. I'm not sure what that could mean. If it isn't a weapon, then what is it?"

Olysiir didn't speak, only carried on the confusion at whatever the Daleks were planning. Regardless, they pressed forward, deeper into the ship. The corridors curved inward, now narrower and hotter, like a spinal column. Warning glyphs buzzed faintly in the walls, and the Dalek presence thickened as they pushed further. It was a sign that they were getting closer to what they were looking for, but they were still clueless about what it would be when they finally laid their eyes on it.

Kevran paused as he heard another patrol approaching. He and the Warpsmith ducked behind a pillar, but as they did, Olysiir's body jolted in unexpected pain, and they let out an audible gasp. It was loud, much more so than expected. Kevran turned quickly, seeing Olysiir's form flicker in some strange way. It was as though some kind of spatial feedback had struck them. The sensors above them would soon detect it. And they did. A pair of Dalek sensor nodes turned toward their location with a growing whine.

Kevran acted instantly. He whipped the voltaic spanner from his coat and fired a short pulse down the hallway. The beam struck the nodes and fried them both with a sharp snap, throwing sparks in multiple directions. The lights dimmed briefly, just long enough for them to slip through the next door and vanish into the side passage that was revealed to them earlier. Alarms didn't blare, but the tone of the ship shifted. Somewhere, Kevran knew, a system had been tripped, and their presence was no longer a surprise.

"Are you alright?" he asked again.

Olysiir winced. "Yes. That flare, it wasn't pain. It was… recognition. Something on this ship… it knows what I am."

Kevran adjusted the spanner, checking its remaining charge. "Let's not stay to find out what it wants."

Another level. Another long corridor. At the end of this one, however, was a door, sealed and humming with power. Beyond it came a rising bass which hummed with power. It was less of a sound and more of a sensation, like falling forward through your own heartbeat. Kevran pressed his hand against the interface. Nothing. He tried fiddling with the wires underneath to short-circuit the system. Nothing. In frustration, he punched the interface with the side of his fist. The door slid open.

They stepped through. The chamber was vast, hexagonal, and pulsating with a soft, golden light. At the centre stood a machine unlike anything else Kevran had ever seen. There was a spiralling prism of glass and metal, taller than any TARDIS console room, rotating in place with a lattice of suspended coils. Streams of temporal radiation poured through it, drawn like lightning into a central void that swallowed all light.

Kevran stumbled slightly. "This is it…"

Olysiir hovered behind him, weakening. "This… this is what is breaking time."

Kevran stared at the readouts. "It's harvesting entropy. Pulling decay from an accelerated temporal field… condensing it… and absorbing it back into its core."

"For what purpose?"

"To fuel more destruction. Possibly even temporal weaponry," he looked up at the machine in awe. "This could sterilise planets."

Olysiir pointed. "There."

Kevran turned and immediately saw. Suspended in a containment column was Khandi, slumped forward, unconscious. Wires and coils ran through and around her. Her hair clung to her face. Her hands trembled, glowing faintly with residual energy from the machine she had fueled.

"No," Kevran breathed. "No!"

He ran forward. Alarms began to flare.

He reached for the containment field and pressed his hands against the barrier. The air shimmered between them, impossibly warm, vibrating like a struck bell. Khandi hung limply inside, suspended in a swirling lattice of orange-gold light. Thin strands of temporal energy spiderwebbed across her body, coiling around her wrists, her forehead, and her spine. Her lips were parted, shallow breaths visible in the energy mist.

"Khandi," he whispered.

No response came.

He reviewed the containment panel beside her. It was all written in Dalek code, a very jagged, minimalist, and efficient language. He translated the parts he could, his archivist brain firing on all cylinders as he recalled all of the translation books he had read and tried to find similar patterns here.

SUBJECT: TIME LADY
TEMPORAL STABILITY: 89%
OUTPUT: ENTROPIC CATALYSIS - PHASE II
SYSTEM LINK: ACTIVE

"She's… she's the battery," Kevran said, voice hollow.

"She's the core," Olysiir murmured, stepping up beside him.

The Entropy Engine pulsed loudly behind them, louder than before. Olysiir's incorporeal essence flickered from the proximity to such a machine. The radiation of the chamber was affecting them, pulling at their very being. This was the cause of the sickness. This is what was leaking temporal radiation and infecting the others. The Daleks and their machine were slowly corrupting the planet and the people.

Kevran began typing. The containment controls resisted him, but he forced his spanner into the panel and burned a hole through its logic. Sparks flared. There was a hiss as though the machinery was threatening him. The buzz of the field dropped finally, and he stood up in relieved triumph.

"Khandi!" he called again, louder now.

She stirred. Her head turned sluggishly. Her eyes opened; they were red-rimmed and glassy with exhaustion. She saw him.

"Kevran…"

Her voice was barely audible over the engine's rising howl.

"You're going to be alright," he said, lying with the tenderness of care.

She gave a faint idea of a smile. "They said… said they needed… a spark. A… something that felt time… too much."

"We're getting you out," he promised. "I'm so, so sorry."

Olysiir was at the console, reading faster than Kevran could. "No. You can't. The systems are anchored to her. She's stabilising the entire entropy shell. It's tied to Time Lord DNA. If you remove her, the additional biology would cause a surge. That surge could kill her. The chamber will consume what's left of her in one final spike."

Khandi heard. "Do it anyway."

"No!" Kevran barked. "I'm not going to kill you."

"I chose to be the distraction," she said. "I chose to leave Gallifrey with you. We both knew that this… this was always going to be the cost of that decision."

Kevran looked at her through blurred vision. His fist trembled at his sides. "Not like this. I can't-... I can't lose you, too."

Olysiir hesitated. "Kevran…"

He turned. Their eyes locked.

"There is another way," Olysiir said, clearly apprehensive about her following words. "I merge with you. My nature as an incorporeal being means… if I inhabit you, the stabilising radiation your biology gives off… it will nullify the signal. The engine won't register your Time Lord DNA. It would break the loop. You can free her."

Kevran's mouth went dry. "That would neutralise my ability to regenerate."

"Temporarily."

"No. Not temporarily. If I'm shot… If we are still merged and I am wounded-"

"You die," Olysiir finished, looking down.

Kevran went silent. Khandi's laboured breath became ragged.

"She's dying," Olysiir said. "If you wait too long, surge or not, her fate will be permanent anyway."

Kevran turned again, glancing at Olysiir's shimmering form. "This process, the merge. It terrifies you. You don't have to do this."

"I do."

"Why?"

Olysiir exhaled, trembling. "Because you gave me courage. You saw me for what I am - not just a phantom or a whisper - but someone who can help. I don't want to drift anymore, Kevran. I want meaning."

Kevran gave a small, agonised smile before nodding.

The merge was not physical, at least not entirely. Olysiir moved forward and placed her hand on Kevran's chest, over his hearts. The light began there, white and soft, before it spread outward in concentric waves. It shimmered through Kevran's veins like starlight. His knees buckled, and he fell to one side, but Olysiir held him up even as their own form began to dissolve into a mist of golden energy.

Her incorporeal self passed into him. It wasn't violent; instead, it was more like the movement of a tide coming home. Kevran gasped as a sudden sensation flooded him. It wasn't pain, not exactly. It was an extra heartbeat. Unfamiliar memories flared across his mind like flickering photographs: a name he didn't know, a lullaby he'd never sung, a longing that wasn't his. Above all else, there was an intense warmth of comfort that overwhelmed his senses. They were not just inside him, but they were with him.

