PROLOGUE

The sky was illuminated with a million exploding starfighters; orange streaks as the oxygen burned up in the cold vacuum of space.

"I guess this is it then, eh?"

The Doctor turned towards his companion. "I suppose so," he said, his Scottish burr showing through. "The final end."

"Don't say that, Doctor," Bernice Summerfield said, turning away from the carnage in the sky.

"Oh? Why not?" the Doctor asked, resting his chin on his umbrella. He'd discarded that awful question mark pullover, Benny noted absently. He was even wearing his dark jacket. It was almost as if the foreknowledge of the events he would be witnessing had forced him to adopt a more sombre outfit.

"I don't know," Benny said, at a loss for words.

"It is the final end you know. That madman Prospero leading one final suicidal attack on the forces of the Cybermen."

"He saves Earth," Benny said. "How can history remember him as a madman?"

'He committed genocide, Dr Summerfield," the Doctor said. "His own planet, poisoned with iocaine. Twenty million people, twenty million. No matter what his accomplishments as a military general, no matter that he saved the ten billion people on Earth from Cyber-conversion. History is very unforgiving when it comes to people like Prospero."

Benny turned back to face the fire fight one last time. Even here from her vantage point on Ganymede, she could make out the Nebula class warships, headed by Prospero's own vessel; the Newcastle, and the dull grey of the cyberships.

The Newcastle was hit, and beginning its final suicidal act: Ramming the lead cybership.

Benny turned away again.

The Doctor watched for a few more seconds, then closed his eyes, as if he was sensing the deaths of all those aboard. "Come on," he said gravely. "It's time we were going."

***

PART ONE: REQUIEM

"Doctor," I said, "Doctor?"

He was standing by the window, the soft light framing his form. He was ignoring me.

"Doctor," I said, more firmly. I gripped his shoulder, which did the trick, snapping him from his reverie.

"Robbie?"

"Yeah, Doc, it's me, Robbie. Are you alright?"

"Just... thinking," the Doctor said. "I have to go back to Gallifrey. I may not want to... there's things there that I don't wish to confront. Romana's departure for one."

"But you can't leave us here on Ganymede," I said. "Take us with you. Take me at least. Doctor, you need friends right now, what with your people going all commando. You can't afford to take any chances!"

"You're right, Robbie, I can't take any chances. And that's why you and Nyssa have to stay here. Gallifrey would be too dangerous for you. If what I think has happened has happened, then it may not be safe for an alien." He paused. "It may not be safe even for me..."

"I can look after myself. I faced up to McEnroe, remember?"

"I know you can look after yourself," the Doctor said. He looked at me and smiled. "You're coping very well with your new-found abilities. But I need you to look after Nyssa."

I turned myself and looked out of the window. Ganymede, unlike Mars, was a beautiful land. Hundreds of years of Terraforming had transformed it into a land that was not only habitable, but somewhere you might actually want to live. "Well, me protecting Nyssa? That's pretty much a given. You know I would never let anything or anyone hurt her." Absently, I felt the hard case in my pocket. In our line of lifestyle, there might not be any good time to give it to her, I thought.

"I know that Robbie. But please, do this one thing for me. If all goes according to plan, I'll come back immediately."

I sensed the earnestness in his voice. As much as it pained me to let the Doctor go off into danger by himself, I didn't have a choice. "You'd better come back," I said to him, half-seriously, half-mockingly.

The Doctor just smiled and crossed the hotel room to his TARDIS. Nyssa was in the bath in the next room.

"Aren't you going to say goodbye to Nyssa?" I asked.

The Doctor had opened the door to the TARDIS and was halfway inside. He stopped and looked at me. There was sadness in his eyes, almost as if he knew he wouldn't be coming back. "No, no, I think it would be best if I just left."

Finding myself choked with tears, I nodded. The Doctor closed the door and the TARDIS faded away from view.

Composing myself, wiping away the hot trickles that were running down my cheeks, I walked into the bathroom. Nyssa was submerged up to her neck in steaming water.

"He's gone isn't he?" she asked simply.

I sat down on the side of the bath, dipping my fingertips into the hot water. "Yes."

Nyssa's hand came out of the water and embraced my own. Her skin was hot. I knelt down beside her, brushing my lips against her forehead. I tried to think of something to say, but everything seemed inadequate, so I let the silence speak for itself.

***

"So what's on offer on Ganymede in the thirty-first century," I asked, trying to be flippant.

Nyssa was following along, her hand in mine, dragging her feet in the sandy surface of Jupiter's moon. The gas giant itself dominated the skyline, protruding over the horizon like a distant mountain range.

Nyssa was silent. I slowed down so she caught up to me and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into me.

"What?" I asked light-heartedly, "no funky date spots? No 3-D cinema?"

Ganymede, even a thousand years after I left Earth, is still sparsely populated, only twenty million people. There was, according to the TARDIS databank, a surge in the population around the mid twenty-fourth century, but after the Cyberwars, most of the people went back to Earth, or Mars, or went off into the galaxy. Still, I thought, twenty million people is a canny lot. We were in the capital city of Ganymede, Moorland. The spaceport, all gleaming chrome against the light of the distant sun, is to the north. Every so often shuttles going up to Gateway, Ganymede's geostationary satellite, flare against the sky.

I kissed Nyssa's hair, rubbing my nose against her. "What's the matter, kid?"

She stopped, a small cloud of dust forming around our feet. "It's the Doctor, Robbie, I've never seen him like this."

I spotted a coffee shop across the road and led Nyssa inside. We sat down and the automated machine popped up out of the table.

"Wha-wha-what can I g-g-g-g-get you?" it asked in it's jumpy mechanical voice.

I looked at Nyssa. "One coffee and a strawberry milkshake," I said. The machine sank back into the table and a few seconds later, a steaming cup of black coffee and a tall glass of strawberry milkshake rose up out of the same place. I pulled my credit card out and slid it into the slot.

Handing the milkshake to Nyssa, I looked at her.

"Go on," I said, when I noticed her uncertainty concerning the drink. "You'll like it."

She took a hesitant suck of the straw. Then a smile appeared on her face. "Thanks, Robbie," she said. "But the Doctor, you never saw him just after he regenerated. He was funny, nice, charming even. Now he's... I don't know, he's gone dark, like his soul has been tainted or something."

"By me," I said without thinking.

"What? No, of course not Robbie."

"It's alright, Nys, I know. From all the stories you've told me, it's like they're about a different person. It seems like ever since I joined you two he's... I don't know, it seems like he's regressed into this brooding man. But," I said, offering a different tack, "the TARDIS databank says that it sometimes takes a while for traumatic regeneration's to settle down." In the back of my mind was General McEnroe slumped over a desk, his features reshaping themselves before my very eyes. Regeneration was freaky. But the fact I had been in his mind when he was starting to regenerate... even his cry afterwards that I'd taken a piece of him with me, that made it even more freaky.

"Perhaps," Nyssa said. "His fall from the radio telescope was traumatic, I should think. I know his regeneration almost didn't succeed."

