Being Chief Monitor was such a boring duty, she reflected. Sitting for hours on end before a bank of screens, with just a junior operative for company, definitely wasn't her idea of fun.
After all, she was a highly trained agent of the Celestial Intervention Agency, not some lowly monitoring technician. It was, if nothing else, a waste of her valuable talents. She should be doing undercover work on some backward planet, not sitting in a room miles under the Capitol, bored out of her mind.
As she was thinking this, the junior operative was pretending to look busy, his hands flying over the touch sensitive instruments. He turned to his superior officer, a worried frown on his face.
"Ma'am, it appears a sun just went supernova."
"What of it?" she replied. "Three suns a week go supernova, somewhere in the Universe. And don't call me ma'am! Call me Chief, if you must."
"But Chief," he explained, "this sun wasn't supposed to go supernova for millennia yet!"
This piqued her interest slightly. "Transfer the information to my screen," she ordered.
Silently she studied the data. Not only had this sun exploded unexpectedly, but also it had taken an entire solar system with it. An inhabited system. And not just any old inhabited system, but the home system of the Daleks. Skaro was now little more than a charred cinder, orbiting what was now a brown dwarf star.
"Chief, we have incoming!"
"Now what?" she muttered, switching from the data on her screen to external monitoring. A blip was fast approaching Gallifrey.
"It's too small to strain the transduction barriers much," she told her junior.
Yet as she glanced back at her screen, expecting to see the blip vanish in a flash, it slid through the barriers as if they didn't exist. Leaning forward, she scanned the small object more closely.
It seemed to be of Gallifreyan construction. Yet it wasn't a TT Capsule, as far as she could tell. Calling up the historical files for a possible match, she gasped aloud at the result.
Coming in for a smooth landing on top of the Omega Memorial was the legendary Hand of Omega.
This remote stellar manipulator had been missing from Gallifrey for centuries. There was a theory it had been stolen by a renegade Time Lord, but that sort of thing wasn't discussed in polite Gallifreyan society.
Suddenly her screen flickered, the picture replaced by that of a small man, eccentrically dressed, smiling out of the monitor. He raised his hat.
"Greetings. As you may have noticed, I've returned the Hand of Omega. I'm sorry if it's a little overdue, I'll sort out the fine next time I pop in. Oh, and I've used it to destroy Skaro's sun too. I hope that doesn't invalidate the warranty."
He winked and his image disappeared, to be replaced once more by the view of the Omega Memorial.
So it was true. The Daleks power base had been destroyed. They were vulnerable at last.
Chief Monitor Santanastadevorianesta smiled. Now, she thought, was the time to strike!
***
As days went, this was certainly a busy one, reflected Lady President Romana.
Trust the Doctor to make such a grand gesture of returning the Hand of Omega. Why couldn't he have just materialised in her office and handed it over, like anybody else would have?
Now the device was safely hidden away from the public gaze, she was having to deal with the fall out. Enraged Cardinals demanding that the Doctor be brought home to explain himself, scientists who wanted to study the device which was, after all, a relic from the times of Omega and Rassilon. So many calls upon her time.
So when there was a knock on the door of her office she snapped "Come in!" a little louder than she intended to.
A Time Lady stood before her desk. The dark haired woman looked familiar from somewhere and it took Romana a moment to place her.
"It's Santanastadevorianesta, isn't it?" Romana asked.
The woman nodded. "I prefer Santana for short," she replied.
Romana smiled. "I don't go in much for the long fancy names myself. Romanadvoratrelundar is such a mouthful, don't you think?"
"I had never really considered it before," Santana said.
"So, what can I do for you, Santana?" Romana inquired.
"You have heard of the situation with Skaro, of course."
"I've heard little else," Romana admitted with a sigh. "Many Time Lords are saying that the Doctor shouldn't have interfered so dramatically in the destiny of the Daleks. Is that why you're here? To complain about the actions of the Doctor?"
Santana shook her head. "I applaud what he did!" she said fiercely.
Romana was a little surprised by that. "Oh. Well, that's not the attitude of most Time Lords."
"I'm not most Time Lords," Santana replied with a sneer. "Most Time Lords are weak willed, spineless. The Doctor took action and I say well done to him. But I don't believe he went far enough."
"You don't?" Romana asked cautiously.
"Not at all," Santana declared. There was a gleam in her eyes that Romana wasn't sure she liked the look of. "The Doctor should have taken advantage of his foe. He should have wiped the Daleks out completely."
