Who Universe
The ship was made from solid gold. The floor is gold, the walls are gold, the elegant arched roof of the bridge is gold. Tendrils of gold have pushed their way out of the floor, twisting themselves into elaborate, almost sculptural, pieces of furniture. Technicians are at work fussing over solid-gold control panels.
In the centre of the bridge are three golden thrones, but only the one in the middle seems solid; the other two look vague and insubstantial, like washed out holograms. The right-hand throne is unoccupied which should seat the Other, in the left-hand throne sits Omega while in the central seat is Rassilon himself.
“Thank you Omega. All the ships are in position, I hope?” said Rassilon.
“Everything’s ready. We’re just waiting for the surface activity to calm down. The sun’s still reacting to the probes, it shouldn’t last more than a couple of minutes.”
Outside the ship is a pale-yellow sun hanging in space directly ahead of the ship, bubbling in an agitated fashion. And it’s surrounded by spaceships, corkscrews of perfect gold. The ships are actually quite small and there are several hundred of the vessels arranged around the star.
“Make sure the timing mechanisms are in synch. If any of them fire out of phase, we’re going to have a stellar catastrophe on our hands,” said Rassilon.
"Thank you, Mr Exposition," said Omega sarcastically. "I’m glad you’re here to remind us of these things." Omega’s throne, and himself, flickers out of existence.
“All right. The sun’s stable. The starkillers are ready. We can start whenever you like,” said Omega.
“I feel I should say a few words on this historic occasion –“
“Oh, please don’t.” Rassilon gives Omega a dirty look. “We don’t even know if the process works. And even if it does, everything’s so. . . complicated. Without a decent stellar manipulator, we’re –“
“We can smooth out the wrinkles later. We just need to know whether the process is viable, that’s all.”
“Making a black hole is easy. Making the right kind of black hole –“
“You were the one who didn’t want any speeches. Shall we get on with it, or not?”
Omega nods, then vanishes. Slowly, and with great ceremony, Rassilon stands and says “What we do now we do for the future. For our children. For the sake of Gallifrey, and for time itself.” He pauses, for a moment “Fire.”
Around the sun, there’s the hum of building power from the Gallifreyan ships. Then, from the prow of each of the vessels, there’s a flash of black. Then comes a howling, screaming noise. The sun quivers, seethes and collapses in on itself. Moments later, there’s nothing but a sphere of solid black. Worryingly, the screaming continues.
A great wave of relief seems to sweep across Rassilon. He collapses back into his throne.
“Well?” asks Rassilon.
Omega’s throne reappears. “We’ve done it.”
“The hole. . . ?”
“Right through the continual strata. We’re going to be the first ones to see what’s on the other side, you know that? If we can get the probe through in one piece.”
Rassilon says to himself, "All the power of the outer planes. . ."
Omega says “Don’t get too excited, will you? We’ve still got a lot of work to do before we can. . . Wait.” Omega vanishes again, then reappears a few moments later. “Something’s wrong.”
“It’s unstable. Tell the rest of the ships to –“
“No. No, it’s not unstable. There’s. . . “ A look of sheer disbelief crosses his face. “. . . life-signs.”
“What?”
The ships still surround the black sun, as if watching for movement. And there is movement. There are shapes in the darkness, pushing against the surface of the sphere. Distorted features. Crippled limbs. The screeching sound continues, almost drowning out the words of the two men on the bridge. The surface of the black sun bulging ominously.
Rassilon asks “What are they doing?”
Suddenly the black sun bursts open. Things flood out of the sphere. Vast, black shapes, their silhouettes barely visible against the dark background. Great leathery wings flap between the Gallifreyan vessels, sinewy limbs wrapping themselves around the prows of the closest ships. The scream seems to fill up the universe, the howl of something that’s been trapped since the beginning of time. One of the ships, and on the thing that’s attached itself to the vessel’s infrastructure. There is a huge batlike head, raising itself on a scrawny neck and howling into space.
Rassilon is standing, staring through the screen as the flapping things swarm out of the black sun. There are thousands of them, literally thousands, all of them rendered. One of the things attack a nearby Gallifreyan ship, sinking its teeth into the hull and ripping the vessel open.
“You don’t understand!” says Omega.
Rassilon turns to face him.
“The readings we’re getting. . . they’re huge. The things on the other side of the hole. . . even bigger. . .” says Omega.
Rassilon turns back to the viewing screen. A particularly large creature pulling itself out of the hole, flexing wings as large as cities.