"There you have it," I said. "Come on, drink up. We're going to find a cinema."

***

The Doctor felt the TARDIS touch down. Then, all power went. He smiled to himself; he'd been expecting this. Staying calm, he went over to the chest by the door and felt around inside for the manual door handle. He found it, inserted it into the hole and twisted. The doors started to crack open, light from the capitol on Gallifrey streaming in. When they were open far enough, he stepped out.

And found himself facing the Chancellery Guard, all of whom had their weapons drawn and aimed at him.

"Should I have knocked first?" he asked nervously.

"You should have done more than that. Doctor," said the captain. The Doctor recognised him as Andred, Leela's husband.

"Andred," the Doctor pleaded.

Andred, however, wasn't listening. Two burly guards pushed their way past him and entered the TARDIS. The Doctor watched as they removed the space-time element. The lights in the console room began to die.

"You're killing my ship!" the Doctor cried.

Andred took the space-time element and looked at it. The viscous red liquid inside - the lifeblood of the Type 40 - slopped about inside the cylinder. Then Andred crushed it. The Doctor screamed. His TARDIS was dead.

The liquid dribbled out from between Andred's fingers, splashing on the floor like blood.

The Doctor fell to the floor, his fingers running through the liquid. It stuck to his fingers. In his mind he could feel the TARDIS screaming in its death throes. A Time Lord and his TARDIS had never had such a strong bond. Being connected on such an intimate level for almost five hundred years and bound them together in a way no one else could understand.

Now she was dead and he felt a gaping chasm open in his mind. He began crying.

"Pick him up," Andred said gruffly. He'd lost all the wet-behind-the-ears approach to his life that he'd been imbued with when the Doctor had first met him. He'd gained some wrinkles and a few grey hairs.

Had it really been so long since he was last on Gallifrey? Before Romana...So much had changed since then. He and Romana had travelled together for so long, it had almost seemed that they were the only Time Lords in the universe. Or had it?

As the two burly guards lifted him up, he didn't feel a thing from them. True, his telepathic powers weren't what they used to be, but, he pondered, I should still be able to sense Time Lord minds. He couldn't sense anything.

There were no Time Lords.

***

"Cybermen?" Nyssa asked.

I looked across at her. Then I looked back at the cashier in the box office. "I don't think we want to go and see a movie about Cybermen," I told her.

"As you wish sir, but that's all that's playing."

I looked up at the marquee. "CYBERWAR V" it proclaimed. The posters, holographic ones with Cybermen leering out, guns at the ready, were dotted about the foyer. "The Biggest Movie EVER" "Four Years In The Making'. The posters made insane claims. I knew Nyssa wouldn't want to go and see a movie about Cybermen, not after what happened with Adric. I wasn't too keen on seeing it myself; the Cybermen creeped me out.

"Come on," I said, taking Nyssa's hand and leading her out of the foyer. "We'll go and fine something that's more us, huh?"

Nyssa smiled and rested her head on my shoulder as we walked.

***

The sea was tinted with the pinkness of the sky. I would have thought that because Ganymede itself was a moon, there would be no tides. But, because of Jupiter's massive gravitational pull, the tides were even stronger.

We were on a floating raft, which at the moment was resting on the sheer white sand. When then tide came in, which the lifeguard on his hover unit had told us would be shortly, we would float on it. I had asked whether it was really necessary. The lifeguard had said the water came in fifty kilometres and the spot we were sitting on now would be a few hundred metres below the surface.

"That explains the long tube journey to get here," I said.

Nyssa was lying on the raft, soaking up the light of Ganymede's artificial sun. "Mmm," she said.

"Hey, I'm trying to get logical here," I said, prodding her in her flat stomach. She giggled.

"Sorry Robbie," she said, running a hand up my chest, making me lie down next to her. She kissed me. "I'm just enjoying the blissful silence."

Yeah, I thought. Blissful silence. I wondered where the Doctor was and if he was okay. He had a habit of just walking in to trouble no matter what he was doing.

The water was beginning to wash around the raft. The lifeguard had been right, it was coming in quickly. After a minute or so, the raft was lifted off the beach by the water and the safety barriers on the edge of the raft came up, protecting us from falling in. There was a small ladder leading down into the water if you fancied a swim.

"Nyssa," I said, reaching into my pocket. "I love you, you know that don't you?"

"Of course," she said, propping herself up on one elbow. "What's the matter?"

I bit my lip. She knew something was up. I took a deep breath and popped open the box. Inside was a diamond ring I'd picked up in New York in 1963. "Will you marry me?"

***

The Doctor sat biting at his fingernails. He'd been sitting outside the President's office for over an hour. He could feel the faint voices of the councillors inside. Debating his future.

He felt a black mood engulf him.

His TARDIS was dead.

Robbie and Nyssa were stranded on Ganymede in the thirty first century.

And something had happened that had robbed the Time Lords of their regenerative abilities.

The doors opened and Andred emerged, helmet held in a hand which was still stained by the fluid from the space-time element. His face was downcast. Grim. He looked at the Doctor.

"They're ready to see you, Doctor."

The Doctor, overcome by nervousness, jumped to his feet and strode into the council chambers.

"I demand to know what is going on!" the Doctor shouted, anger suffusing his very being.

He looked up the table and stopped in his tracks.

"Romana?" he asked.

The Lord President Of Gallifrey stood up, her robes flowing out behind her. "I wish I could say it was a pleasure seeing you again, Doctor."

***

"K9 built a new TARDIS after we had liberated the Tharils," Romana said. They were walking through the Capitol. The streets during the Doctor's rebellious youth on Gallifrey had been bustling with activity. Now they were empty.

The walls were dingy and crumbling, Shobogan graffiti emblazoned over stretches.

"You've let the shobogans into the Capitol?" the Doctor asked.

"I saved the universe, well, E-Space a few times. Then I came home... I finally faced up to my duty. When I got back I found Borusa dead... the Capitol in a state of disarray... It was the Ruin, Doctor."

"The Ruin?" The Doctor's mind flashed back to his two recent encounters with the Ruin. The first time they had been recruiting humans with a seaside amusement park. Robbie had been caught and brainwashed, something which had awakened his telepathic abilities. Then, Robbie had been captured and had had five years or so worth of real-time memories dumped into his brain. The Doctor wondered how he had coped. Five years was nothing for a Time Lord. But for a human, especially one from Robbie's time, and for someone of his age, it was a significant chunk of his life.

"I thought the Ruin couldn't cope with the telepathic abilities of a Time Lord," the Doctor said.

"So did Borusa," Romana replied. "They infiltrated the Capitol with the Shobogans. Killed off most of our people."

"And the Looms?"

"Destroyed," Romana said, barely able to keep the anger out of her voice. "If you'd been here you might have been able to save us. Isn't that what you do?"

This wasn't the Romana the Doctor remembered. Gone was the whimsical flippancy. It had been replaced by a grim set in her jaw. Her eyes which had once sparkled with youth and vitality were now nothing more than dark windows on a destroyed soul.