"That's not the way the Doctor does things," Romana said.
Santana shrugged dismissively. "That's not my concern. What is my concern is that given time, the Daleks could regroup, spread their menace across the universe once more. That's why I came to see you. I want to take a team and track down any Dalek stragglers. I want to wipe them out, once and for all."
Romana was too astonished to speak for a moment as she tried to take in what Santana was proposing.
"But, that would be genocide!"
"And what do the Daleks practice? Peace and love?"
Romana shook her head, her blonde hair flying around her shoulders. "I won't sanction genocide, no matter which race is involved. I have no reason to love the Daleks, but I won't send out a squad to destroy them either."
Santana frowned. "But we're talking about the most ruthless race ever to exist!" she protested.
Romana shivered. She had encountered the Daleks twice, the first time during her travels with the Doctor. That experience had been bad enough. But then, shortly after taking up the Presidency, she had been captured by the evil denizens of Skaro and put to work as a slave. It had taken her twenty years to get free. She hated the Daleks probably more than most Time Lords. But she knew right from wrong too, which was something the Daleks would never learn.
"They may be ruthless killing machines, but they are also sentient beings. I cannot give the order to have them wiped from existence."
"Then you are as spineless as the rest!" Santana spat.
Romana frowned. "I'll forget you said that, Santana. I do agree that the Daleks are a threat and I can see your concerns about them. So what I shall do is order an observation of the remaining Dalek factions."
"Observation? We should be taking action!"
The Lady President sighed. "And I hope I'm not making a mistake by assigning you to the observation team."
Santana's eyebrows went up. "Me? You want me to lead the observation team?"
"Not exactly. It will be a two-person team, both of you having equal status. And standing orders to do anything you need to do to monitor the Daleks and report back on their movements."
The other Time Lady lapsed into deep thought for long moments. Eventually, she nodded.
"Very well, I'll do it. Who will the other member of the team be?"
Romana smiled slightly. "I'll let you know when she agrees to the job."
***
Leela held the crying, struggling bundle in her arms, making soft shushing noises and rocking gently back and forth. But whatever she tried, the baby just wouldn't go to sleep.
The sound of the door chime was actually quite a relief. "Come in," she called, causing another fit of struggling from junior.
The door opened silently and Lady President Romana stepped through into Leela's living quarters.
The two of them had become good friends since Romana's return to Gallifrey from E-Space. They shared the common bond of having travelled with the Doctor and often met to compare notes on their varied adventures with the renegade Time Lord.
"How is he?" Romana asked, stepping forward to admire the small child.
"Lively," Leela replied with a sigh, running a hand through her long curly hair. "I always thought that the women of the Sevateem exaggerated when they said how difficult raising children could be. Now I know they were understating the facts."
"Do you have a name for him yet?"
"Andred and I are still discussing that."
"Ah," Romana replied, nodding her understanding. "You both still want to call him after relatives."
Leela frowned. "My father's name was handed down through our family for as long as the tribe could remember."
"And Andred's Uncle's name has been similarly passed on within the House of Sangborrow," Romana concluded. "I wish you both luck in resolving the issue. You will need it."
In Leela's arms, the object of their discussion finally gave in to sleep. She moved carefully to the cot that the Doctor had left during a recent visit and placed him gently inside.
"It's a bit early for a social call, isn't it?" Leela asked her friend.
Romana grimaced. "That's because this isn't a social call. I need to ask you a favour."
Leela nodded. "Ask away."
"You've heard about the return of the Hand of Omega and how the Doctor used it against the Daleks?"
"Yes, though Andred had to explain some of the details. I still do not fully understand what a Remote Stellar Manipulator is."
Romana grinned. "Me neither, I just know that it works. Well, since the Dalek forces have been dealt a heavy blow, I've decided that we need to send a team to monitor them closely. To see what they do next."
"That makes sense," Leela agreed. "I don't suppose anybody has considered attacking them while they are weak?"
"Funny you should say that. One of the people I'm sending suggested that exact strategy. But I told her it wasn't how we did things."
"I understand," Leela replied. "One of the lessons the Doctor taught me was compassion, even for your enemies. It was not an easy one for me to learn. I am surprised however that a Time Lord proposed taking advantage like that."
"So was I. That's why I need to ask you a favour."