"Are you alright?"

The voice came from nowhere and everyone. It was gentle and familiar, even more so now than ever before.

He steadied himself. "I think so."

"I will shield your biology from detection. I cannot promise for how long."

Kevran nodded, whispering aloud. "That's enough."

The interface screamed as Kevran jammed the voltaic spanner into its core. The barrier dropped entirely, and Khandi's containment field flickered into useless smoke. He rushed forward and caught her as she fell, the wires pulling free with weak sparks. Her skin was clammy. Her body trembled.

She clutched his collar. "I thought you'd… stay behind."

"I promised you safety," he said. "How can I give you that if I'm always hiding?"

He lifted her into his arms, bearing all of her weight so she could relax.

Olysiir's voice came again, soft in his mind. "They're coming."

The Entropy Engine let out a sound not unlike a scream. The deck beneath their feet jolted as the chamber shook with dissonant energy, as if time itself were shuddering. The door across the room suddenly slammed open.

"INTRUDERS. BIOLOGICAL STABILISER HAS BEEN REMOVED. DESTROY THEM!"

Kevran turned, gently lowering Khandi to a shallow recess behind a support beam. He stepped into the open, raised his spanner, and fired. A blast of pure electrical energy seared across the chamber and struck the first Dalek in the eyestalk. It flared, sparked, and spun wildly before toppling over with a hollow clang. Kevran screamed - somewhere between fear, defiance, and fury - and ran forward, blasting another Dalek in the process.

"We need to protect her!" he roared.

"I'm trying!" Olysiir replied.

Behind him, Khandi's body began to glow. Orange light shone from her hands. Her limbs twitched faintly as she stirred and began to groan. Kevran turned just long enough to see what was happening. She was regenerating.

Dalek reinforcements thundered down the corridor. Kevran stood between the door and Khandi, teeth clenched and shoulders squared. He fired another voltaic blast, slamming it into the lead Dalek's side. Sparks and plating exploded outward, but the drone continued to advance. It was smoking but still operational.

"EXTERMINATE!"

"Kevran… two more to the left."

"I see them!" Kevran shouted.

He twisted, hurling himself to the side as three blasts tore past where he stood. One managed to clip his coat, the blue beam scorching his already worn outfit. He rolled behind a pillar, flung his hand out, and fired again. One Dalek stumbled, knocking into another. The pair collided with force, and both exploded. A strange rush filled Kevran's body, partly due to Olysiir's help, but also from his own ability to fend off the oncoming horde.

From behind the other pillar, the glow intensified. He risked a glance at her. Khandi was fully engulfed now. Her body radiated in a blaze of gold-orange light, limbs suspended an inch off the deck, like a chrysalis burning away its skin. Her face was contorted, not with pain but with immense effort. To any outsider, regeneration looked like a firestorm without any of the smoke. Kevran ducked behind the support.

"I need more time!" he snapped aloud, breath heavy.

"Then we hold. Just a little longer…"

Olysiir's voice flickered faintly in his head; the strain was clear, and he could feel her struggle, too. The merge was still functioning, but Kevran could feel the Warpsmith weakening, trying to resist the growing tremors of the Entropy Engine around them.

Another Dalek fell after being shocked through the eyestalk by a precision blast from Kevran's spanner. Its casing erupted in a shriek of steam. The chamber lights dimmed briefly as the beam sucked the energy from around it. Silence followed. Kevran stood there, waiting patiently. There was no more movement from within the corridor. His arm lowered, and his fingers trembled as he slipped the voltaic spanner into his pocket.

He turned and saw that the golden light had faded. The glow that had flooded the floor began to dim. Khandi sat up instantly, gasping, coughing, and shuddering at the cold temperature of the floor. He rushed to her and knelt down, but stopped short, just inches away. It was Khandi. It was definitely her, and yet it definitely wasn't.

She was still breathing heavily, but the sound was deeper now. Her chest was rising and falling with a different rhythm than before. Her skin was slightly darker, and the freckles on her face were no longer there. Her eyes opened. They were a deep brown with flecks of gold mixed in. They moved around the room quicker than before, like she was more alert than ever. Her hair spilt messily over her face. It was shorter now, curled and voluminous, where before it had been straight and more precise. She looked younger, not in age, but in energy. It was like looking at someone who had stepped out of a war and into a calm wind. She grinned at Kevran.

"Oh, you look awful," she said, and then broke into a surprised laugh. "That's my new voice?"

Kevran blinked. "Hello, Khandi."

She tilted her head. "That's me, then. Still me. You know, for a moment in there, I thought I was going to come out as a redhead. I was not ready for that trauma."

Kevran laughed. It was an exhausted, breathless sound of disbelief.

"Khandi," he repeated, almost as if confirming it to himself. "You made it."

She flexed her hands, watching the last of the regeneration energy flicker from her fingertips. "Barely. It's a haze! Like trying to run through fire on stilts."

Kevran hesitated. "Do you… remember everything?"

Her smile softened. "Yes. It's all here. I remember you. I remember the Daleks. I remember being in that awful machine… And I remember…" her eyes flicked downward. "I remember being terrified it would end without seeing you again."

They sat in silence for a moment. The weight of her transformation hung in the space between them.

Kevran cleared his throat. "You seem… different."

"I am different," she said plainly. "I feel more impulsive. Sharper. It's like… my mind's made of gears now, not wires. Faster. Louder."

"Stronger?"

"She's stabilised," came Olysiir's voice, echoing quietly in Kevran's mind. "I can feel it. Her biology has decoupled from the Engine."

"Can she move?" Kevran asked aloud.

"I can run, if that's what you mean," she stood up quickly and wobbled. "Though maybe just walk. For now."

Kevran caught her elbow. "Easy there."

"Thanks."

"Come on. We've got to get out of here."

Khandi huffed like a child. "I thought I just got out of somewhere."

She grinned at Kevran, then looked behind herself towards the pulsing mass of the Entropy Engine.

"What is that thing?"

Kevran's face darkened. "Something dreadful… and I don't think it's deactivated."

They hurried through the corridors now, Khandi supporting herself as best she could, with Kevran at her side. The alarm klaxons had stopped. There were too many systems damaged on the ship from the explosions. Kevran just hoped the Daleks weren't regrouping where he had planned to go.

Khandi looked at him as they ran. "You merged with a Warpsmith."

He nodded. "Olysiir."

"The quiet one."

"She saved you," Kevran said.

Khandi paused in thought. "Good. I want to thank her."

Kevran smiled faintly. "They're listening."

A moment later, a voice echoed, soft, coming from within Kevran's still open mouth. "I'm glad you're alive."

Khandi blinked. "That's… going to take some getting used to."

By the time they reached the shuttle deck, the ship was beginning to quake. It rocked everything and knocked both Gallifreyans off balance. Kevran tumbled to the ground, but Khandi managed to stay upright, reaching down to help him up. She quickly brushed the dust off his shoulders, and he slightly shook to get her off of him. This newer Khandi seemed a lot more openly caring than before, and it slightly scared him.

"What was that?" she asked.

"The Engine."

