Chapter Text
“All you’re doing is giving her hope.”
“Since when is hope a bad thing?”
“Hope is a terrible thing – on the scaffold.”
Imparting the High Priestess with a final, piercing glare, the Doctor disappeared into the TARDIS, slamming the door behind him with an insolent whirr. Ohila shook her head in disdain as the winds whipped up by the dematerialising silver cylinder flapped at her scarlet robes and scattered the infernal mist that enveloped the Cloisters of Gallifrey.
“Where can he run?” said the General beside her. The Time Lady’s expression was etched in stone.
“Where he always runs,” Ohila replied grimly. “Away. Just away.”
They fell silent, lingering at the perimeter of the Capitol’s haunted undercroft. The pale blue light penetrating the forest of stone columns cast long shadows, disturbed only by the Wraiths’ silhouettes as they flitted between ancient metal struts and makeshift gargoyles, the odd shriek punctuating their ceaseless whispers.
“Ma’am,” came the voice of Gastron through the General’s communicator. “What do you want to do next?”
She sighed. “Call off the cordon. Then meet us at lift shaft seven.”
“The President, he’s really gone?” Even filtered through the comms, the young man sounded crestfallen.
“Yes, soldier. I’m afraid so.” The General disengaged the device on her wrist and turned to Ohila. “Staging a coup, then renouncing his duty for a girl,” she hissed. “He’s a reckless, sentimental fool.”
“He’s a child,” corrected Ohila. “Miss Oswald was right. The gravest mistake any of us can make is to expect the Doctor to react maturely. One will only find themselves disappointed.”
“Immature, yes, but I never thought him stupid. He’s jeopardised us all.”
She offered a thin smile in response. “Then we must act accordingly.”
“Technically, the outgoing president nominates his successor,” mused the General, her fingers laced together in thought. “In the absence of such a declaration, the mantle falls to the highest available authority.”
“Gallifrey doesn’t need executive authority,” Ohila snapped. “It needs to be kicked halfway ‘round the universe.” She paused, the semblance of a smirk forming on her lips. “But… considering the entirety of the High Council is either banished or becoming acquainted with the planet’s sewers, I believe that makes you heir apparent, General. Or should I say Lady President?”
They had retired to the Presidential chamber. The two women were the sole remaining occupants around the room’s ornate table, attended by Ohila’s two companions from the Sisterhood and Gastron, who hovered awkwardly behind his superior, unsure of whether he should be privy to their conversation.
The General shifted in her ceremonial armour, which was built for a body of wider girth. “Acting President. We’ll hold an election as soon as it’s feasible.”
“Ah yes, that pompous bureaucratic nonsense you like to think of as democracy.” Ohila turned her head from the window, the copper hues of the night sky framing her profile. “I admire her, you know.”
“Who?”
“Miss Oswald. So succinctly voicing her contempt for Time Lord hubris.”
“Clara Oswald is precisely the problem,” said the General. “If the Doctor is set on reversing her death—”
“I am not under the illusion he’ll get that far,” Ohila interrupted. “As you say, the Doctor isn’t stupid. Or at the very least, he isn’t beyond being saved from his own stupidity.”
“You give him too much credit.”
“And you give her too little,” retorted the High Priestess. “One can run from an enemy all he likes, but never underestimate a friend.”
The General’s hand wandered to the golden seal adorning her chest plate, tarnished by the energy pulse of her own gun. “Are we his enemy?” she said quietly.
“As long as we stand in his way, we might as well be.”
Gastron, having stepped aside to receive a transmission, leaned over and murmured something in the General’s ear. Her face fell.
“Good news, I hope?” said Ohila.
“According to our engineers, the TARDIS was ‘procured’ from the workshop while its security protocols had been disabled for repairs,” the General answered in a clipped voice. “Which means we cannot monitor its whereabouts nor remotely suspend its connection to the Eye of Harmony.”
“Naturally,” said Ohila. “The Doctor would have chosen with care. He has experience in such matters, after all.”
“The situation is growing ever more precarious,” the General said. “Must we sit here twiddling our thumbs in the hope he sees sense and returns with the girl?”
“May I remind you that you are at a considerable disadvantage, my dear General. The Time War has ravaged Gallifrey; Rassilon even more so. The Celestial Intervention Agency is no more, and you remain in self-imposed exile. Don’t tell me you have the resources for a universe-wide manhunt.”
“Prolonging an extraction is exceedingly dangerous, Madam Ohila. Such that we can’t even conceive of the repercussions.”
“I’m aware, thank you. I am merely urging a measure of pragmatism – and trust.”
“General!” A voice rang through the chamber, shortly followed by the irruption of a stout woman in a pristine white uniform. Curls of black hair had escaped from beneath her skullcap. “The neural block,” she panted. “It’s been activated.”
The General briefly met Ohila’s twinkling eyes.
“So he wiped the young lady’s memory?” she asked the breathless technician.
The technician flushed. “Not exactly, Ma’am. We have reason to believe the device was tampered with.”
She frowned. “How?”
“Remote feedback is limited, but the data suggests its settings were inverted. They could have been reconfigured with a sonic probe.”
“Sunglasses,” Ohila interjected. Gastron let out a loud snort before attempting to mask it with a cough – poorly.
“When was it used?” asked the General, maintaining an air of saint-like patience.
