The TARDIS screen flashed a symbol of a snake eating it's own tail, while a bleeping alert sounded. The Warrior walked to answer the incoming message, wry smile on his face.
"Ah, the Corsair! Couldn't have asked for a better man."
On the screen, the symbol faded as it was replaced by a video feed of a young woman dressed in what I could only describe as steampunk pirate. On the left side of her neck, I could just make out a tattoo of the same ouroborus symbol.
"My dear Doctor, is that any way to talk to a lady?" She said with a smirk.
The Warrior tried and partially succeeded in hiding his embarrassment.
"So, you've regenerated again, it would seem. What was it this time, hmm? Change of scenery, perhaps a failed pistol duel? Or maybe you just tripped over a brick. Again."
"Ouch. You cut me with such razor wit, Doctor. At least I have my rapier to defend myself this time." The pair were enjoying a brief respite from the concerns of war. For a small moment, they were two friends reminiscing. All too quickly, the smile eased from the Corsair's face.
"Actually, it was a horde of Skaro Degredations on Ganon 5. Lucky to have escaped at all."
"Well, it's good to see you all the same. We'll have to have a proper catch up when we've taken care of these Daleks. Do you still have that 17th Century tea-chest?"
The Corsair burst into laughter.
"The one from our run in with the clockwork pirates? Of course, I've been saving it for a special occasion. Tell you what, I'll brew us a pot when we're done here. Over and out."
"Old friend?" I asked the Warrior suggestively, as he turned towards me. "Yes, from our days in the... No. Not like that! Humans, minds always in the gutter. This is why all the civilized races avoid Earth you know." His tone was terse, but I could tell by his eyes that he was joking.
The Warrior led me to the doors of the TARDIS and opened them wide. We were frozen in the sky above Vakar, the Dalek ship stretching out before us like a giant silver floor. We watched as several cylindrical devices materialized opposite from our location. Each one was about 10ft tall and 3ft in diameter, and had a variety of tubes and barrels arranged around their circumference. Olistra's cavalry had arrived. Leading the charge was the Corsair, or at least, the battle TARDIS I assumed belong to them. Even the Doctor wouldn't fly a 17th Century Schooner across the Universe.
The battle began as soon as the crafts arrived. It was a dizzying sight to behold, and the Warrior did his best to explain the array of weapons on display as we waited for our window to appear in the distraction. Torpedoes launched that froze their targets, immobile in a fraction of time, making easy targets. Against the Time Lord charge, the Daleks launched squads of their own, their metallic casings flying through the sky, needling the battle TARDISES. Larger Dalek shells, and fighter craft poured out from the vessel below, acting as heavy hitters against the assault. I saw laser beams that caused their targets to explode. The Corsair's ship angled parallel to the hull of the Dalek vessel and unleashed a broadside of energy weapons. Where each blast impacted, I saw the metal tarnish and decay in a matter of moments, crumbling into dust. Given the sheer scale of the Dalek craft, the damage was minimal though. My head was spinning at the scale of the fight below me. TARDISES phased into and out of dimensions, hopping several seconds in time or several hundred meters in space with each transition. They followed a seemingly random pattern, preventing the Daleks from tracking them with their heavier weapons. Some of the TARDISES fired projectiles that reminded me of the legend of Cuchulainn, specifically Gae Bolg. Like the spear of legend, these projectiles would always strike their foes. The legend spoke of a weapon of last resort, guaranteed to kill it's target. Similarly, these projectiles reversed cause and effect. Essentially, they had already struck Daleks before they had fired.
"Right!" Exclaimed the Warrior, suddenly. "That's gotten their attention. With any luck, the Daleks will think we're out here fighting. At worst, they're expecting us, but we've thinned their interior ranks quite significantly."
"So, we just wander in and shut down their super-weapon?" I asked, skeptically.
"Well, that's the gist, though it won't be quite as easy as you imply."
"Oh good. For a second I was afraid it wouldn't be a suitable challenge. How do you propose we do it, anyway. When we defeated the Vakarians, we overloaded the Paradox Engines."
"Yes, a good plan it was, too. But it won't be so easy this time. You're not up against a test-case with a built in safety net. There's no convenient button to press to save the day this time."
"You do have a plan though, right?" I ventured, hesitantly.
"Of course. See those round things on the wall? Be a good lad and help me prise one off, would you?"
I held the round thing as the Warrior worked his screwdriver carefully around the edges of it. He informed me that the round things act as a sort of resonance chamber for temporal energy. Like the interior of a fusion reactor that uses magnetic fields to contain super hot plasmas, these roundels generate a field that refocuses radiant temporal energy back towards the tine rotor. Shortly, the device tilted forward, pulling me forward as I struggled to catch it. It weighed more that you might expect. On the back of the roundel were a number of wires and assorted electrical gubbins, presumably the mechanism that generated the temporal field.
"Righteo." said the Warrior. "Back into the lion's den we go. Let's just hope that luck is on our side."
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