"That machine I was in? I thought it lost the fuel when you pulled me out," Khandi put her hands on her hips and raised a brow.

Kevran nodded grimly. "I hoped so. I should have taken you out of the room entirely…"

Khandi waved a hand in the air. "Daleks were coming from every angle; that wouldn't have happened."

"Yeah, well. I think the proximity to the regeneration energy was enough to charge it fully," Kevran sighed. "I saved you, but I didn't get a chance to disable it."

"So, what's happening now?" Khandi looked around the corridor.

"It's getting ready," he rubbed the back of his neck. "We have minutes at most."

She turned to him, eyes bright. "Then let's make them count."

Kevran opened the hatch to an emergency pod. It hummed with residual power. It was barely functional and definitely not spaceworthy, though how often did Daleks need to use escape pods? Either way, he knew it would suffice for his plan. They climbed aboard, just as the lights of the deck began to flicker. Kevran looked back, just once, at the endless maze of hallways behind them before sealing the door tight. The three of them were getting off that ship alive.

Chapter Text

The sky of Miraxis was bleeding fire. The once-golden clouds that circled above the floating archipelagos now churned with smoke, ash, and Dalek heat discharges. Down in the battered hangar platform of Bay Twelve were two of the last known timeships on the planet. This was the only launch site untouched by Skaro's destruction.

Beglis stood at the threshold; his breathing was hard and fast. His clothes were torn, and the cloth was soaked with blood. He began to feel weary, sharing the fatigue his host felt, but despite everything, he was determined to persevere. All around him, thousands of frightened Warpsmiths, both embodied and incorporeal, surged towards the two timeships that waited for them in the launch cradles.

"Renari!" Beglis shouted into the chaos. "Can you fly?"

With a flash of red fabric and flustered determination, Renari was already halfway to one of the cockpit ramps. "I've trained with high-pressure inertia models. I can take one!"

Beglis nodded, turning to Valt. "You?"

Valt's expression tightened. "I've never flown anything more advanced than a cargo lifter."

"Then you're staying down here. You help the civilians board, every last one of them," Beglis didn't wait for Valt's reply.

The hangar was a maelstrom of motion. The two timeships - tall, smooth obelisks of polished metal etched with temporal latticework - pulsed faintly, their engines warming in preparation for launch. The adjustments that Socket had made some months ago had improved their stealth fielding, but the shield was boosted heavily by Kevran's own invention. It was no longer as patchy as it used to be, thanks to years of disuse and forgetfulness.

Valt raced to gather refugees, arms extended. "One at a time. One line, one line! No pushing! You're going to be okay, just get in one line!"

From overhead came the distant, mechanised whine that now haunted every Warpsmith's nightmares: Dalek engines. They were coming.

Renari yelled over the crowd. "Vessel is ready for boarding!"

Beglis turned to the frightened throng and raised both arms. "You'll all board in order! Don't panic, just move! This is your home now. These ships... this is Phaidon."

No one argued. They all began to run. Beglis could see them all: young hostlings carrying worn satchels and nothing else; elder Warpsmoths hovering unmerged, glowing faintly like mist caught in moonlight; a half-dozen wounded carried by stronger friends and strangers.

Beglis clenched his jaw and moved between the crowds, guiding them, catching the fallen, and lifting tired bodies to their feet. He continued unconsciously as the boarding continued.

Two hundred refugees.

Six hundred refugees.

A thousand refugees.

Renari's voice cracked again. "I'm nearing capacity. I can take maybe twenty more."

A scream tore through the platform. A surge of moving bodies at the back of the boarding ramp had caused someone to fall, and others were clambering over them. Valt was already there, lifting them, and yelling at others until their voice went hoarse. Beglis continued to count the boarders.

Two thousand.

Three thousand.

"Move to the second ship! Go!"

Thirty-five hundred.

Four thousand.

It wasn't enough. They had thousands more, over triple what had already boarded, but it was all the space they had. Overhead, the howl of Dalek propulsion changed pitch. The watchers on the cliff edge began screaming.

"They're above us! They've seen the hangar!"

Five thousand.

"Beglis!" Renari shouted through the communicator. "We have to launch!"

"Now!" Beglis agreed, hitting the ramp control.

The doors sealed shut. The noise outside fell away, replaced by the cold hum of temporal engines warming for full liftoff. The ships shook at the excess weight they were carrying. Beglis threw himself into the controls, hands flying with a speed that belied his exhaustion. Temporal alignment had been set. The gravitational counterbalances were calibrated. They took one last breath and activated the launch.

Outside, the final sight the Warpsmiths had of their world was flame trailing across the black sky as the two timeships lifted away into orbit. They were the last ark of a dying people. Below them, smoke swallowed the hangar, and screams echoed through the air. Valt, staying on the ground to watch over the refugees, was now engulfed by the thick mist of war like a veil covering a corpse. The gunfire rang out only for a few seconds before everything, including the screams, fell silent.

The escape pod tore through Phaidon's sky like a meteor. Khandi braced herself inside the small chamber, knuckles white as she clutched the edge of the seat. Her limbs trembled with an adrenaline that she could hardly keep in check. The pod's stabilisers were failing, a result of the shaky lift off they had from the quaking Dalek ship. The horizon outside the viewport bucked and twisted as stars blurred against the clouds with each turn of the pod.

"We're not slowing down," she snapped.

Olysiir and Kevran both reeled from the temporal feedback which coursed through their shared nervous system.

"The gravity plating is unstable! We're pulling too hard into the atmosphere-"

"I know," Khandi muttered, eyes rolling. "I just wanted to hear someone say it."

Kevran moved to the navigation console. He was extremely calm, much more so than the situation would allow, and quieter than Khandi had ever seen him. His eyes were fixed on the small device clutched in his hand, the signal interceptor. It hummed faintly, its central light blinked an erratic blue shade. Khandi clocked the silence.

"You have a plan, don't you?" she asked, leaning back and kicking her legs as another jolt threw the pod sideways.

Kevran didn't look up. "Waiting on Socket."

Khandi gave a single dry laugh. "Of course."

"Socket has a homing signal installed within his core. A latent trace I knew I could track via this," he held up the device. "I figured that if I could use it to crack into heavily encrypted Dalek military frequencies, it shouldn't be too hard to break into my own flimsy pulse. He'll activate it any second now."

Olysiir's nervousness could be felt by Kevran as the hairs on his arms stood on end against his will. "So… we're just going to all until we get a ping?"

Kevran's mouth twitched as her voice escaped his throat again. "More or less."

"You're insane!" Khandi chuckled, rubbing her forehead.

Kevran finally looked at her. For the first time in what felt like forever, he felt like he was truly seeing her again. She looked different, of course. Her entire genetic makeup had been destroyed and rebuilt. It was still the same soul, though, but with slightly darker eyes and a quicker tongue. Her energy now had a restless edge to it, as though the new regeneration had trimmed away some of her restraint.

He cleared his throat. "It's good to have you back."

"You mean alive?"

"I mean…you. Still you. Still sharp-tongued and too brave for your own good."

She grinned. "This incarnation suits me, don't you think?"

"It suits you better than dying," Kevran faintly laughed.

She let the joke fade. The tension returned in the silence between them, broken only by the groans of stressed metal and the sonic boom that erupted as the sound barrier was broken.