"What about our ability to regenerate?" the Doctor asked.

"You still have yours, I still have mine, in a very limited capacity. Koschei, the Rani... Drax. The renegades, they still have their regenerative capability. The Ruin released a retrovirus into the air."

The Doctor looked around nervously.

"You needn't worry, Doctor. It has dispersed now. But not before it infected every single person. I arrived just as the virus was burning itself out. Our scientists claim that I may be able to regenerate if I have mechanical assistance."

Realisation suddenly dawned on the Doctor. "That's why you killed my TARDIS, isn't it? You don't want me to leave."

"Doctor, you're our best hope. Without you, the race of Time Lords will die out in the next thousand years."

The Doctor looked up at the rook of the citadel, a building he'd hoped he'd never see again. He was stuck on Gallifrey.

"What do I have to do?" he asked.

***

"Tracking the Cybership." The coldly mechanical voice of Alexis sounded flat in the cramped space of the observation platform.

"Do you have an ETA?" Brodie's voice was awash with static over the more than fallible link and the picture was barely recognisable. Jupiter's gravity well made communications a bitch to sort out.

Alexis twiddled with the knob. It failed to improve the signal. Out of frustration, he smacked his flat, open palm against the monitor. The picture cleared.

"I told you, you idiot, don't assault the equipment," Brodie said over the now clear link. There were still some imaging echoes on the screen, but that was only to be expected. There was nothing he could do to fix that.

"The picture's fine now, isn't it?" Alexis said irritably.

"Forget it," Brodie said. He was clearly annoyed. "Just give me an ETA on the Cybership."

"Seventy-two hours."

"And the Newcastle?"

"Nearly operational. Forty-eight to sixty hours. Or so the engineer tells me. So you can expect it in about twenty-four to thirty-two hours."

"Good," Brodie said. "Cutting the link."

Alexis killed the link. All the lighting in the platform went down to reserve energy. The brightest thing was the vanguard of a Cyber invasion fleet, now an anonymous blip on the computer screen.

***

Brodie, leader of the Free Ganymede resistance cell, cut the link with an angry flick of the switch.

Elliot, who'd always thought of himself as Brodie's right hand man, disconnected the unit. "Tea?" he asked.

The look Brodie gave him told him that he didn't want anything. The Commander of the Free Ganymede cell sat down heavily in his chair, no doubt feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Seventy two hours," he said, muttering under his breath.

"Sorry sir?" Elliot asked.

"Seventy two hours," Brodie repeated, "until the Cybermen get here."

"That would place them just outside the Proxima Mining Systems," Elliot said, almost absently. "I wonder if the Marine Corps have been notified."

"You still see the ship's orbiting us, don't you?"

Elliot, cowed, made a hasty exit from the room.

"The Marine Corps won't realise what's happening until the Cybership is past Pluto. By then it'll be too late," Brodie said mostly to himself.

Ten years ago, he wouldn't have been able to contemplate such a course of action. Ten years ago he'd been merely another idealistic student campaigning for the rights to get the humans off Mars, a cause that had been going since the Ice Lords had first retaliated against the human colonisation. The majority of the Martians had left soon after, but there were those among the human population who sympathised with them.

That was before Io had declared it's independence from the Earth Empire. Before the governors got ideas.

The Empire had quelled the revolution on Io with seventeen tactical nukes. The planet was conquered at the cost of thirty million lives. It was covered up though. After the initial broadcast by the recently inaugurated President of Io, the Empire had jammed all communications in and out of Io. The military then claimed that a normal procedure surgical strike upon the insurrectionist's headquarters had accidentally caused one of Io's fault lines to crack open, resulting in a collective volcanic eruption which buried the three main cities on the moon.

Brodie knew differently. He had friends on Io and they had managed to send out primitive snail mail packages in one man modules.

He knew that the Empire had crushed the resistance and anyone who'd gone along with it.

And it hadn't escaped Brodie's attention that three months after Io's destruction, Marine space ships had begun to conduct "routine" manoeuvres in Ganymede's sector. Those routine manoeuvres had been going on for ten years now.

Brodie stood up and walked over to the door.

It would all end in seventy two hours.

***

PART TWO: SLIPSTREAM

We'd gone walking to the spaceport. Nyssa was still a little despondent, no doubt concerned as to what the Doctor was up to on Gallifrey.

"They don't let aliens in the capitol," she said.

"Time Lords kinda a reclusive race," I said. "Well, if you had mastery over time and space, wouldn't you be?"

Nyssa shrugged. She'd looked at the engagement ring with a kind of abject horror and hadn't said anything about it; just gone off walking. Now she seemed to be even more distant.

***

"As far as we know," Brodie said, looking at the small assembled leaders of the resistance, "the only thing that is effective against a Cyberman are psi-powers. Now, we've recruited eighty percent of those telepaths on Ganymede, purely as a precaution. We all know how the military likes to demonstrate its effectiveness with idealistic, futile gestures."

Coburn, the leader of the Dartharn cell to the North, spoke up. "So what you're saying is that there's a good chance that the Cybermen will wipe out the military ships and invade us."

"Yes," Brodie said reluctantly.

Coburn's fist slammed into the glass table. A thin spider's web of cracks appeared on the surface. Brodie met Coburn's eyes with no fear. "If they invade us," he said, "we won't have a snowball's chance in hell!"

Brodie remained calm. "That is why we have the Newcastle docked in parking orbit over Europa, hidden from the military's sensors. We load of telepaths onto that ship and drive the Cybermen back to the edge of space."

Coburn didn't look too convinced.

At that moment, Elliot burst through the door, breathless. Sweat was dripping down the side of his face. His eyes looked hollow.

"What is it?" Brodie asked, irritably.

"The telepaths sir, they picked up this," Elliot dashed over to his commanding officer and handed him a crumpled computer transcript.

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," Brodie read. He looked up at Elliot, "What the hell is this?"

"A primitive mind-control technique sir, that the more powerful telepaths use. You fill your head with rubbish to stop everyone else's thoughts getting in," Elliot said, still trying to catch his breath. He'd obviously ran all the way up to the briefing room from the safe-room where all the telepaths were being held until they could safely be shipped to the Newcastle.

"So? What's so special about all this?" Brodie asked, tossing the paper on to the table.

"The intensity sir, even the weakest telepaths claim it's like a shouting in their minds. This telepath... he's stronger, much stronger, than any telepath ever known to man."

"And why wasn't he registered?" Coburn asked. His face was still red with anger, Brodie noticed. Apparently he didn't place much faith in either the Earth military or the Newcastle.

"That's just it, all the telepaths that are strong enough to need to do this sort of thing, they say he's new. And I ran that scrap of dialogue through the archive computer and it came up as a song from over a millennium ago."

Brodie's eyebrows rose significantly. A thought struck him. "A Time Lord?"

Coburn scoffed. "There are no such things as Time Lords, you've been reading too much pseudo-science, Brodie."