“I think the more pertinent question is on whom?” said Ohila.
The General threw her an incredulous look. “You don’t mean to suggest Miss Oswald—?”
“Purged herself from the Doctor’s mind and is henceforth commandeering a stolen timeship you have no effective means of tracking? You should know I find speculation as distasteful as it is impractical.”
Keenly aware of the technician's curious gaze, the General thanked and dismissed her. She returned her attention to Ohila. “You jest, but if you’re right, we can’t rely on the Doctor’s goodwill to resolve this. We’re facing an unprecedented temporal violation.”
“The tapestry’s undoing begins with the pull of a single thread,” agreed Ohila. “Rassilon has set quite the series of events in motion, it seems.”
“His paranoia has cost us everything.”
“Prophecies thrive on irony. Those who seek to prevent catastrophe on the word of an oracle often end up precipitating it.” Ohila stroked her chin. “What do you know of the girl?”
“Not much. The Doctor has had many accomplices, most of them human females; she is simply one of the more recent. It’s my understanding she was present on the last day of the War, though as little more than a bystander. Not unintelligent, but hardly exceptional. Without the Doctor she’ll be lost, surely?”
“Hmm. It was also she who answered you on Trenzalore, as I recall.”
The General nodded slowly. “That’s correct.”
“And you heeded her.”
“Well, yes... We did.”
Ohila smiled sweetly. “I told you, underestimate the Doctor’s friends at your own peril. Not least one who can compel him to abandon his principles.”
Sighing, the General gazed at the intricate tracery weaving its way across the table’s surface. “You weren’t wrong,” she said. “Gallifrey is weakened. But we can’t afford to do nothing.”
She was still for a long time, then finally muttered, “I see no other recourse.” Gesturing to Gastron, the Time Lady said, with no shortage of reluctance, “Prepare a shuttle… We’re bound for High Remorse.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” The soldier saluted, but he failed to hide the fear in his eyes. He swiftly made his exit, his heavy boots clattering on the dark floor.
“General, I implore you!” Ohila rose from her chair. “Desperation is no reason to take leave of your senses! Hasn’t today served as proof enough of that? You know what that creature is capable of.”
“I do,” the General solemnly replied. She, too, had stood and was striding towards the doorway. “Which is why this may be our only hope.”
“You are asking a scorpion to extract venom from a wound,” Ohila warned. “Do not be surprised when it turns and stings you.”
The General cast a parting glance at her. “No. I’m enlisting a professional.” Her face had hardened, but her voice was leaden with regret as she departed down the corridor.
Left alone with her demure sisters, Ohila went to the chamber’s window and stared out across the bronze spires to the arid drylands beyond. The horizon bled crimson with the rising suns.
“I pity the poor girl,” she whispered. “Oh, verily, I pity her."
Clara and Me’s adventures continue next time in
Written by Laine Ferio
Illustrated by Redundantz
“Memory Stations are known across the galaxy as places where one’s memories, whether analogue, digital, or synaptic, can be stored, retrieved, shared, deleted, re-experienced, re-mixed.”
It’s an urban legend that the Alpha Quadrant’s Memory Station is haunted, but Captain Waldron, space pirate extraordinaire, wasn’t expecting the most vulnerable member of her crew to vanish shortly after they boarded it, nor did she plan for the strange creatures roaming its corridors.
Then there’s the bizarre matter of the American diner in the cargo bay, and the undead woman inside, offering her help to organise a rescue mission that will lead them through layers of time and thoughts.
They’re all going to take a trip down memory lane, but what the past hides isn’t always pleasant…
“I’ll call Basil in,” Roop said, kissing Oz on the cheek. “As for Hannigan, if the haul’s good, we’re good. Usually.”
“We’ll be careful.”
“We usually are,” he answered. “You know, I’ve still got title to that little place out in University Heights, just outside New Malala. Right near where we proposed. The one in the woods with the brick fireplace, and the treehouse out back. It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, but—”
“The fireplace and the treehouse are its most appealing features?” Oz teased.
Roop rubbed his cheek bashfully, his eyes soft. “Just know that offer to settle down somewhere quiet…”
“Is still on the table, I know. Someday we’ll retire, Roop. Just... not yet.”
He grinned. “As I expected. Anyway, I’ll collect our kid.” He stepped to the side to call Basil’s comm.
Oz’s comm buzzed again. This time it was Chuck, his voice frantic: “We were loading the rest of the cargo, and this... barrier came down between the Diamond Hill and the rest of the docking bay. Ana and Kat are on the ship, but Em and I can’t get through to it. Captain, what do we do? What do we do?”
“Take a deep breath, Chuck, and both of you get back here,” Oz said. The station was old and abandoned – it had been too good of a thing, the place not having malfunctioned in some way before now. She turned to Roop. “Where’s Basil?”
“Oz, Basil’s not answering,” Roop said, his voice a little shaky. “He must still be out in the station somewhere, maybe in a quiet zone or something.”
The uncertainty of the ‘something’ filled Oz with dread.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do—”
But she was interrupted by a sudden gust of wind and the sound of something mechanical wheezing – an unexpected, almost forgotten sound that pulled her younger self to mind – accompanied by an inexplicable feeling of hopefulness. She spun on her heel and saw…
A diner? Great, now she was seeing things.