"You want me to go on this observation mission," Leela deduced. "You want me to keep this person on what the Doctor used to call the straight and narrow."
"I'm only asking because I trust your instincts in a crisis," Romana told her. "I need someone who can help Santana keep a clear head and see things from a proper Gallifreyan perspective."
"Somebody will have to look after him," Leela said, glancing towards the silent cot.
"I'm sure I could pull a few strings and get Rodan reassigned."
"The Doctor once told me that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!"
This caused both women to laugh, which woke the baby.
***
Santana hated being summoned, even if it was to her superior's office. Now she stood before him, wondering what the problem was.
"I hear you've been visiting our esteemed Lady President," he said.
She sighed. "I thought this was the ideal time to destroy the Daleks, once and for all."
"And she wasn't in agreement?"
Santana scowled at her boss. "I don't like it. I don't like it at all!"
The corners of Ferain's mouth twitched upwards, in the approximation of a smile. "Nobody likes not getting their own way."
"But I feel so...so..."
"Impotent? It's not a good feeling is it? That's how many Time Lords have felt in the past about one situation or another. Most just shrug and get on with their lives. Others become renegades, seeking out trouble in the furthest corners of the universe. And a small number work their way up into a position where they have the power to act."
"Like you have?" she asked. Her temper had cooled a little while he had been speaking.
"Indeed, my dear," Ferain replied. "If you had come to me first, rather than the Queen Bee, I'm sure I could have worked out some scheme to see the Daleks destroyed forever."
"Can't you do something now?" she asked urgently.
He shook his head slowly. "To act now might draw unwanted attention to our other enterprises. It is best at times that we keep a low profile." His eyes grew wistful. "I once gave the Doctor the mission of destroying the Daleks, but he fluffed it."
"So what do you suggest I do now?" Santana wanted to know.
"I think you should go along with the Madam President and her plan. Watch the Daleks. Learn about them. Who knows, you may return with valuable new insights we can use against them."
"And this other person she mentioned? The one who is to go with me?"
Ferain thought for a moment. "My guess is she will ask the Lady Leela to accompany you. She will see her as a steadying figure. Someone who can keep you in check."
"Leela? The savage?"
"You should beware of preconceived ideas. The woman has learnt much, both before and since her arrival on Gallifrey. She has been trained by the Academy as a level five medic. She is not just an ignorant primitive and you would do well to remember that."
Santana nodded. "Anything else?"
"Yes. You're a good operative Santana, one of my best. Don't do anything rash. At least, not without good reason."
With that thought running through her head, she left the office.
***
Santana was not impressed by the transport Lady President Romana was providing.
"A Jump Ship? What's wrong with a TARDIS?"
Romana scowled. As leader of the High Council of Time Lords she wasn't used to having her judgement questioned. "There's nothing wrong with a TARDIS. I just don't want the Daleks getting hold of one if you get captured."
"We won't get captured. I'm not a novice, you know."
"Oh, I do know," Romana replied with a slight smile. "Your record is very impressive. And I bet it would be even more so if it showed your unofficial work as well."
Suddenly Santana found the exterior hull of the Jump Ship fascinating. "Where is the Lady Leela? I thought we were leaving soon."
"You are," Romana replied. "She'll be here. She's very punctual."
"I bet she is," Santana muttered. Romana ignored the remark.
As expected, Leela arrived exactly on the appointed hour. She was dressed in a simple brown jacket over a white shirt with grey pants. A brown cloak was draped over her shoulders.
"My Lady President," she said, bowing formally.
"Reliable as ever," Romana commented with smile. "Leela, this is Santana, the Time Lady I told you about. The two of you will be working closely together."
Leela nodded to Santana and extended her right hand. The CIA agent took it and shook it firmly.
"I've heard a lot about you," Santana said. "You're quite a celebrity in the Capitol."
Leela shrugged. "It means nothing to me. I prefer to concentrate on what is important in life."
"And what do you see as being important?"
"Completing the mission I have been given to the best of my ability," Leela replied without a pause. "What do you see as important?"
Santana smiled, looking at her new acquaintance with new respect. "The mission, of course."
"Then we shall get along fine," Leela decided. She turned to Romana. "Is there anything else, Lady President?"
"No, I think that's all. Good luck to you both. May Rassilon protect you."
Leela bowed once more. Then she addressed Santana.
"We should begin. The sooner we have completed our task, the sooner I shall be able to return home to my family."