Khandi shifted slightly, staring at Kevran. "Back on the ship… before you pulled me out of that machine. I wasn't really all there, but I heard you say something."

Kevran raised an eyebrow, fidgeting with the signal interceptor. "I say a lot of things."

"You know what I'm talking about," she huffed, "and don't lie to me, because I know Olysiir's in there and she'll tell me if you are."

"Of course I will."

She leaned forward slightly. "You said you were sorry."

"I was."

"You said you couldn't lose me."

"And I didn't."

She held her gaze for a moment longer before leaning back. "I suppose I should say thank you."

"You're welcome," he murmured.

They shared a brief smile. It was a soft, fragile thing.

Khandi's tone changed. "Who did you lose?"

Kevran braced himself. "I don't know what you're on about, Khandi. I'm busy."

"You said you couldn't lose me, too," she pressed. "Who was it, Kevran?"

"Khandi, I'm really quite busy at-"

"We are hurtling towards the ground so fast this pod will implode on impact," Khandi raised her voice, "so, the least you can do, on the off chance that this plan of yours doesn't work, is talk to me about whatever is going on in your head. For as long as I've known you, there's been something behind your eyes. Something sits there, hurting, and no amount of sarcasm can mask it forever."

Kevran didn't speak. Olysiir could feel the increased pace of his heartbeats.

"Whoever they are. Whatever happened. I'm not going to leave like they did," she offered a smile.

"She didn't leave."

Khandi was surprised by his response.

"It wasn't her choice."

"What?"

Kevran placed the device down gently and sat slowly. "I lost my mother. It was a long time ago, now."

Khandi looked down, regretful that she pushed him. "I'm sorry. I didn't realise-"

"She was a scientist and worked in the Obscurantum," Kevran noticed her. "It was a sealed wing of the Archive; they handled paradox research."

"Kevran," Khandi whispered. "It's fine. You don't have to-"

"I remember her saying that she was working on something really special. Something to do with small-scale recursion decay within broken timelines," the memory gave Kevran a soft smile. "It was politically unremarkable. The High Council weren't a fan of funding it. It meant so much to her, though."

Khandi sat in silence. Olysiir shuddered as his memories flashed into their mind as well, including the heartbreak.

"Apparently, there was a lab accident. They wouldn't elaborate any further than that," Kevran bit his tongue for a moment to fight back the emotion. "It was over two centuries ago. I was old enough to remember every second, young enough never to stop reliving it. The part that really hurt me was that they told me she never triggered a regeneration."

"Did she have any left?" Khandi asked with apprehension.

Kevran scoffed. "If you ask the officials who told me, then no. She was on her 'last life.' But I just knew that wasn't true. I knew it. Only a few days earlier, she had made a joke about being almost ready for her midlife crisis. She had seven cycles left, Khandi. Seven!"

Khandi felt tears building in her eyes, but stayed quiet.

"I asked for the official statements, the eyewitness testimonies. I requested that the Archive release the death report to me, her only family. Apparently, it was all classified. The files were sealed away somewhere else because they claimed her work was an official state secret. The Archive became the gatekeepers of the truth about what happened to her."

Khandi leaned forward in shock at his openness. Olysiir shuddered as her mind began to fill with his shared memories.

"So, when I graduated… I applied for a position within the institution. Worked my way up the ladder over the next two hundred years and spent that time curiously chasing anything weird within its walls, on the off chance I ever got to see those locked records. One day, I will find out what happened to her."

"I- I'm sorry," Khandi said, her voice sounding small.

Kevran felt the warmth of Olysiir build up inside him, almost like a hug. "I am sure she would be proud of you now."

"Hardly," Kevran exhaled through his nose. "She wanted me to do something different. She wouldn't have wanted me to be a librarian. She always thought I was capable of more than that. My whole life, all I've done is prove her wrong."

"You proved her right," Khandi replied.

Kevran looked up at her. She wasn't smiling anymore.

"I saw you on that ship, Kev. I saw you fighting your way through a group of killing machines. You merged with Olysiir despite the risk it puts on yourself. You saved me. You saved yourself. You proved her right."

He said nothing.

After a moment, she nudged him. "Siri, too."

He snapped his head towards her.

"Don't look at me like that," Khandi said, laughing. "You say her name in your sleep. Sometimes it sounds like a question. And sometimes… sometimes it sounds like it's the last word you'll ever say."

Kevran stood up and turned back to the navigation console. "It's complicated."

"You're in love with her."

"I never said that."

"You never had to."

There was a silence, much heavier than before.

"She's still on Gallifrey," Khandi said.

He nodded.

"Why haven't we gone back? Why not tell her the truth?"

Kevran didn't answer immediately. His fingers brushed the console's worn edges. "Because I've never been what Gallifrey wants. Not for the Citadel. Not for someone like Siri. She was always too good for me. Still is."

"That's the worst reason I've ever heard," Khandi stood up. "Oh, poor man, thinks he's incapable of being loved because the woman of his dreams is higher in society than he is. Oh, woe is you. Three hundred and thirty-five, and still acting like a child."

"Three hundred thirty-six."

"Whatever!"

Kevran rolled his eyes. "This new you is full of sh-"

"Don't change the subject!"

Kevran paused, finally allowing himself to think. "Okay, fine. Maybe I took her for granted. Took our situation for granted. As we were, she cared for me and showed me affection. Telling her the truth might have changed that. I thought maybe I had more time to… it doesn't matter anymore."

Khandi reached across and gently knocked his shoulder. "You're going to tell her. One day. I'll make sure of it."

"You sound awfully sure."

"I'm a new woman," she replied with a grin.

Suddenly, the interceptor on the side let out a loud pinging sound as its blue light switched to a bright green.

Kevran's eyes lit up. "Socket."

He flipped a switch and activated the device's return function. A familiar surge of energy crackled through the air as the pod interior shimmered with a temporal lock. All three of them prepared for the teleportation, hoping it would trigger before the pod made impact.

"Brace!" Kevran called.

The pod shuddered violently as time folded around them. There was a flash of gold and blue light as they all suddenly disappeared from the pod. As quickly as the light faded, the pod made impact with the surface of Phaidon, curving inwards and imploding with a devastating eruption.

They landed on solid ground with a snap of displaced air and the glistening fizz of quantum displacement. For a brief second, everything was dark before their sight caught up with them in the transfer. The emergency light from Socket's body flickered to life, casting long, dancing shadows over the somehow still standing platform. In the wake of the Dalek attack, the ship was now somewhat hidden behind a makeshift mountain of ruins and debris that once could have been called Miraxis.

The ship was there, actually there. It was a relieving sight to behold. It looked battered, dented, and covered with far more dust than it was when they arrived, but it stood entirely intact. Khandi could hardly believe it. All of this destruction and devastation around them, and yet, somehow, by a miracle, this jury-rigged rustbucket had managed to not only stay in the same spot but also avoid any damage to it at all.

"Kevran!" Socket chirped, its voice slightly crackling from overdue maintenance work. "You look terrible."

Kevran staggered forward, breathless. "Socket! Thank the universe, you're operational!"

"Define operational," the robot quipped, clicking its joints into motion. "I've had to fend off starving scavengers, patch my front left limb with solar wiring, and survive by feeding off of my own boredom until you bothered to show your face. However, I suppose my key systems are, yes, operational."

