The meeting took place on an abandoned space station named Dyonisus.

Gregor stood next to his TARDIS, armed with the latest in staser technology. He checked the charge and hoped it would be enough, hoped more that he wouldn't have to use it.

Gregor had used Dyonisus before as a meeting place. It was a convenient safe house, away from the prying eyes of his employers. It was also far enough away from any obstruction so that he could detect anyone approach in plenty of time. There had been a couple of times where Gregor had to leave fast when he realised that rather than play dealmaker, his potential partners came ready to plunder.

Deep space scans detected the ship long before visual contact had been made. Gregor had marvelled at the sheer amount of arms on the vessel - missiles, pulse cannons, drones. Enough to reduce a moon into dust, if needed.

The ship was slow to dock. Gregor assumed that the pilot scanned for traps and weaponry aboard.

Paranoia and overkill, what a combination, Gregor thought.

The internal scanners showed a group of three had entered the ship and were on their way to the bridge. Once again he checked the staser, then shoved it into his jacket.

Gregor heard the metallic squawks and screeches before the three units trundled into the Bridge, the black unit flanked by the two reds.

"Prompt as always?"

A series of whistles and white noise filled the air until their translators dialled into the correct form of communication.

"WE ARE HERE."

"Good. Now, I don't think this will take long."

"WHERE IS THE DOC-TOR?"

"I don't have him trussed up in my TARDIS, if that's what you thought."

"YOU PROMISED-"

"I promised him to you, true, and in exchange, you get to keep your wormhole technology without my people wiping your existence from the universe."

"THE TIME LORDS ARE A WEAK, INFERIOR SPECIES -"

"Need I bring up Spiridon again?"

The black unit fell silent for a beat. "WHERE IS THE DOC-TOR?"

"Are all Daleks so single-minded?"

"YOU PROMISED HIM TO THE DALEKS," the black unit said.

"And I did, but you'll have to capture him yourself."

"YOU WILL HELP THE DALEKS."

The Black unit trained its gunstick on Gregor, who held up a small black box in response.

"This is a distress signal. If I press it, the Time Lords will descend upon this space station before you could escape. And if they find you here, you can forget about existing in any timeline."

The Dalek lowered his gun. "DO YOU HAVE A STRATAGEM?"

Gregor leered. "About time you asked a sensible question."

***

Smith sipped his coffee. In front of him were several pages of single-space, typed notes about recent events - San Pedro, Anathema, the slipshod assassination on Earth, the job on Diamanda's home planet - along with recent events on Shada. Many clues, yet nothing tied together. There was the Time Lords deal with the Sontarans, Gregor's personal mission, Dyane's odd appearance back in his life. He sipped his coffee again, set the cup back on his desk and read the notes again, from page one.

"Confusing, isn't it, hmmm?"

Smith looked up. "Your turn to baby-sit?"

The Old Man frowned. "Don't put it like that, dear boy."

"If you can help, now would be the time."

"If you get out of the way so I can see," the Old Man said.

He looked over Smith's notes, tutted and hummed as he read.

"I'm having trouble with the big picture," Smith said.

"I can see that." The Old Man grasped his lapels. "You don't have enough information. I also think that events are not as interrelated as you think."

Smith furrowed his brow. "You think so too?"

"Yes. The young one will not go away until he's dealt with, permanently."

"I did."

The Old Man harrumphed.

"If you be so kind as to let me in on the joke," Smith said.

"You actually thought that by sending him back home, he would be out of the game?"

Smith wiped his face, shook his head. "Then Aoxomoxoa is a bigger fool than I thought."

"Deal with the young one first, that's my advice."

And the Old Man left.

***

Diamanda heard the shrill beeping from her own room. She tossed the book she'd been involved with on the bed and jogged to the control room. Smith had beaten her. He stood over the console, setting controls.

"Summons from the boss?" Diamanda asked.

"No," Smith said, "distress call, planet named Koaza-Mith."

"Never heard of it."

"Neither have I." Smith set the co-ordinates.

"I take it we're going?"

"It's a specific distress call. From a TARDIS."

"One of your own?"

"Probably some first time agent who doesn't know how to pilot their ship." He looked up at Diamanda and smiled. "Either that, or it's a trap."

Diamanda froze. "A trap? Then why go?"

"Because, if it is a trap, it could only be from one person. And I intend to stop this right now."