Brodie ignored him. He turned to Elliot. "I want this man found and brought here. If he's as powerful as the telepaths claim, then we need him on the Newcastle."

***

"I will marry you," Nyssa said suddenly, catching me off guard.

We were standing at the top of the tallest building in Moorland. All around us we could see the pink-tinted city stretching off into the distance, or the sea, seemingly coming in faster than seemed possible.

"Huh?"

"I will marry you," Nyssa repeated.

I swallowed hard. "Are you sure?" But I knew she was, I could sense it coming off her in waves.

"Yes," she said and I took the ring out of my pocket and slid it on her finger. Then we kissed.

Suddenly, voices broke through the blissful silence.

"THERE HE IS?"

Travelling with the Doctor gives you something approaching a persecution complex, so when we heard the voices, both me and Nyssa snapped round to where there were coming from.

Sure enough, three black clad guards were heading towards us. I reached out with my mind, trying to stop them. As soon as my defences were down a dozen voices seemed to be screaming in my head.

It wasn't like the usual background voices. These were specifically attacking me.

My own kind, I realised with a start.

Telepaths.

"Come on," I said, grabbing Nyssa's hand. Not fore the first time I wished the Doctor wasn't so much of a pacifist he wouldn't allow me to have a gun.

We were rapidly running out of space. The building may have been the tallest in Moorland, but it wasn't the widest.

Behind us, the black clad fascistic looking guards were gaining swiftly, being a lot fitter than I was and having had the element of surprise.

A thought struck me.

"Keep tight hold of my hand," I said, almost breathless.

She did. I could feel the ring round her finger.

We kept running and when we reached the barrier at the edge of the building I launched myself over it, taking Nyssa with me.

"Robbie!" she screamed over the sound of the rushing wind that was buffeting us from side to side. "We're going to die!"

I closed my eyes.

***

The Doctor looked at the rows and rows of dead TARDISes. The loading bay would usually have been filled with an audible hum, life energy crackling between them.

Now; nothing.

"When the virus first hit," Romana said, "there were those that wanted to escape Gallifrey. The only way we could stop them was to remove the space-time elements from all the TARDISes."

The Doctor looked at her, anger flaring in his eyes. This wasn't the Romana he'd left in E-Space. She looked the same but her voice didn't carry any trace of emotion. Perhaps the Ruin had beaten it out of her. Seeing the supposedly invincible Time Lord race reduced to little more than ashes...

The Sontaran invasion, failed though it had, had sent shockwaves through the community. But evidently, it hadn't been enough to stop the Time Lord's arrogance. Now, they had paid the price for their lack of foresight.

"But..." the Doctor could barely get the words out, "to kill all the ships... it's unthinkable..."

"The CIA still have a limited number under protection," Romana said. "Mine is still operable. I'm sorry about your TARDIS, Doctor. But it was necessary."

The Doctor angrily turned away, his coat tails flapping out behind him. "And if I help you? What then? Do I get my freedom back?"

"Why did you come here, Doctor?" Romana asked. "I know you, you would not return to Gallifrey unless it was concerning a matter of paramount importance."

The Doctor turned on his heel, unable to look at the dead time vessels any longer. He started down the corridor. After a second, Romana followed him.

"Are you aware on a man named Dinakanrel?" he asked.

"No," Romana said. "Is he a Time-" Romana caught herself. "Is he a Gallifreyan?"

"Yes," the Doctor said. "I encountered him on Earth. He had assumed the guise of a military officer and was constructing a nuclear capable weapons platform to protect Earth from orbit."

"But..." Romana stammered.

"But that's against everything the Time Lords have worked for, everything they believe in. Yes. Even the CIA wouldn't go to such measures. They occasionally nudge history in a direction more to their liking, but they couldn't destroy the Daleks before their creation." The Doctor paused, wincing at a memory. "And they certainly wouldn't pervert Earth's history to such a degree. If that platform became fully operational the Lazaarn Treaty would never be made. Earth might be left to stew in its own juices until they manage to stumble across lightspeed technology for themselves. No..." the Doctor said, thoughtfully. "Dinakanrel, he claimed to be working for a higher power. I suspected Borusa might be behind it. The Sontaran invasion might have effected him more than he let on. But now he's dead." The Doctor felt a shiver of remorse run down his back. "We may never know the answers."

"We can always check the Arc Hive," Romana said.

***

The Hive was the greatest repository of knowledge in the universe. It even outstripped the Imperial Library on Kirith, which contained a copy of every book ever published.

Fletcher, a small, waddling ArcHivist, came over to the Doctor and Romana. "I am Fletcher. Can I help you?" he asked in a trilling sing-song voice.

"The Hive was protected even when the Ruin invaded the Capitol," Romana said to the Doctor. To Fletcher she said, "I would like to see a complete listing of all Time Lords."

Fletcher bumbled away, waddling down the aisles. The Hive itself didn't actually exist within real-time. Or real-space. The Time Lords, recognising themselves as a bastion of knowledge, he brought it upon themselves to secret the Hive away in a place where no one would ever find it. There were some who suggested that the Time Lords were jealous of a race who had created a greater repository of information than their own Matrix. Whatever the reason, the created a fold in the fabric of space-time where Time didn't operate.

Romana reflected that Fletcher was probably older than even Borusa had been. Those children born to ArcHivists were destined to become ArcHivists themselves.

They charted the rise and fall of the universe.

To put it simply, if there was something within the universe, you could find about in the Hive. Provided you knew where to look.

Fletcher brought a small ladder from the end of the shelf, placed it against a wall and climbed. He brought down a slim book and handed it to Romana.

"There you are Lady President," he said. "Will there be anything else?"

Romana smiled briefly and shook her head. "No thank you, Fletcher. You may see to other visitors."

Fletcher cast a curious glance at the Doctor before waddling off, and Romana knew why. There was a whole section of the Hive, sixty acres of shelf space, that contained information about the Doctor and his discoveries.

Had it not been for the Doctor, the true histories of both the Daleks and Cybermen would have remained in dispute. Doubtless the short ArcHivist was desperate to ask the Doctor some questions but he knew that his visit here must be of grave importance.

Romana opened the book and typed in the name Dinakanrel.

A profile emerged, complete with a holographic image.

"He's just a child," exclaimed the Doctor.

Romana scanned the information and found the Doctor was right. He looked like a fully grown man but his age was given as fifty.

"He was an old man... he regenerated," the Doctor said, as if barely comprehending the enormity of it all.

"He was from the future?" Romana asked.

"He said as much," the Doctor admitted. "He also claimed that in my next regeneration I would return to Gallifrey and instil a new order."

At that, Romana's eyebrows shot up. The Doctor did his best to ignore them.

"It's a long time off," he said. "I've barely had a year in this body. It'll be a long time before I have to regenerate."

Romana looked at him. "Doctor, anyone starting their fifth incarnation would expect to be at least four thousand years old."

The Doctor looked back at her. "But they don't have half as full a life as I have led."