Khandi stepped forward and gave Socket a slow, up-and-down look. Then, with a sudden smile, she dropped to her knees and threw her arms around the spherical droid.

Socket gave a surprised beep. "This is… unusual."

"You kept the ship safe," she said softly, stroking the top of its body like a dog. "That makes you my new favourite!"

"Kevran, I dislike her already. May I request we return her for the old model?" Socket said flatly.

Kevran gave a tired smile. "Get used to it."

Khandi straightened, brushing dust from her clothes. "Let's get the ship warmed up. We need to be ready for launch the second we can."

They all turned toward the ship, but before they could move, a sound split the air.

"EXTERMINATE!"

The shriek came from the ridgeline. A Dalek, drawn in by Socket's signal output, rolled into view. The eyestalk glowed harshly, and the weapon arm began to charge. Kevran and Khandi both turned swiftly, but the Dalek was faster than they could move. Everything happened far too quickly. The Dalek aimed and fired. Kevran barely had time to blink before registering that the beam was flying directly towards him.

"Move!"

Olysiir's voice screamed in his mind, echoing through his subconscious and slightly hurting his ears. In an instant, he could feel that the Warpsmith was no longer a part of his body. With a wrenching pull, Olysiir tore free from the merge. She reappeared as a shimmering, silver ripple of incorporeal energy - raw and blindingly bright. They quickly threw themself directly into the path of the Dalek's blast.

The energy beam struck the Waprsmith right in the centre of her form. There was an ear-piercing, high-pitched cry similar to that of a wind chime fracturing, as the pain erupted through Olysiir's body. Her form began to collapse inward, twisting the light around them into nothingness. Just like that, without ceremony or service, she was gone entirely. Another victim of the Dalek's unending onslaught.

Kevran stared at the spot where she had been. He was stunned. His body was frozen. He could feel the last echo of Olysiir's consciousness still fading from the back of his mind. The world seemed to stand still forever, as though time had stopped to mourn the loss. Shock paralysed his limbs, and he did nothing but stand there as the final lights of Olysiir flickered out and dissipated in front of him.

"No!"

The Dalek turned its weapon again, aiming directly for Kevran, but this time Khandi was quicker to move. She grabbed his wrist and yanked him with some force toward the lowered ship ramp. Socket rolled backwards, following his inventor as Kevran stumbled up in an entirely uncontrollable daze. The Dalek beam struck the ramp with a deadly thud before Khandi could retract it from the control panel. She left Kevran to stand in utter silence while she quickly sealed the back of the ship.

"Get us out of here!" she shouted.

Inside, Socket rushed to the navigation controls, extended a small arm, and plugged it into the ship's main control panel, activating the autopilot and inputting the coordinates. The ship lurched and rose just as another beam seared past the hull. In seconds, they were airborne and soaring away from the blood-red sky and the shadow of death on the ridgeline. Only when they broke through the clouds did Kevran finally move himself and slump into the pilot's seat, shaking uncontrollably.

Socket wheeled beside him. "Kevran?"

He didn't respond.

Khandi stepped forward and crouched in front of him, her face softened. "I'm so sorry."

Kevran's lips moved, but no words came out. Khandi took his hand slowly.

"She made her choice," she said reassuringly. "She knew what she was doing."

Kevran finally found his voice. "She saved me. She didn't have to do that."

"She wanted to," Khandi replied. "You gave her something to believe in. You were her hero."

Kevran stared down at his lap, eyes burning with unshed tears. "I don't want to be that. I don't want people to die for me."

"Live for them," Khandi whispered, "because that's the only thing we can do now."

Socket gave out a gentle whirr. "Course laid in. Orbit in thirty-seven seconds."

Kevran nodded stiffly, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve. The ship climbed higher, leaving the shattered surface below, and passed into Phaidon's upper atmosphere. No one spoke for a while. Then, as the planet's curve came into full view through the viewport, Kevran sat upright again.

"Open a channel," he said.

Socket whistled. "To whom?"

"To the others," Kevran said hollowly. "We need to say goodbye."

The three ships hung in low orbits, barely more than specks against the velvet black of space. From Kevran's ship, the view filled the entire viewport: Phaidon, bathed in the ghostly light of its binary stars. A once-lush world of floating continents and crystal clear oceans, now a wounded battlefield. Black scars seared across the surface. Fire bloomed along the archipelagos. Vast platforms that housed countless lives were reduced to craters. The ruins of Miraxis were still smouldering.

Kevran stood motionless at the helm, eyes fixed on the planet below. His hands hovered over the controls, but he wasn't really piloting anything. The autopilot was in control; he was just operating off of muscle memory and subconscious fidgeting. Socket handled the course correction. Khandi stood nearby, silent, her arms crossed as if physically holding herself together. None of them spoke.

A transmission light blinked on the panel. It was a channel that opened up to the refugee ships. Socket chirped, which alerted Kevran, who turned slowly towards the speaker.

"Kevranko. We're in stable orbit. Both ships are intact. Five thousand made it aboard. We couldn't fit any extra," Beglis sounded regretful.

Kevran closed his eyes for a moment, then pressed the comms switch. "Copy. That's more than we could've hoped for."

There was brief static.

"Are you safe?" Renari's voice came through. "We saw the flare from your ship's launch but lost you in the scramble."

Kevran glanced over towards Khandi, who gave a solemn nod.

"We're here," he said, "but not all of us made it."

Beglis understood immediately. "Olysiir?"

Kevran nodded, forgetting for a moment that they couldn't see him. "Gone. Sacrificed herself to get us aboard… to save me."

Beglis spoke again, voice softer. "She was kind. She believed in what we were fighting for. She believed in you. I promise that she will be remembered."

Kevran leaned forward slightly, voice low and distant. "I tried to stop it, Beglis. We found the source of the sickness… a weapon, or rather, a machine. I believe it is some kind of Entropy Engine."

Kevran paused to stare out the viewport. Beglis waited.

"I saw the readouts, I tried to understand them. I believe it accelerates time within a bubble, compressing centuries into microseconds. Something like that could crumble civilisations into dust before giving them the chance to scream."

Beglis audibly gasped.

Kevran swallowed. "They needed a power source to start the initial activation. They used Khandi."

"What?" Renari sounded horrified. "How-"

"Like I said before, Time Lords are walking singularities," Kevran murmured. "Our biology hums with temporal radiation. She was the key they needed to get the system started."

Khandi stepped closer to the microphone. "They almost killed me, trying to power that thing. Kevran and Olysiir got me out. I'm sorry, Beglis. If I hadn't been caught, maybe Olysiir-"

"No, Khandikin. Don't give yourself any more regrets to carry," the smile could be heard through their voice. "And this engine, Kevranko. Did you disable it?"

Kevran stared down. "No."

There was a long silence.

"I couldn't destroy it without killing Khandi. By the time we escaped, it already had enough energy to begin pulsing. They were ready to use it, and we were running out of time."

"What? You didn't even try to-"

"Renari, calm down," Beglis commanded.

"But-"

Beglis interrupted with a grunt. "We need to leave. Now."

Kevran didn't move. His fingers tightened around the comms mic. "Beglis, listen carefully. You need to take the survivors to Gallifrey. Go to the Capitol. Demand to speak to the High Council - to the Lady-President herself. Tell them all what happened here. Show them the survivors. Make them listen."