Rassilon says “There! That’s the swarm leader. If we kill that –“
Across the universe the stars winking out of existence, collapsing in on themselves, becoming spheres of pure black.
The screaming becomes louder with every implosion.
“We’ve made a dent in the continuum. It’s causing a chain reaction. Stars, planets –“ says Omega.
“How wide is the area of effect?”
“Does it make a difference? It’s the end, Rassilon. We can’t –“
Rassilon loses his temper “How wide?”
“I don’t know! It could be the whole galaxy, or –“
Suddenly, something huge and black fills the viewing screen. The claw-hand of one of the things from the black hole scrapes against the ship trying to tear its way into the ship. The bridge rocks.
Rassilon yells “We’re under attack!”
More specks of black drift from the holes in the other stars. More of the creatures, flocking across the galaxy.
Rassilon’s entranced by the image. “War.”
From outside the ship, there’s an inhuman scream, the roar of the thing that’s wrapped around the prow.
“We’ve started a war.” says Rassilon.
***
So Rassilon slayed the Great Vampire and he banished him to eternal darkness. Rassilon thought of that as being outside of the universe of men, but vampirekind took him at his word.
"It was all a trick!" bellowed the Great Vampire, as he fell out of space and time.
He was very angry with Rassilon, because he thought that they had become friends. But Rassilon had fooled him, because the Great Vampire was very self-important, and it is not hard to fool those who are self important.
Omega and The Other both laughed to see the expression on the Great Vampire's face as he fell. They knew that Gallifrey would live in sunlight forever. So Omega made a new sun, which he put in a system that already had one. The planets of that system would now only ever have very short nights, and no vampire could ever live there for long.
***
Both Rassilon and the hologram of Omega stand before the viewing screen, observing the progress of the battle.
Omega states “We started it, you know.”
“So you keep reminding me. How far away are they now?” says Rassilon.
“A couple of light years. Maybe less. They won’t get this far, though. There are only a thousand or so left. We’ve got enough bowships to hold them off.”
“‘Bowships’. Whose idea was that, anyway?”
“Yours, officially. Seen enough?”
Rassilon nods. The screen flickers, the image of the battle replaced by the scene directly outside the ship. There is another black sun, surrounded by Gallifreyan science vessels. This sun is smaller than the first, perhaps the size of a typical MG-type planet.
Omega states “There it is. Do you want to do the honours, or shall I?”
“Just get on with it.”
The formation of the ships around the black sun. There’s the hum of building power again, the ships preparing to activate their ‘weapons’. Then there’s a flash of darkness. The black sun quivers, as if about to explode. Rassilon and Omega watch the black sun through the screen. The surface of the object is still dark, but now it’s perfectly smooth, and apparently made of normal matter. Across the bridge, there is a sigh of relief from the technicians.
“There. That’s the last one plugged. We’ve cut off their way in. says Omega.
“And their way out. We haven’t found the swarm leader yet. Don’t forget that.”
“It’s not the swarm leader we’ve got to worry about.”
“Meaning?”
“The things on the other side of the hole. The things those monsters get their orders from. Whatever they are, they’re intelligent.”
“Then we’d better hope your containment shells work, hadn’t we?”
Omega states defensively “They’ll work. In a couple of thousand years, you won’t be able to tell that from any other planet. The only risk is if someone blows it up. Those things have still got followers in this universe, remember. Half the Council still thinks they infected you.”
Rassilon rubs his neck. He looks uncomfortable.
“I prefer to think of myself as ‘inoculated’. And we’ll just have to look after this planet’s wellbeing, won’t we? The same goes for all the other shells. We’ll make sure we keep monitors here. Get some of our agents to keep an eye on things.” With that, he turns, and moves back towards his throne. “Now. We should get back to Gallifrey. We’ve still got that manipulator of yours to work on. We’ll try a supernova next time. Should be easier to predict the consequences.”
“You still want to go ahead? After all this?”
“We don’t have a choice. We have a responsibility to the future. What we do, we do for –“
“I’ve heard the speech, thank you.”
Rassilon sits in his throne. Omega stares at the ‘planet’ on the other side of the viewing screen and to himself, Let’s just hope nobody ever tries drilling through to the core, either. After the war, Rassilon writes the Record of Rassilon, giving a history of the war and instructions to all Time Lords to kill the King Vampire if ever they came across him.
***
Rassilon made his decision, Magick would be abolished. The Pythia had used it and so did the Vampires. The Gallifreyans would use science even if white Magick was useful. Rassilon felt that if you used the white Magick people would start to use the black Magick. So for now on Gallifrey was a science only planet.
***
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