"Have you ever heard the theory that there is no such thing as the present," Romana asked.

The change in topic was so abrupt the Doctor barely caught the question. "Do you mean the fetid rubbish spouted by Trandosye and his "Think Tank'?" the Doctor asked.

"That's right," Romana said. "No one moment ever exists as the present, all the presents co-exist alongside each other."

"Rubbish," the Doctor pontificated.

"You may well think that, but it's more credible than your anthropomorphism theory."

The Doctor's head snapped round. "My thesis?"

"Yes Doctor," Romana said. "I have read it. Suppose Trandosye is right and every moment in time exists alongside each other, separated by only the faintest of quantum shifts. That would explain his your friend Dinakanrel could know the future."

The Doctor furrowed his brow. "Are you suggesting he phase shifted through a hundred or so years of quantum flux to meet me?"

"Or maybe you did," Romana said. "After all, you are... were... a time traveller."

Realisation dawned on the Doctor like a black cloud. "Then everything he said... was true."

***

I found what I was looking for. A mind. I dove in, ignoring the wind rushing past my ears, ignoring Nyssa's fingernails biting into my hand.

Steering the mind in the right direction, I felt us hit something very hard. After a few seconds, when it was clear we weren't dead, I risked a look up and smiled.

I'd managed to control the mind of someone who was flying an air-car and we'd landed in it. Nyssa looked at me gratefully.

"Looks like we made it," I said, getting to my feet. My shoulder ached from where I'd hit the floor. Luckily it'd been a convertible. Most air-cars were; anyone rich enough to own one would want to show off to the Nth degree.

"Glad you could join us," said a voice from the front. "You have a very powerful mind, Mr Bainbridge."

The man sitting in the driving seat, the one who had spoken, was tall, gaunt and bald. The man sitting in the passenger seat was pointing a gun at my head.

The driver spoke again. "My name's Brodie. Can I call you Robert?"

"No you damn well can't," I said, trying desperately to assess the situation. The Doctor or Nyssa could have done it in a matter of seconds.

Nyssa.

I looked down on the floor of the air-car. "Stay down," I whispered to her.

She silently nodded.

"Well," Brodie continued, "Mr Bainbridge, I'll be frank."

I considered cracking a joke but thought better of it when the air-car hit a small pocket of turbulence and buffeted slightly, the gun in the passenger's hand wobbling up and down alarmingly. I was willing to place a bet with myself that he had an itchy trigger finger.

Brodie must have noticed my nervousness, because he looked first at me, then at the gun, then at me again. "Don't worry Mr Bainbridge," he said calmly. More calmly than anyone should be able to. "I doubt Mr Elliot is about to start shooting up my air-car. We need your help."

***

The Doctor felt supremely uncomfortable. The straps that Romana had placed over his arms and chest and legs were biting into him. The three tubes that dug into his arm were filled with his blood, running into the diagnostic machine.

"Don't worry Doctor," Romana said, turning to her old friend from a consultation with a technician. "This will all be over shortly."

He was beginning to feel woozy. "Are these straps really necessary?" he asked, aware of how weak his voice was.

Romana looked at him. "It does rather remind me of the time we travelled together," she said, a small smile creasing her face. For a second the old Romana, the fun-loving, whimsical Romana was back. Then her face returned to it's previous stony-coldness.

"When will it occur?" Romana asked the technician.

"Regeneration will occur in approximately five minutes," the technician replied, glancing nervously at the Doctor.

"Regeneration?" the Doctor blustered, his weakness forgotten. "You said you just wanted a sample of my blood with which to create a antibody."

"This is the only way, Doctor," Romana said. "If we induce a regeneration we will be able to harness the artron energy and induce my own regeneration."

The Doctor felt the consciousness slip from him. "But you said you may be able to regenerate anyway..."

As the world turned black, he heard Romana's voice say, "With mechanical assistance, and your artron energy. Then I can assist my people."

***

I struggled as the straps were pulled tight over my arms, legs and head. They pulled them so tight that I could barely move. My head felt like it was being crushed against the hard metal slab.

There was a huge machine at the end of the bed. It looked like a monochrome eye, staring at me.

"Don't worry, this won't hurt a great deal," a voice said.

I tried to look down to see who was speaking but I couldn't. Then I felt a tourniquet being fastened around my upper arm.

"There, a lovely big vein..."

I felt a nip and cold liquid entering my vein.

"This will suppress his mental abilities until we need him," the man continued.

When I realised what they were doing, I tried to move my arm.

"Don't be stupid," the man said. "You want a hypodermic syringe imbedded in your vein?" I felt cold hands clasp down on my arm.

"Make it quick," Brodie said. "Most of our men are already on board the Newcastle."

Suddenly the world, usually so full of background mumbling, was quiet.

Another man spoke. I recognised his voice as the man who had been driving the air-car, Brodie. "Now, we can get started."

The machine began to hum and I felt nothing but pain.

***

Nyssa woke suddenly as a cold breeze hit her face. Her catsuit was torn on the left arm and all her left side ached. She peered through the tear and saw vividly discoloured bruised flesh. After moving all her limbs to check that nothing was broken, she turned her attention to the plastic cord that was binding her wrists together.

It seemed that she had been secured to a bulkhead in some underground location. The damp seeped in through the walls, making them dingy and slimy-looking. There was a stench that could only have been rotting food. Nyssa guessed she was in a cellar. Without Robbie's watch there was no way of telling how long she'd been here. After knocking Robbie out, they'd knocked her out, too.

She felt hungry.

If the bindings had been rope, there was the chance that she could have unpicked them with her nails. It would have taken time, but at least she would have been free eventually. She hated just waiting around. Like she had in the TARDIS as her world vanished from existence. She felt so helpless she almost began to cry, but then, just as the first tear started to roll down her cheek, she forced herself to stop. She had to help Robbie.

In a gesture she knew was ultimately futile, she began to rub the plastic bindings against the bulkhead.

***

PART THREE: THE CHEQUERED FLAG

"Cybership now fourteen hours away," Alexis said.

Brodie sat back in his chair and sighed. Months... years of planning were now coming to fruition. In four hours the military would spot the cyberships entering the inner system via the Saturn outposts. Then they would leave the orbit of Ganymede and be obliterated by the superior Cyber forces. Then Ganymede would be his.

***

I felt all life seeping out of me...

***

She was tired. All her effort and very little sleep; only a few minutes caught when she could no longer keep her eyes open, was beginning to get to her. Nothing was happening. The bindings were still in the same state as they had been when she started trying to free herself and Melkur only knows how much time had actually passed. Angry with both herself and the Doctor, she furiously pulled against the bindings and winced. Nyssa felt the bindings slice into her skin. Felt blood trickle from the cuts, dripping to the floor.

A thought occurred to her. She began twisting her hands round in their bindings, spreading the blood everywhere. Then, with a concerted effort, she tugged and her left hand, the bruising barely visible through the thick red blood that was already starting to dry on it, came free. It was a simple matter to pull her right hand free after that and she fell on her backside with relief and tiredness, blood still trickling from her wrists.