Beglis' voice came back with a quiet, steady steel. "What about you?"

"I'll follow," Kevran lied. "But someone needs to stay long enough to witness what happens. Someone has to see."

"Kevran…"

"You said it yourself. Five thousand is not nothing. They're what remains of a civilisation. They deserve justice, and their home deserves not to die alone."

Socket beeped at his side. "Incoming surge. The Dalek signal we've been intercepting has just increased in intensity. I'm triangulating."

As the refugee ships blipped out of sight, Kevran turned back to the viewport. Below them, on Phaidon's ravaged surface, a sudden tremor of light rippled across the remains of Miraxis. A faint dome of distorted air began expanding outward. It started as something subtle, like a mirage, before solidifying into a vivid wind of the apocalypse. It shimmered with hues too deep to be natural light. It was a time field, measured in seconds.

Socket's tone turned cold. "That's the Entropy Engine. Activation confirmed."

Kevran didn't answer. He didn't breathe. He simply watched. The shimmer turned into a brilliant blaze as the field suddenly erupted. It burst outward with a silent violence, a golden storm expanding from the ruined heart of the world. Entire archipelagos vanished beneath the dome. In seconds, the high floating platforms decayed into skeletons, then dust, then less than even that. Forests aged and withered in moments. Cities crumbled into ancient monuments. Oceans eroded with fierce speeds before draining, their sea beds cracking with the increased pressure. The storm moved in silence, but its wake screamed with meaning.

Time was being devoured. Centuries passed in mere milliseconds. Stone became sand. Steel became rust. Organic matter shrivelled into nothing at all. The atmosphere ignited briefly with one last gasp before the time field swept it away, too. Phaidon aged into oblivion. From orbit, it looked like the planet was wilting; folding inwards like a flower disintegrating under the unfiltered heat of two suns. In less than a minute, there was only rock. No greenery. No cities. No people. Phaidon was a barren, ashen husk, spinning where a world had once been.

Khandi let out a breath that was almost a sob. "They did it. They actually did it."

Kevran's hand dropped from the control panel. Socket dimmed its light.

"Eight months ago, Phaidon was home to nine billion lives," Kevran's voice was hushed, almost like a prayer. "Five thousand. That is all they have left."

Khandi looked up at him. "They'll take them to Gallifrey. They'll make them understand."

"Good," Kevran nodded. "Siri will look after them, even if the High Council won't."

The viewport showed only ruin. Socket whistled and chirped as the coordinates for Karn were confirmed by the ship. Kevran sat down quietly. He stared straight ahead. Khandi moved forward, standing beside him, and gently rested on hand on his shoulder. She squeezed gently, a quiet reassurance.

"Kevran?" she asked.

He didn't look at her.

"Kevran?" she repeated.

"I've failed so many times," he sighed, exhausted, "but this… this was the first time I truly saw what failure meant."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I know," he said softly. "But that doesn't help."

Outside the ship, the remains of Phaidon drifted beneath them. It was still glowing with the residual energy of the Entropy Engine, still whispering with the echoes of the lives that had been lost to an unstoppable storm of time. The Dalek ship disappeared as soon as Phaidon's destruction was complete. This was nothing but a pit stop for them, a waystation toward a much greater destination. Toward Gallifrey. Toward war.

Chapter Text

The cell was quiet. Almost too serene for Gallifrey these days. There was no ticking or humming from nearby machinery. No vibration of the mighty planetary engines beneath the Capitol reached this place. It was just cold and clinical silence. Even the light seemed artificial, as though it were a performance rather than illumination, hanging motionless in a cube of absolute stillness.

Siri sat with her legs folded beneath her on the low cot, her head bowed down with the weight of depression. Her long, grey robe had none of the ceremonial sheen that her previous outfit had adorned; instead, it was stained with dust from the months of isolation. She looked neither broken nor calm, but held firmly in a state between the two. She was too full of fire to be shattered, but far too bruised to glow still.

The sound of the outer door disengaging broke the silence. She didn't look up. The inner door hissed with an aggressive shriek, and before long, Theojan stepped into the room.

"Come to sneer, Prime Minister?" she said, still unmoving.

"No," Theojan replied softly, arms folded behind his back. "I don't take joy in cages."

That made her look up. She could see that he was dressed in his usual midnight-red uniform, accompanied by a long coat which flared gently with every movement he made. His face had not aged, though Time Lords rarely did unless they allowed it to happen. Despite that, something heavier was carried in his eyes that she hadn't seen before. He was weighed down in thought, and some deep calculations he was still working out in his mind.

"You're brave," she said, standing slowly, "or stupid."

"I've been accused of both in my time. Often by you."

"Walking in here alone was a risk," she snarled. "What if I attacked you?"

"I'd let you. It would prove less exhausting than my other affairs."

That earned a hollow chuckle from her. They stared at one another for a long while. There was still a deep familiarity between them, but the origin felt indecisive. Were they still old friends? Perhaps they were rivals now. Could it be enemies? The line of definition between each term had become too blurred by more recent events.

"You've kept me here for almost a year," Siri said. "Trapped in this box, accused of betrayal, tried for a crime I didn't commit, backed up by evidence built only on rumours and glares. I helped save lives, and you painted me as a terrorist!"

"You helped save lives," Theojan agreed, "but you did so by spending your time aiding a rogue archivist in digging through classified documentation. Your stunts with him in the Archive have painted you in a harsh light, you know that. You helped him violate High Council and task force orders on numerous occasions. You were arrested based on actions and evidence that I had at the time. Even if I now know that wasn't the full story."

She blinked. The words stunned her. "What?"

Theojan stepped closer now, speaking in a quiet voice. "I now know that you weren't the leak. I've known for just a short time now - maybe a day or two. The sabotage of the datastreams, the leaking of classified government blueprints and files. Tarninrall was a difficult man to track down, but once we did… he opened my eyes to a few difficult truths."

Siri felt her shoulders lowering slightly.

"You may have illegally entered Lowtown, but it was you who gathered the intel for us, not stole it away," Theojan continued. "I always had suspicions once Thassik discovered Tarnin's name in evidence. Don't misunderstand, Tarnin is clever with tech, but not with logistics… I knew someone else had to be involved, Siri. At the time, you were the only one contacting him, so I figured you were just working together. Foolish, in hindsight."

Siri smirked at Theojan's self-awareness.

"After he confessed to planting the leak in your terminal, it blew my whole investigation out of the water. You were framed," Theojan's words stung with a feeling of betrayal.

"I told you!" Siri cried out. "Now let me out of this box, Theojan. I'm innocent!"

"No," Theojan's response was quick, like he had predicted her request. "Whoever tried to kill you is still out there. The only way to keep you safe is to let them believe I'm still fooled. You have to stay a traitor for now. You understand, I presume? I had to play into the hand they dealt me."

She stared at him in disbelief. "What?! No! You're using me."

"I'm protecting you," he corrected.

"By keeping me locked away?!"

"By removing you from the game board before any players take notice of how dangerous you are to them and try to take you out," Theojan stared into her eyes.

Her voice shook. "I could help you find them."

Theojan's voice didn't rise, but the edge sharpened. "And if I had let you? You'd be dead by now, or worse… maybe they would've managed to convert you. You think you understand what is happening in the High Council? You don't. Half of them are playing games within games, the other half are too proud to realise the rules have changed. You were the only honest one there! They were getting out of hand and becoming too focused on personal gain. They needed their powers revoked. I have done what I must to keep Gallifrey from collapsing into itself."