"Yes, boss!" replied Santana with more than a hint of sarcasm, as she followed Leela up the ramp of the Jump Ship.
***
"Control, this is Jump Ship FL86 ready to depart Gallifrey."
"Read you, FL86. Transduction Barriers lowered. You are clear to depart."
"Acknowledged Control. Jump Ship FL86 departing Gallifrey."
***
Leela glanced across at her Time Lady companion as Santana steered the small spacecraft out of the magnetic pull of the planet Gallifrey and out into open space.
"Where is our destination?"
"I thought we should head directly for the Skaro system," Santana replied, checking her instruments. "See if there are any survivors in the area."
Leela frowned. "If I were them, I would have left immediately."
"But you're not them and the Daleks are notoriously unpredictable. They may claim to be creatures of logic, but they do the most illogical things sometimes."
"You sound like you have studied them," Leela commented from her co-pilots seat.
"I have," Santana told her. "I've digested every scrap of information I can find on the Daleks. I know their history, their genesis, even about Skaro before the Daleks were created. Did you know that the planet was once a paradise, with towering crystal cities and gardens more beautiful than we can possibly imagine?"
"I did not know that," Leela replied.
"Have you ever been to Skaro? Before Gallifrey I mean?"
"No, though I have faced the Daleks before."
Santana nodded, her estimation of Leela going up another notch. "What is your firsthand opinion of them?"
"They are evil creatures," Leela said quickly. "All they want to do is hate."
"Do you think we should have taken them out, while we had the chance?"
"No. Striking an enemy that is weak is not an honourable thing for a warrior to do."
"The Daleks do not believe in honour," Santana pointed out.
"But we do. To attack them now would make us no better than they are."
Santana was about to reply, but changed her mind. Instead she started setting the controls on the main panel of the flight deck.
"Course to Skaro input. Jumping in ten seconds."
On the panel, a countdown clock ticked slowly down from ten. When it reached zero, the ship wasn't there anymore.
***
The planet Skaro. A blackened lump, not even truly spherical anymore, it hung limply in space, sluggishly orbiting the brown dwarf star that was all that remained of its once vibrant sun.
Close to the planet, space seemed to warp and shimmer. As a small gap in the fabric of the universe opened briefly, the Jump Ship slid out of it. As quickly as it had appeared, the gap closed again.
From the pilot's control board, Santana scanned the remains of the planet below them.
"Your friend the Doctor certainly didn't leave much behind," she commented with a slight smile. "I doubt there is so much as an eye stalk left intact down there."
"It was not the Doctor's doing. The Daleks brought this upon themselves," Leela replied in a neutral tone.
Santana raised an eyebrow. "Is that the official line of the Lady President? Loyalty to an old friend? I thought you were a warrior."
"I am a warrior!" Leela shot back. Then she calmed almost immediately. "I was a warrior. That is how I was trained. I have grown beyond that training."
"I thought it was once a warrior, always a warrior with your type."
Leela gave her companion a hard stare. "What do you mean, 'my type'?"
Santana shrugged. "Nothing. Nothing at all."
"No, you must have meant something. Do you see me as a primitive? An ignorant savage? Someone who should still be running around in skins, waving a knife at any and all threats? Is that your problem?"
"I don't have a problem," Santana replied, starting to get annoyed. "I couldn't care less how you decide to live your life, or how you were raised!"
Leela nodded. "Good. So long as neither of us has a problem with the other, we can get on and complete our mission. Have you discovered anything?"
Slightly surprised by the question, Santana glanced down at her instruments once more. "No, nothing significant. No energy readings, either from the planet or in the solar system itself. Seems there is nothing left to pursue here."
"Then we should go and search elsewhere," Leela declared.
"Good idea," Santana said, not even trying to moderate her sarcastic tone.
***
"So where is this?" Leela inquired.
"Sentis 3. The renegade Dalek faction had a base in this system on one of the moons of this planet."
"Any signs of activity?"
"Nothing showing on the board," Santana replied. Then suddenly a light flashed on the extreme left of her control panel. "Wait, something's coming through."
She activated the main screen. A small ship was visible near the top of the picture. It was getting steadily closer.
"Renegade Dalek cruiser," the Time Lady reported. "Bearing vector 319 by 17. Heading for the largest moon of Sentis 3."
"Shouldn't we be in stealth mode?" Leela asked.
"I was just about to activate it," Santana replied as she reached across the control board.