***

The ship materialised in the middle of a flat plain. Smith checked the scanner, frowned.

"This is interesting."

Diamanda padded over to Smith. "What is?"

"A TARDIS distress signal, with no TARDIS in sight."

"Theory number two, then?"

"It would be safe to say." Smith shook his head.

"Any plans?"

"Yeah. Time to use a Judas Goat."

***

Gregor suppressed an urge to walk out of his own TARDIS the moment he saw the police box materialise in the middle of the plain. What was about to happen lacked the personal touch of a couple bullets behind the ear, but he knew the Doctor wouldn't survive the oncoming onslaught.

He tapped a button on the console, a signal to his new friends. The Daleks first wanted to take the Doctor alive, but Gregor convinced him that extermination on sight would be better. The Daleks could take the smouldering corpse back to Skaro, or wherever they lived right now.

Gregor turned his attention back to the scanner. He watched the door to the Doctor's TARDIS, saw him and his vicious primitive companion walk out and slowly circle the blue box. Without warning, the Doctor and his companions headed away from his ship. Gregor watched as the pair headed roughly north, now looking at the surroundings.

Behind the pair, a white line formed in the air, shimmering in the reddish sky. The line expanded, forming a jagged hole in the air.

Four Daleks shot out the hole, the air filled with their mechanical screeching. He saw the Doctor look back, grab his companion's arm and sprint away from the squad. The Daleks fired a round of green-white bolts which barely missed the fleeing pair.

Gregor smiled as he watched the Daleks extend their spider legs for rough terrain. The four units crawled along the plain, shortening the distance between them and their quarry. More blasts were fired, flying past the Doctor and his companion as they split apart at the last second, running in opposite directions.

The pursuing Daleks split off in pairs and resumed their relentless chase. Gregor saw the woman trip and bounce off the ground. The Daleks adjusted their gunsticks and fired several rounds into her body as she tried to pull herself off the ground. After the flash faded, all that was left was a blackened corpse.

Gregor heard more screeching, then a frenzied shout from the Doctor. Gregor saw he'd caught a blast in the right leg, shearing it off below the knee. He watched the Doctor crawl, blood oozing from the wound. It didn't take long for the Daleks to catch up with the wounded Time Lord. And it took even less time for the pair of Daleks to blast him into dust.

***

Smith reassembled the holographic projector and shoved it back into the TARDIS console.

"I thought the Daleks were dead," Diamanda said.

"So did I, quite a few times."

Diamanda sighed. "Now what?"

"Well, it won't take the Daleks long to realise that they incinerated a pair of holograms."

"So, we just sit tight?"

"No." Smith moved to a different section of the console. "I think we need to go on the offensive."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Diamanda asked.

"Good, old fashioned sabotage." Smith looked at his companion with a inquisitive eye. "How flexible are you?"

Diamanda eyed Smith. "Flexible?"

"Yes, flexible. I've seen the way you curl into the lounge," Smith said.

Diamanda raised her eyebrows. "Oh no."

"What do you mean, 'Oh, no'?"

"You're not getting me into a Dalek casing."

"Diamanda-"

"Don't Diamanda me, Doctor. I'm not one of the little petite fawns you're used to travelling with."

For emphasis, Diamanda strode over and fixed Smith with an icy stare.

Smith realised that even in bare feet, Diamanda had an inch on him.

"By the way, aren't the Daleks going to realise they've destroyed a pair of holograms?"

Smith said nothing. He shoved his hands in his pockets, closed his eyes.

Diamanda turned around, went back to the lounge. "More thinking?"

"What?" Smith said, snapped back into reality by Diamanda's words. He turned to his companion. "Well, same plan, but with refinements."

Smith went back to the section with the holographic projector. "As far as our Dalek friends are concerned, they should find out the truth about..." Smith paused to look at his wristwatch. "Now."

***

Gregor knew there was a problem once the Doctor's TARDIS dematerialised. The Dalek assassination team marched over to the spot where the TARDIS had been and exploded in a flurry of whistles, clicks, squawks and screeches of white noise.

The wormhole opened back up and the Daleks disappeared the way they had arrived.

Gregor felt the alarm moments before it blared in the control room. Frowning, Gregor turned on his scanner and was greeted by a hostile Black Dalek.

"YOU HAVE DECEIVED US!"

"What are you talking about? The Doctor is dead."

"THE DOC-TOR WAS NOT EXTERMINATED. THAT WAS A HOLOGRAM."