The cuts weren't that deep but they didn't need to be; the skin on her wrists was thin and delicate, the arteries and veins near the surface. Wearily, she tugged at the ruined sleeve of her catsuit and improvised some bandages.

Then she climbed up the stairs.

The first thing she noticed as she opened the door was that it hadn't been locked, and there weren't any guards either. The second thing she noticed was the fresh air that was being pumped along the corridor. Freeing her sinuses of the stench of damp and rot, she hurried along the corridor, quietly, keeping watch for any guards they might have.

"Argh!" a scream came from behind a closed door. Nyssa immediately recognised the voice as Robbie's and concern overtook her when the scream stopped, to be replaced by mumbling, concerned voices.

Then, just as she had deduced which door concealed Robbie, the heavy, hob-nailed booted footfalls of a guard began echoing along the corridor. Nyssa dove in the open door to the cellar where she had been kept, the stench already assaulting her senses again.

When the guard was just past the door, Nyssa gently opened it, creeped out and slid the guard's gun out of it's holster. He didn't seem to notice until it was in Nyssa's possession, then he span around.

"Hey!" he called before Nyssa cut him down.

The guard stood there for a few moments, a smoking hole in his chest. There was a ridiculously surprised look on his face, as if he couldn't believe he'd just been shot. Then, with a sickening crunch, he fell to the ground, a thin rivulet of blood crawling along the floor from beneath him.

Nyssa felt sick. She'd never gunned someone down before. The man's eyes were still open, the expression still one of surprise. He was staring up at her accusingly.

Shaking with a mixture of fear and shock, she grabbed the guard's arms and slowly dragged him into the cellar. It was agony on her injured arm, pain shooting up in, stabbing into her.

Then she opened the door to where Robbie was.

He was there, lying on a metal slab, tied down. Only Brodie and a man she didn't know were standing there. The man she didn't know was wearing a white coat and looked like a Doctor.

Neither of the men noticed her until the Doctor moved round the edge of the table, a hypodermic needle in one hand.

"Stop right there," Nyssa said, feeling foolish. Only the gun in her hand gave her any sense of power, and she wasn't sure she could accurately shoot from this distance anyway.

Despite how she might have felt, both the doctor and Brodie stopped in their steps.

"Untie him," Nyssa said.

"This needle contains a serum which will awaken him," the doctor said, holding up the hypo. "Without it, he will remain unconscious."

Nyssa nodded and the doctor brought Robbie's vein up.

"If he dies," she said, "then you die."

The doctor looked nervous, his hands shaking a little as he slid the needle into the crook of Robbie's elbow. The plunger depressed, the doctor removed the needle and Robbie inhaled sharply. The doctor began untying the straps.

Nyssa, dropping the gun to her side, ran over to her lover and embraced him. "Oh Robbie," she said, allowing the tears to come to the surface. "I thought I'd lost you."

"I am Prospero," Robbie said. "Who are you?" he asked Nyssa.

Nyssa's breath suddenly came in short, sharp intakes of uncomfortable air. She backed off. "Robbie?" she asked, tears rolling down her cheeks and splashing to the floor. "What have they done to you?"

Robbie turned to Brodie. "General?" he asked questioningly.

"It is nothing," he said dismissively. "A test. Doctor," he said, turning to the man in the white coat, "take her away."

Nyssa, paralysed by fear and tears, didn't resist when the doctor clamped his hands round her neck and led her away down the corridor.

***

"Are you ready to take up your post?" Brodie asked.

Prospero nodded. "I am. When are the Cyberships due?"

"Twelve hours. I think we can expect the military to hold them off at Saturn for an hour or so. Go up to the Newcastle, familiarise yourself with the systems and prepare yourself."

Prospero nodded, saluted and left.

"I must congratulate you, Cozen," Brodie said when the doctor came back from incarcerating the girl. "Your mind-wipe machine is remarkably effective. Not only have you purged any semblance of Prospero's former self, but you have also imprinted on him an unquestioning loyalty to the cause.

***

Prospero looked around the control centre of the Newcastle. As ships go, he decided, it wasn't that impressive. It's firepower was below average and it had been designed more for safety than efficiency. It's defensive capabilities had been modified by the resistance, however. While getting two hundred neutronic missiles might spark the Empire's interest, there was nothing untoward about wanting to protect your own freighter as much as you could.

No, Prospero thought, it's impressiveness lay in the way General Brodie had utilised it. After the discovery that Cybermen were vulnerable to mental attack, he had gathered together as many telepaths as he could recruit to his cause and then had had retrofitted the Newcastle so that it acted as an amplifier for the attack. Whatever remained of the Cyber-fleet after the Marines had been well and truly beaten could easily be defeated by the Newcastle and the number of smaller ships Brodie had recruited.

The Marines were effective, but not against a surprise attack. Prospero guessed that at least one third of the ships in the system would be operating below crew capacity or undergoing repairs. The route the Cybermen had taken, supplied to them by Brodie, had allowed them to sneak up on the Sol System without setting of any of the early warning systems.

The number of cyberships was also impressive. Prospero had always thought that after their manifold defeats at Telos and Nerva that their forces would be severely depleted. He was wrong. The status report stated there were at least four heavy cruisers and dozens of small vessels.

Prospero knew the Marines would go for the heavy cruisers first. They were the real danger. It was on those ships the Cybermen carried out the organ harvesting and conversion. The smaller ships would just contain invasion forces.

***

Saturn Base Alpha.

"Code red, repeat we have a code red. Cyberfleet just passing our planetary beacon. Scramble all fighter wings. Indomitable, Chimera, Angel, you have clearance to engage."

***

Prospero looked at the other telepaths around him. In a one on one situation, he could shred any of their minds with a single thought. But as a collective, if they all focused on the same goal, they could overpower him.

He knew they could read his suspicion. It would be coming off him like sweat off Bruce Springsteen at a live gig.

Prospero stopped. Bruce Springsteen?

He thought about it for a moment and realised he had no idea where the reference had come from. He had no idea who Bruce Springsteen was.

Deep in thought, he sat down heavily in his command chair and brought down the interface.

The two flexible needle thin wires came up out of his chair and slid into his temples with little resistance. The holo-screen appeared two feet in front of him and he started powering up the Newcastle's systems.

Iocaine.

The button stood out at him like a sore thumb. The last line of defence, Brodie had instructed him. If it looked as if the Cybermen were winning, he was supposed to release the iocaine gas into the atmosphere of Ganymede. Save them from Cyber-conversion.

"Four hours until interception," his navigator said flatly. "The Marine force above Saturn has been wiped out. Only the Indomitable has survived and she's dead in space. Ejecting lifeboats. The lead heavy cruiser has locked on to them... taking them into the cargo bay."

"For conversion," the second officer spat.

"Mister," Prospero said, his tone warning the officer to keep quiet. He complied.

***

The Doctor awoke free of restraints but still feeling weak and pathetic. With great effort, he lifted up his hand to feel his face. It still seemed like it was him.

