MISSING IN ACTION
Chapter 6 The six of them stood before the conference room window, transfixed by the unspeakable horror taking place half a kilometer away on the planet's surface. Powerless to do anything, they could only watch. The Dalek ship was being swallowed whole by the tumescent twister. Unlike normal tornadoes, which ripped apart anything in their paths, apparently whatever this one touched, simply vanished. Both inanimate objects and living flesh, inexorably sucked into the unstoppable funnel cloud. Then, as mysteriously as it had come, the thing lifted up and flattened out, only to fold into itself and disappear. Leaving nothing behind to show that it had ever been, but the scoured earth. "How many of your people were on that ship?" The Doctor asked quietly, after a long pause of stunned silence. "Fifty-three, including six families and all of our remaining technical support staff." Altaar murmured sadly, his hand reaching up to rub his domed forehead. "You're race's exile has not been kind to you." The Doctor said, almost apologetically. "No thanks to you, Time Lord!" Margatha spat out hatefully, fists clenched in anger. "Did you enjoy your triumph over my people?" Eyes darkening, the Doctor rounded on her. "I never-ever-ever enjoy causing hurt or harm to anyone. Got that? Not even a Dalek, the most hateful creature in the whole of time and space. You weren't there, Margatha, you couldn't know what your people were like ten thousand years ago. Do you think I had a choice? Well, I didn't. My people forced me into that situation. But if you must know the truth, I would have stopped your people anyway, with or without the sanction of the High Council. He felt River's cautionary hand on his elbow, trying to get him to calm down. "Easy, love." She whispered. Taking a deep breath, he turned to Altaar. "I hope you will believe me when I say that I never wanted to see any of your people killed." The Doctor told him sincerely. "I know, Doc-tor." Altaar said wisely, bowing his head. "Unlike my young...colleague, I believe the old story of how you fought against your people to keep them from annihilating our race. I'm sure you thought that the exile to E-space was punishment enough." "Er—Doctor?" Said Rory. "Later, Rory!" The Doctor admonished tersely. Looking down at his scuffed up boots, he jammed his hands in his pockets and sighed. Looking up, he sighed again, and tried to explain things to Altaar. "You must understand, Altaar. I had to stop them. Any way I could." The Doctor said, as much to re-justify his past actions to himself, as to the two aliens standing before him. "The Temporal Overlords were going to destroy time itself. Unlike your ancestors, I respect time Altaar, am one with it. It's a part of who I am. It is the most precious thing in the universe to me. For anyone to become so arrogant as to think of obliterating time, is an abhorrence to me. To end all that is and ever was...well, I simply couldn't let that happen." The Doctor paused briefly, unwilling to speak of his own real-life nightmare, unable to fully disguise the bitterness he still felt. Yet, knowing he owed it to these people to tell them the whole truth, he continued, "I even destroyed my own people to keep them from doing that. Twice." "Ummm—Doctor." Interrupted Amy. "In a minute, Amy." Came the Doctor's distracted reply. "The Temporal Overlords are gone, Doc-tor." Altaar replied. "Many thousands of years ago, the last of member of the Inner Sanctum passed on. She took her selfish and evil views of time with her, I'm happy to say. We call ourselves simply the Temporals, now. We still have the ability to manipulate time—that's how we eventually defeated the Daleks. And that only took as long as it did, because we preferred to try other means to fight them, first. Over the last three thousand years, we have come to respect time, Doc-tor. The Temporals value all life, now. In many ways, it has almost become our religion. We meddle with time only as an absolute last resort." River cleared her throat loudly. "Doctor, I really think you should..." "Not now, River!" The Doctor said fussily, waving her off with his hands . "You used your time technology to defeat the Daleks. Why can't you use it on this Howling thing? No. Wait. Time out. Let's call for an instant replay on that last bit you told me. What exactly did you mean when you said 'meddle with time', Altaar?" The Doctor asked, his eyes narrowing. Altaar was about to open his mouth to reply, when out of the blue, River discharged her gun into the ceiling. Everyone but her instinctively ducked. A very cross Doctor turned to bawl her out. River was standing there with raised eyebrows, a smirk on her face, holstering her gun. The thumb and index finger of her free hand was making a pointing gesture out the window. "River, so help me, one of these days I'm going to take that gun away from you and..." Scowling at River Song, the Doctor turned to see what was so fascinating outside. "Oh." He said softly. Out on the planet's barren wastes, the Howling again had reappeared, roughly two kilometers from the building they were in. And it was headed towards them.
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