Gregor turned his back to the screen to suppress a laugh. Although he wanted the Doctor out of the way, he was impressed by the wily old bastard.

"Well, he's not stupid."

"YOU WILL RETURN TO THE SPACE STATION IMMEDIATELY."

"No. I've kept my side of the bargain."

Gregor shut down the comm line.

***

Journal Entry:

If you're expecting a date you'll be sadly mistaken. Even if I put something at the top and call it local TARDIS time, it will be far to close to Star Trek for my liking.

That's not the point. After Diamanda declined to fit into a Dalek casing, I decided to do the obvious thing and use the holographic projector and create a Dalek that way. At this point I still had no idea how the Daleks got here, or how they were coming, although I had a good idea.

The Old Man, my first incarnation, was correct in telling me to take care of Gregor first, if it was him who sent me to Koaza-Mith. There were other concerns, such as the wormhole technology the Daleks have gained. I sent Diamanda to the databases to dig up any information on the subject. I just hoped THEY hadn't done anything stupid and deleted key information when they robbed my TARDIS banks.

***

It felt like times back in the lab, circuit boards and wire all over the place, wiring diagrams tack on surfaces. The Dandy would have been at home here. At one point I thought of contacting him, but realised this wasn't his kind of work. As much as I admire their consul, what was about to happen was for me and me alone.

"Doctor?"

Diamanda walked in, perched herself on one of the benches, pages of printout in her hand.

"Yes, Diamanda?"

"I think I found what you wanted. There are several articles about Montalbano's wormhole theories, and an incident about a Dalek raid on a planet in the Galsec system."

"Anything else?"

"It says that around the Earth year 3124, the Daleks left their home planet of Skaro, and settled on the very edge of the Universe, leaving their entire Killcruiser fleet behind. The Thals subsequently destroyed Skaro within weeks of their departure." Brilliant.

"What else?" I had my hands full of tools and my elbows deep into a black box.

"Just general information about how Dalek activity has been minimal since their move off Skaro."

Well, with the Daleks now able to sweep in, slaughter a planet and retreat back to their new home, it made them far scarier then ever before, not to mention their movements more difficult to track.

THEY will not take this bit of news too well.

"So, what you doing?" Diamanda asked.

"Building a better Dalek."

"Sounds like a conjuring trick."

I poked my head out, saw Diamanda's sarcastic grin. "You're not too far off."

"More holograms."

"Yes. Plus a couple of other surprises."

***

Gregor felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck the moment he heard the sound of materialisation within his own ship. Panic rising, he scanned the interior of his TARDIS to find out who or what had arrived on board.

"What are you up to now, Doctor?" Gregor said through clenched teeth.

The scanner yielded negative results.

He moved to the co-ordinates section of the controls, found them locked down.

It took Gregor a few moments to notice his bleeding knuckles form when he punched the console.

He slapped the dematerialisation lever out of desperation. The control room shuddered, the controls sparked, before shutting down with an ominous hum.

Gregor backed away from the controls, gripped his shirt in frustration.

***

Diamanda followed Smith back into the control room. His hands were blurred as he punched commands into the keyboard that had popped out of the console.

"Diamanda," Smith said, "When I tell you, press the blue button, then the green button on the black box."

She found the black box plugged into the controls. "What happens then?"

"A bit of anarchy, I hope."

Smith finished his manic keystrokes. The keyboard folded in on itself and disappeared back into the console. "Now."

Diamanda pressed the buttons in order.

***

Fade in:

In the blackness of space, we see a space station shaped like a large bicycle wheel slowly rotate clockwise. There several spokes that meet in a centre spherical hub. In the hub is the only source of light. Attached to the hub is a long, needle-shaped craft.

Starting at the top, we see a series of silent implosions as the wheel collapses into itself. The implosions overtake the rotation of the wheel itself, crushing the material into nothingness. The spokes fall victim next, crumpling along toward the hub, a series of fuses heading toward the central sphere. Without warning, the needle cruiser sparks and bends in half, the nose impossibly touching the engines in the rear, before it disintegrates.

In moments, only the hub is left.

***

The remaining Daleks screeched and skronked. 30 units had been lost when the cruiser had disintegrated. Chaos erupted in the hub as Daleks tried to find out how they'd been attacked.

A chunk of debris slammed into the side of the hub, scattering Daleks around the control room.