"You always think you're the only one who can save Gallifrey," Siri slammed her fists into the containment field with such force that it even caught Theojan off guard. "Always trying to be the hero, trying to write the story like you're the chosen one, here to prevent the collapse of a civilisation. You want to be the saviour, but all I see is a coward hiding behind fear as control."

That hit him in the chest. He felt the wound strike his pride harder than anything else. His posture tensed at that moment, and he clenched his teeth.

"I don't expect you to agree," he said, "but I only need you to understand. Everything I did, I did because I believe, no, I know this world is on the brink. If you suddenly become free, they'll try to use you or destroy you. I'm not going to let that happen, Siri!"

A dangerous silence spread in the room as his voice echoed like a boombox on the walls. Siri crossed her arms, lowering her voice but somehow managing to maintain the ferocity of her tone.

"So what now? You keep me in this cage while the real traitors you're too afraid to chase continue operating unopposed?"

"I can't stop them yet. I don't have proof," Theojan admitted.

"You've never needed proof before," she hissed.

He looked away in shame. That was all the reply she needed from him. There was a moment of quiet before Siri spoke again.

"Let me help you."

Theojan turned to look at her. He listened intently.

"I can do more in two weeks out there off the grid than you can in six months of court sessions and security sweeps. You said it yourself, Theojan - I'm dangerous," a slight smirk raised in the corner of her mouth. "Let me be."

He stared at her for a long while. There was still a spark in her, that same spark that had challenged the tutors in her first years at the Academy, that had helped Kevran escape the Capitol's punishments, that had once made Theojan respect, even admire her. Maybe, somewhere inside, he still did.

"I don't have the luxury of trust right now," he said, "but I haven't forgotten who you are."

He moved to the door.

"Is that it?" she called after him. "You tell me I'm not the enemy, and then you leave me here to keep feeling like one?"

Theojan turned his head, just slightly; it wasn't even enough to meet her eyes. "Just… stay patient, Siri. Your freedom will come."

With that, the doors hissed open and shut again, and she was left once more in the artificial stillness of her containment. The only difference this time was that her pulse was no longer beating slowly, and the fire in her burned brighter than it ever had before. She would get out someday, whether Theojan wanted it or not.

The Hall of Convocation had once been the beating heart of Gallifrey's governance. Now it felt like the place hearts came to be embalmed. It was an ancient rotunda of silver marble, surrounded by a bright cascade of hoverlights above. It was always cold, no matter the number of bodies inside. The room seemed especially chilling today, as though the temperature was aware of the oncoming storm. Those in the room were unprepared for the impact that the next few minutes would have on the history of the universe.

Lady-President Livia stood alone beneath the great dome. Her eyes cast themselves upward as if the swirls of shadow and gold fresco above might have provided some answers for the upcoming news. She wore the high collar of office, a new crimson robe trimmed in platinum, and had her hair swept into the formal spiral of authority. A spectral stillness clung to her shoulders like a pressure that wouldn't relent.

The Time Lords around her - High Cardinals, Ministerial Heads, Technocrats of the Vaults, and Warden Lords of the Looms - stood in silence along the outer ring of the cold chamber. They had all received the call for attendance, but none of them had yet been given context for their summons. A summons from the Lady-President at an ungoverned hour meant something had gone catastrophically wrong.

At last, the side door hissed open, and Theojan strode into the hall. He didn't bow; he didn't need to. His status as Prime Minister of Gallifrey, Commander of the Panopticon Enforcers, and Lord of the Null gave him the excuse of that formality. The air of the chamber made even his boots tread with more softness than his heavy steps often allowed for. He nodded at the members of the Joint Council and turned to the Lady-President.

"You summoned me," he said.

Livia nodded and gestured for him to join her on the central platform. "There's been an arrival," she spoke in a volume so quiet that only he could hear her.

Theojan's brow furrowed. "From where?"

"Phaidon."

His face contorted. "And whatever for?"

"No idea. We have visual contact. Two timeships just crossed into synchronous Gallifreyan orbit."

"Only two?"

"You can see as clearly as I can."

She gestured upward, and the domed ceiling transformed into a glowing sphere of golden light. It was the projection of an orbit. Two dark, battered vessels shimmered against the shadow of the planet, barely held together by their own inertia.

"We received hail five minutes ago," she said. "They're requisitioning asylum. They aren't in passing, either. It's permanent."

Theojan stepped closer to the projection, frowning as the data scrolled along the perimeter in circular High Gallifreyan glyphs. The ships were distinctly non-Gallifreyan in design, featuring organic latticework, crystalline hulls, and microtemporal veins that laced them. Despite that, however, the system was detecting some Gallifreyan code and software within the mainframe of the ships. They were Phaidonian designs, but powered by Gallifreyan effort.

"Warpsmiths," he murmured.

"A delegation awaits contact."

He turned to her, eyes sharp. "Are there any Time Lords abroad?"

Livia's mouth drew into a thin smile. "Contact has been established. We are about to find out."

A hum filled the chamber as a secure communication link was established. From the flickering air in front of the projection platform, a figure emerged in a hard-light holographic design. They were tall, weary, and looked hungry. They stood amid a blur of panic as, behind them, the chaos of triage and overworked medics tried to tend to the thousands of Warpsmiths, both singular and in hosts. It was Beglis.

He had changed. The humble bureaucrat of Phaidon's civil service office was gone. Now his eyes bore the fire of command and survival. His host's robes were torn and soot-stained, but he stood tall and unshaken. Beglis had become a true leader born within war.

"Gallifrey," he said, voice thick with emotion. "This is Beglis, acting President of Phaidon's Harmonisation Council, and Commander of the Thirteenth Archipelago. We come with heavy hearts and a desperate cause."

The chamber listened in stunned silence.

"Eight months ago, our peaceful planet of Phaidon was attacked without warning by a Dalek force unlike any in recorded history. They masked their warship in the guise of a derelict and infiltrated our skies undetected. Throughout their siege against us, they deployed a weapon - some kind of time sickness - that rendered our incorporeal forms vulnerable. It infected the very air, the very thread of time in our world. Entire archipelagos fell in hours. Cities crumbled. Minds… unravelled."

He paused. The screams of the wounded echoed behind.

"Were it not for three individuals, we would have perished entirely."

The projection shifted slightly, revealing the chaos of the ship behind them. The Time Lords muttered amongst each other.

"The first," Beglis continued. "A Gallifreyan Time Lady named Khandikin. She fought beside us in the tunnels, crafted weapons from broken tech, and saved hundreds with her insight into Gallifreyan temporal mechanics. She was captured and tortured for our sake, but, by some miracle, she survived."

The hologram glitched slightly from the interference.

"The second was a machine called Socket. It was a strange, endearing creation which was loyal beyond any programming. It risked its life to rebuild the infrastructure we needed for escape. And finally… Kevranko."

An eruption of whispers ran through the outer ring of the chamber. Kevran. The archivist. The fool. The rogue. Theojan's eye twitched at the mere mention of the name, his teeth grinding slightly in anticipation of the Warpsmith's following words.

"He was the reason that five thousand Warpsmiths made it off-world. Without him, the Dalek's Entropy Engine would have consumed all of us."