He hadn't regenerated.

Then he felt a hand behind his head, lifting him up. There was a strange smell as well; body odour. He opened his eyes.

"Leela?"

His old friend was standing there, her "modified" Time Lord robes hanging in disarray from her tanned skin.

"Yes Doctor," she said. "I couldn't allow them to do this to you."

The Doctor, feeling his strength slowly seeping back, looked down on the floor. Both Romana and the technician were lying there, prone.

"You didn't...?"

"Didn't what?" asked Leela, hauling the Doctor to his feet.

"Kill them?"

"No, they are just stunned. The old-fashioned way," she said with a smile. "Come on," she added. "We have to get you away from Gallifrey."

***

Nyssa didn't have the strength neither mental or physical, to undo her plastic bonds again. She dreaded to think of his much blood she'd lost. Away from the Source on Traken, any healing she had to do would be seriously impaired. It might take her body weeks to produce more blood cells.

The doctor had knocked her bandages off when he'd tied her up, and she was still bleeding.

"Nyssa!"

The voice startled her. It was the Doctor.

He came crawling out of the shadows, a Time Ring fastened around his wrist. He looked weak and pale but she was came to see him.

They embraced for a moment, then the Doctor checked her bonds and produced a small dagger from his pocket.

"A present from Leela," he explained, as though ashamed he was carrying a weapon. He cut through the bindings and looked at Nyssa's cut wrists. "We'll have to get these seen to," he muttered, replacing the dagger in his pocket and producing a handkerchief. "In the meantime," he said, tearing it in half, "this'll have to do."

He fastened the instantly blood-soaked handkerchief parts around Nyssa's wrists and looked at her.

"Where's Robbie?" he asked.

***

The viewscreen, floating in the air four feet in front of Prospero's face wasn't what he had been expecting. Instead of a clear screen it was made it out of many hexagonal blocks, like a honeycomb.

"The Cyber-fleet is on its way," Brodie said from the smaller warship, the Courage. "Earth forces managed to take out three of the four heavy cruisers. The fourth is damaged but still operational. That's your prime target. Disable it, send it into Jupiter's gravity, whatever. I'll leave it up to you, General Prospero. Just make sure that it's out of the fight. We'll handle the rest."

"Yes General," Prospero saluted as the viewscreen closed down. "Bring me up a schematic and location of the heavy cruiser," he said to one of his officers.

The viewscreen opened again, this time segmented into two distinct portions. One had a map of local space on it, with a steadily flashing red blip on it, the other had the schematic for the ship on.

Prospero looked at it darkly. Like all Cyber-ships it was notoriously decentralised. There was no power control that he could attack, no engine room. Not even a bridge.

***

The Doctor tapped furiously at the keyboard, his fingers dancing over the keys at a rate that Nyssa could barely even register.

"The Ruin have decimated Gallifrey," he said as he worked, "took away their ability to regenerate. Better than bombing the capitol."

"How did they get in?" Nyssa asked, watching as the screen flashed with gigaquads of information.

"Used the Shobogans... the other life form native to Gallifrey, they used them like they used Robbie - Ah! Here it is."

The Doctor's hands stopped dancing and he stared intently at the screen. "The Prospero Project," he read to himself. His face fell. "I'm sorry Nyssa," he said, closing down the screen. "It seems what they've done isn't reversible. They've recorded over Robbie's mind." He swallowed hard. "It's all my fault... Prospero! I should have realised."

With an anger that Nyssa had never seen from the Doctor, he brought his fist heavily down on the computer. So heavily that the plasma keyboard cracked. The liquid slowly began oozing out of it. Sparks crackled and flew.

"What is it?" Nyssa asked.

Before the Doctor could answer, he grabbed her by the arm. "Come on," he said urgently, "we have to find a shuttle."

***

"The name that General Brodie gave to him, Prospero, it was a component of Robbie's dreams, has been for months. I thought it was nothing. When his telepathic abilities exploded in South Shields... I should have known better. He was presaging events, a talent few telepaths have, and eighty percent of them are clinically insane." The Doctor stopped, looked at the shuttle in front of them.

It was small, but should be able to achieve escape velocity. He ushered Nyssa aboard and initiated the start up sequence. In a few scant seconds, the shuttle was airborne and they were on their way.

"Prospero is a seer, was a seer, as well. Very close to going over the edge. He ended up killing ninety percent of the population of Ganymede with iocaine. He was posthumously charged with genocide."

Outside the sky turned from it's usual pinkie blue of early evening to a black velvet, dotted with stars and ships.

"Posthumously?" Nyssa said, her voice cracking.

"He also led the final suicidal attack on a cybership... a heavy cruiser. Saved Earth." The Doctor looked ashen. "I should have realised," he repeated as the shuttle's nose cone began to cool off from its red hot state. "Newcastle, come in Newcastle," the Doctor said. It took Nyssa a few moments to realise he was talking to a microphone.

The viewscreen flickered to life and Nyssa felt a shiver climb her spine at the sight of Robbie. But, if what the Doctor had said was true, he wasn't Robbie any longer. The man she loved... the man she planned to marry, was dead.

"This is a war zone," Prospero said coldly. "Your shuttle is not equipped for battle. I suggest you leave."

"Prospero," the Doctor begged, "don't release the iocaine."

The General looked at him with steely eyes. "What iocaine?"

"The iocaine you have on your ship!" the Doctor said, his face turning red. Nyssa looked at him. He was looking more worse for the wear than he was saying. Whatever had really happened on Gallifrey had changed him.

***

Prospero looked at the stranger in the civilian shuttle. The iocaine, procured through extremely sensitive channels by Brodie and Alexis, was supposed to be secret. Had the Empire known that a private revolutionary had got his hands on enough iocaine, the most deadly form of nerve gas known to man, then the Cyber-fleet would have seemed like a low priority in comparison.

That could only mean one thing, Prospero thought, bringing up the button, security had been compromised.

He pressed the button marked iocaine.

***

"No!" the Doctor cried out as the missiles started towards the moon below.

"Do something!" Nyssa implored.

But the Doctor remained there, frozen. "I can't," he said. "Even with the Time Lords gone, all the TARDISes killed, I have to protect the web of time."

Nyssa watched with increasing horror as the first missiles hit the moon.

***

"Open fire on the shuttle," Prospero ordered.

"Yes sir," the weapons officer replied. The limited weaponry of the Newcastle began a volley on the shuttle.

***

"Can't we use your Time Ring?" Nyssa asked, as the shuttle's integrity began to go. The bulkheads were screaming and she knew it was only a small matter of time before the explosive decompression occurred and she and the Doctor were blown out into space.

"Strictly one way," the Doctor said. "I use it again and I'll get dragged back to Gallifrey. But..." a thought seemed to occur to him. "T-Mat!" he proclaimed.

"Evacuate shuttle," the computer said over the warning klaxon and the groaning of metal. "This compartment will be exposed to space in two minutes. Evacuate shuttle. This..."