A series of whistles and feedback emitted from the Black Dalek. He demanded the remaining units reorder themselves or they would be exterminated.

It took a few seconds, but the units resumed their posts, some using their spikes to dig into the floor for balance.

The Black Dalek's sensors detected the presence of an Anarchitect. The hub shook as more debris from the outside wheel stuck the hub. He ordered one of the soldier Daleks to go to one of the doors. There was no reaction from the other units as the Anarchitect descended on the soldier, eviscerating the machine into a mass of metal and internal organs. The Black Dalek swept the room with his sensors, found no presence of the Anarchitect.

Orders were issued to activate the wormhole. A Blue Dalek trundled over to the controls and set the sequence in motion. The Black Dalek and the remaining units lined up as the hole formed in the middle of the control room. Within seconds, the remaining Dalek force entered the hole and escaped the hub.

It was only when in the hole the Black Dalek realised there were no Blue Daleks in this group.....

***

"Remind me never to get on your bad side," Diamanda said as the hub disintegrated on the scanner.

Smith snorted. "If you expect me to take pleasure in that, don't hold your breath."

"Since when do you take pleasure in anything?"

I take pleasure in you keeping me on level ground, Smith thought. He walked over to Diamanda, put a tentative hand on her shoulder.

"If you want me to give some speech about being morally offended about what I just did, I can."

"No," Diamanda said. "I'll know you're lying." She placed her hand on top of his, patted it. "So, are they all gone?"

"No."

"So, our fake Dalek didn't just plant the Anarchitect?"

"He did that, and something else." Smith slid his hand away, set the controls. The ship was in motion once more.

"Before you ask, Diamanda, we're heading back to Koaza-Mith."

***

Gregor heard telling mechanical dialogue before he saw them. He forced himself to calm down, then went over to a roundel in the control room wall. He gave the roundel a quarter turn, then popped it out. Inside was a shelf, holding four silver ovoids with a dial ring in the centre. He shoved two in his pocket, held the third.

He kept his back to the wall as he made his way to the inner door. He turned the ring in the centre as he opened the inner door, threw the frag grenade down the hall.

The explosion dropped him to his knees. Smoke billowed into the control room. He heard panicked screeches from the Daleks. Gregor grabbed a second grenade and hurled it down the hallway. It exploded with a bright flash. A few fragments flew into the control room, landed in the ceiling.

Gregor backed away from the inner door, eyes on the smoke now filling his control room. The stench of ozone accompanied the cloud, causing his to choke. Gregor felt around the console as the smoke blinded him, found the outer door control...

Two green-white bolts hit the controls as he pressed the door. The Black Dalek, fragments embedded in his casing, and the remaining red Dalek, missing his sucker arm and gunstick, wobbled into the control room, hissing and screeching like cats. The Black Dalek fired at random, bolts crashing into the walls. Gregor twisted the ring on the last frag grenade as he ripped it from his pocket. The red Dalek slammed into him. The frag fell out of his hand and rolled underneath the controls. Gregor dove for the outer door when a Dalek blast hit his leg.

And then the room exploded into fire and molten metal.

***

At one point it was a control room for a TARDIS.

Now it looked like someone had used the room for frag grenade practice. Debris from the exploded console mixed with green slime and shattered remains of the casings.

Smith stood in the doorway, grim look on his face. He was amazed by the determination of the charred and bloody form pinned to the wall of the capsule. Although there was little left of the face besides gore, the steel-grey eyes spoke volumes of hatred.

"Is that who I think it is?" Diamanda asked

"Yes."

The stump of the console emitted a shower of sparks.

"Why?"

"He panicked. He could have deleted the rooms and expelled the Daleks into the vortex," Smith said. "Then again, he should have known better than to get involved with the Daleks."

Diamanda turned her head away from Gregor's mangled body. She swallowed down her nausea. She saw the pained look in Smith's eye.

"Is there nothing we can do?" Diamanda asked.

"Send this TARDIS back home, and hope he gets there in time."

***

Journal Entry

I am not proud about what happened to Gregor. However. I refuse to beat myself up about it. I have enough guilt in my life right now. What is important is that Diamanda and I are alive and relatively unscathed.

I did send Gregor's TARDIS back to Shada. Unfortunately, he didn't make it. Nova told me in my last briefing.

But I have a feeling now that Gregor's out of the picture, the real dangerous part is coming soon.