"Kevran!? How could that coward have-" With a deep breath, Theojan refocused himself on the matter at hand. "What exactly is this Entropy Engine you speak of?"

Beglis paused, hearing the question, then nodded. "A device that accelerated time in a sealed field around Phaidon. Our cities withered to dust in moments. Even our incorporeal kin couldn't escape it. Only because of Kevranko's plan did any of our kind survive extraction."

Silence fell on the chamber. Theojan considered this news with heavy weight. On the projection, Beglis straightened his shoulders and spoke words that carried a devastating wave of fear and uncertainty into the hearts of the Time Lords.

"We have come seeking asylum. We are not just refugees. We are a people whose world has been destroyed. And our violent killers are the Daleks. They have shown intent to decimate not just Phaidon, but all time-active species. Gallifrey's day is coming. Whether you offer us sanctuary or not, know that the drums of war are already beating a tune for your people."

The hologram blinked out. A long silence trailed through the room in its absence.

Theojan turned to Livia, voice hushed. "We should verify their claims. I find it highly unlikely a character like Kevran could pull off such a feat. And this Entropy Engine, if real-"

"Is an act of war," Livia finished. "It is a doomsday weapon. One Skaro has already tested on a world."

The members of the new Joint Council whispered behind them. There was a mixture of scepticism, dissent, confusion, and deep-rooted fear. One voice suggested that Beglis was exaggerating. Another argued that war was inevitable regardless. A third began to question Gallifrey's own culpability in stirring the hornet's nest. Livia raised a hand, and silence fell upon the chamber. She turned to Theojan.

"Well? We have to reply to their request."

He nodded slowly. "Let them land. Have the enforcers begin processing. They carry wounded, too. Have the medical wing prepare restoration tanks and psych-stabilisation fields."

"And their request for asylum?"

He hesitated. "Surely as Lady-President, you can-"

"You are the Prime Minister," she blinked slowly, reducing her voice to a whisper. "You wanted power and influence; this is what it looks like. The Warpsmiths will not survive if left to drift out there, but if war is coming, we cannot spare them many resources. So, Prime Minister, do you condemn a species to extinction, or hinder our own war effort? This is your call to make."

He paused for a moment. He didn't know the correct answer. He was in a different headspace, one that prepared him to lead a war, not manage domestic affairs and international relations. After another brief hesitation, he nodded firmly.

"Granted. They may stay on Gallifrey, conditionally. They must provide military intelligence and join up to fight as requested."

Another ripple of whispers emerged from the outer ring. Livia ignored them, and Theojan glared at the Time Lords intently.

"What of Skaro?"

Theojan turned away to think, then met her eyes. "We can't ignore them anymore."

She nodded. "Then prepare the chamber. I will address the people."

Theojan's voice was quiet. "The time has come."

She turned back to the dome, now empty of the projections and images of orbiting ships. "No. This is long overdue."

The Hall of Memory held its breath in anticipation. There was a silence. Not the heavy silence of ceremony, nor the respectful hush of scholars. This was a new silence, never before felt on the surface of Gallifrey. It was a trembling silence, still reeling from what had just been shared, and quivering in preparation for what was still to come.

Across all of Gallifrey, from the furthest sky-barges of the Magnetron Array to the low creaking halls of the Academy, Time Lords sat motionless. Every eye turned to the sky. Every ear was tuned into the planetary broadcast. For the first time in centuries, the Citadel's spires no longer reflected the warm light of peace.

Livia stood atop the high balcony of the Panopticon's outer ring. She had changed out of her usual robes of command in favour of something in stark white. It was a robe reserved for mourning. No orchestra introduced her. No instruments sang out her name in glory. She spoke without prelude, without script, and without certainty.

"This is Lady-President Livia Caralis of the Joint Council of Gallifrey. I speak now not as a politician, nor from the status of a Time Lady, but as a humble daughter of this world we call home."

Across the planet, transmission towers flared with golden energy. Her voice reached the edges of the system, transmitted through the Matrix, and carved into the light itself.

"Eight months ago, the Daleks deployed a hidden fleet to the planet Phaidon. It was a world known for its incorporeal people, the Warpsmiths. They are a time-sensitive species with whom Gallifrey has maintained a cautious distance for a long time. Skaro gave no provocation. No declaration of war was issued. The attack was sudden, total, and cruel."

Siri listened from her cell. She stood at the single window, carved into a coral-like stone wall, her fingers curling around the bars. The silence was the same in her containment. Even the guards were listening. Her lips were tight.

"The Daleks used a weapon we have never seen before. One which collapses the temporal field of a planet inward, accelerating time inside a flux-stabilised bubble. In minutes, Phaidon crumbled to dust. An extinction event measured in seconds."

In her cell, Siri's throat closed. Livia's voice continued, calm but edged with grief.

"There were very few survivors. Five thousand Warpsmiths out of billions, rescued in the final hours by three of our own: an engineer known as Khandi, a machine of Gallifreyan design known as Socket, and…."

Siri's eyes widened as she turned back from the window. Her hearts kicked against her chest with violent force.

"... Kevran of the Panopticon Archive."

The name was a bell in her chest. It rang somewhere deep, tangled in the silence of years.

"Many of you will not know of these individuals. Some may remember them only in passing. They are a librarian, an engineer, and an automaton. Usually, they would be nothing more than a footnote in a system that rarely records compassion. But it was our very own who gave the order to cloak the timeships. According to witness accounts, this Kevran cracked the Dalek signal encryptions to uncover this genocide as it happened. It was he who inspired others to fight for, and rescue, those who could still be saved."

Siri lowered herself onto the bed, slowly. She didn't know she was crying until the tear hit her palm. She hadn't even thought about him being in danger. After everything that had happened, after the Silicon Ghost initiative, and her own arrest, any trace she had of him on any channel completely vanished. She remembered his quiet voice in the Archive, his nervous humour, the strange affection they'd never had the courage to speak aloud to each other. She remembered hoping that he would come back once. He hadn't come back. Now she understood why.

"We have spent too long in deliberation. Too long pretending neutrality is nobility. The Daleks have made their position clear. They no longer aim to challenge us. They aim to erase us. We must respond not in kind, but with courage, with unity."

The screen behind Livia shimmered, and the high symbols of the Twelve Houses illuminated in succession. Then, as the chamber darkened around her, one final sigil emerged: the twin ouroboros of war.

"As of this moment, Gallifrey acknowledges a state of open hostility with the Empire of Skaro."

A collective breath was held across Gallifrey.

"We do not do this lightly. We do not do this for glory. We do it because it must be done. This is not a conquest. This is not ambition. This… is the preservation of time itself."

Even the guards outside Siri's cell were still now. There was no movement. They dared not even breathe.

"We welcome the Warpsmiths of Phaidon as refugees. Their survival is a testament to the courage of those who stood between horror and hope. Gallifrey will stand with them."

The camera drew back slightly, and Livia turned her face upward towards the stars beyond the dome.

"To our allies across time and space: prepare your worlds. The Age of Shadows has ended. A new war has begun."

The transmission cut to black. The Hall of Memory fell into darkness. From within her cell, Siri whispered into the hush, only for herself to hear.

"You idiot… you brilliant, stupid idiot…"

She pressed her hand to her chest and smiled.