"T-Mat?" Nyssa asked. "But that hasn't been used for centuries."

The Doctor was pulling wires out of the shuttle's innards. "I should be able to jury-rig a line of sight transmitter," he said.

"One minute and thirty seconds," the computer replied.

"Don't we need a receiver?" Nyssa asked.

"We're just going across to the Newcastle," the Doctor said. "I can't leave Robbie like that, not when it's my fault."

"But you said-"

"I know what I said," the Doctor snapped. "There. Hold on to me."

Nyssa, slightly taken aback by the Doctor's viciousness, held out her hand reluctantly. Then, as explosions rocked the shuttle, the Doctor and Nyssa were no more.

***

Prospero looked at the destroyed shuttle on the screen.

"Good," he muttered. "Now, let's turn our attention to the heavy cruiser, shall we?" he asked as the cybership appeared on the event horizon.

With a concerted effort, Prospero and his telepathic crew focused on the cybership, feeling out the cold, dead minds and endeavouring to control them.

"It isn't working," Sharna exclaimed. Against Prospero, she was nothing, but among the other naturally evolved telepaths, she was considered to be quite powerful. Indeed, she was in line for command of the Newcastle until Prospero had turned up.

He turned back to the cybership. Pilot your ship into Jupiter he screamed mentally at them, a signal so powerful that most of his bridge crew screamed in pain.

"Course change?"

"None."

We're doomed, he thought, and then everyone else on the Newcastle thought it as well.

"Get all non essential crew to the life-craft," Prospero ordered.

Immediately, half his bridge crew stood up and left.

The General's hand gripped the edge of his chair, wondering what could have gone wrong. The Cybermen had obviously built up some sort of defence against telepathic attack, but what could it be?

***

"Wonderful," the Doctor said. "I suspected the Newcastle would have a T-Mat transmitter, probably used mostly for transporting cargo. She is an old freighter."

"Doctor," Nyssa urged, "Robbie!"

"Of course," he'll still be on the bridge."

They headed out of the cargo bay and immediately were assaulted with dozens of people rushing to get past. The Doctor caught the general gist of what was happening.

"The Cybermen can't be defeated by the telepaths," he explained to Nyssa as they pushed their way through the crowd. It wasn't an easy job, everyone was going in a completely opposite direction to them. "This will be when he decides to ram the ship. He evacuates the non-essential crew first."

A missile hit the ship, forcing it to keel to one side. Nyssa found herself crushed beneath the weight of at least six telepaths.

"Doctor!" she screamed.

The Time Lord managed somehow to grab her hand and pull her away. It was her left hand and Nyssa cried with agony.

***

"Start ramming sequence," Prospero ordered his navigator as another volley of missiles ripped open the side of the ship.

"Yes sir," shouted the navigator over the droning voice of the computer which was warning the crew of the explosive decompression. "Course laid in."

"Execute!"

As the navigator pressed the button, a small Cyber-fighter swung up right in front of the ship, firing wildly. The navigator's console exploded and Ash, the navigator, was blown backwards by the force. From the way he landed, Prospero knew that he was dead.

He was now alone on the bridge. With the navigational console destroyed, the course they were on was locked. There was no way out now.

Briefly, he thought of running to the escape pods, but quickly dismissed the idea. It wasn't his style.

"Robbie!" came an unfamiliar voice. He turned around in his command chair, away from the view of the rapidly approaching heavy cruiser. It was the woman who had ordered Cozen to release him, who had been on the shuttle he had destroyed. Next to her was the man from the shuttle.

He reached for his sidearm.

"Why do you keep calling me that?" Prospero demanded to know. "My name is General Prospero."

"Robbie," the girl started crying. "Don't you remember me?"

For a second he thought he did recognise the ring on the girl's wedding finger... he looked down to his own ring finger. There was a ring there too. It matched the girl's.

He reached into her mind and found himself awash in such feelings of love that he forced himself to withdraw. "I am not this person," Prospero insisted, "no matter how alike we look."

The man approached him. "Look, Prospero, we want to help."

"You're spies!" Prospero spat. "Sent by Earth, yes. Your memories are implants, made to make me question my own reality. Well, it won't work!"

In the moment Prospero brought up his gun to shoot the man and the girl, the man's fist swung out and caught him under the jaw. His last realisation was that blood was pouring into his mouth from a split lip.

***

"Sorry," the Doctor said as his companion fell to the ground, blood trickling from his mouth. He turned to Nyssa. "It had to be done."

Nyssa still looked at the prone body of her fiancé on the floor.

"We have to get to an escape pod," the Doctor said, hefting up Robbie's body. He headed off the bridge, followed by Nyssa after one last look at the heavy cruiser.

***

As the escape pod detached from the ship in a five second burn, Nyssa looked out and saw the Newcastle collide in a fiery collision with the heavy cruiser.

Now, both ships were dead.

***

EPILOGUE ONE

"I've changed the past," the Doctor said, looking out the window of the freighter he'd hired. The dead moon of Ganymede could be seen retreating into space. Even those that had survived the iocaine attack had left the planet. Human beings may not live very long, mused the Doctor, but their memories do.

The Earth Empire military would spend the next few years rebuilding its forces, then perhaps Ganymede would be resettled.

Nyssa looked at Robbie's sleeping form on the sofa. "Is that really such a bad thing?"

The Doctor knew what she was referring to. "He'll never be the same, even if by some remote chance we do manage to recover his memories, he'll have new ones, memories of genocide to live with." The Doctor sighed heavily, taking in the stars. This time was no his home. "But I can't promise anything," he said firmly. "If the TARDIS was still alive, perhaps I could do more. But it'll be more a case of breaking down the barriers General Brodie put up. And there's the small matter of Robbie, or rather, Prospero, being wanted for genocide."

"But that wasn't his fault," Nyssa pleaded.

"I know, but justice needs to be served."

EPILOGUE TWO

Romana, her head still throbbing from where the traitor Leela had punched her, looked at the Matrix.

"What am I looking for?" she asked impatiently.

The technician, Nivet, Romana seemed to recall was his name, pointed at a point. He recalled it and brought it up. "The Doctor has changed the timeline," he said. The man Prospero was supposed to die. Now he doesn't." He seemed unnaturally pleased with his discovery. "Not yet, anyway," he added, superfluously.

"But if the Doctor has changed the timeline, even in this small way-"

"Oh, believe me, Lady President," Nivet said, "this is no small way. A man like Prospero, his death had a major impact on the galaxy. Now that he's still alive..." He let his voice trail off, then leaned back in his chair, doubtless expecting praise.

Romana wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. "Track him," she said firmly. "And the Doctor. If he can change the timeline, there's no reason why we can't." Deep in thought, she tapped her communicator. "Damon, get my TARDIS ready."

"Yes ma'am," replied Damon.

With that, Romana walked out of the Matrix room, through the Great Hall, where the traitor Leela's head hung - disconnected from her body - towards her personal chambers.

It was the dawn of a new age for the Time Lords.