They watched for long minutes as the ship approached the moon. As it entered orbit, Santana's fingers flew over her console again and the Jump Ship shuddered slightly. A streak of light shot from under them, towards the Dalek ship.
"What was that?"
Santana smiled. "I've launched a probe. It will follow the ship down in its sensor shadow and give us some visual evidence of what is happening down there."
The small probe was quickly lost in the darkness of space. The Dalek ship on the screen was now in a powered descent through the thin atmosphere of the moon.
Santana activated a small screen over their heads. The picture showed an extreme close up of the side of the Dalek ship, seeming to stretch away into infinity. And below, the surface of the moon rising to greet them.
Thrusters fired, briefly obscuring the view. When they could see again, the probe had moved away from the side of the ship and was floating freely inside a domed hanger.
"Won't the Daleks spot the probe and destroy it?"
"Eventually," Santana admitted as she transferred the picture to the main viewer. "It too has stealth capabilities, but only so long as the power cell remains at above seventy percent charge. We have until it drops that low to gather evidence."
Now the Time Lady reached for a joystick control on the left of the board. She used it to pilot the remote probe, guiding its exploration the Dalek base.
As the camera showed its progress, the two woman learnt that there were not many Daleks within the base. At least not many visible. As the probe floated down corridors and into rooms, they saw no more than a handful of the creatures, moving silently about their business.
"Seems there is virtually nobody home," Santana muttered, concentrating on the image and piloting the probe. Leela didn't comment.
After about half an hour, there was a beep from the control panel.
"Looks like time has run out," Santana said. She released the joystick she had been using to guide the probe.
As they watched the screen, the probe was inside a Dalek control room. When one of the creature's turned, it looked straight into the camera lens.
"INTRUDER ALERT! BASE SECURITY HAS BEEN COMPROMISED! INTRUDER ALERT!"
As an alarm klaxon began to wail, the Dalek that had spoken loomed nearer to the camera. There was a brief flash of light and the picture dissolved into static.
"What happened?" Leela asked.
"The Dalek exterminated the probe," Santana replied with a shrug.
"Wouldn't it have been more logical to keep the probe intact, to examine it and see if there were any clues to where it came from?"
"The Daleks are a very paranoid species. They tend to shoot first, then shoot second and third too. After that, if they think it's relevant, they might ask questions."
"Shouldn't we be getting out of here, in case they do decide to ask questions?"
"That was going to be my next thought," Santana replied, activating the Jump engines.
***
Santana fussed over the readout screen, reading through the data that had been sent from Gallifrey by message laser. She had Jumped the ship into open space, some distance from the Dalek base on Sentis 3. Now she was checking out the movement of Dalek forces throughout the sector.
"The Imperial Dalek forces seem to be grouping together around the Texxis Nebula," she muttered. "Renegade ships appear to be moving towards the moon we just left. But there don't seem to be huge numbers of either at the moment."
"It seems you were right," Leela said quietly. "They have been dealt a crippling blow."
Santana looked up. "And yet you still wouldn't finish them off, if you had the chance?"
"No. As I said before, it would not be honourable."
"Then I think we should agree to disagree and leave it at that," the Time Lady suggested.
"Why do you hate the Daleks so?"
Santana's eyes grew distant. "The Daleks changed my life, my outlook, my very future. But not in a good way." She seemed to suddenly snap into the present. "And it's personal," she added hurriedly.
Leela decided to change the subject. "Have you decided on a course of action?" she inquired, gesturing at the scrolling information on the screen.
"Not yet," Santana replied, turning back to her work.
Minutes crawled slowly by in silence as she studied the screen, looking for a relevant piece of information. Then it suddenly seemed to leap out at her.
"This is interesting."
Leela turned, straining to see the screen. "What is interesting?"
"An Imperial Dalek mothership seems to be on an intercept course with a Renegade Dalek heavy cruiser."
"And what does that mean, for those of us without Gallifreyan intellect?"
"Fireworks!" Santana replied, ignoring Leela's barbed comment. "It could well be worth a ringside seat." Her fingers flew over the Jump controls, coaxing the engines into life.
"You think these two groups of Daleks will fight each other?" Leela wanted to know.
"They are as different from each other as we are," Santana replied. "Of course they'll fight. They hate each other."
Leela mulled over the other woman's comment as the ship prepared to Jump once more.
Next: Behind Enemy Lines
