The Wizard's Guide to Timelords and Other Demons Book 1: The Forgotten War

The Medusa Cascade

Waiting.... It was not a concept Time Lords were as accustomed to as others might be. After all, what was the point of sitting around for hours—or even days—waiting for something to happen when you could simply hop into your time machine and move forward to a future where it had happened already? However, when your time machine is stuck, parked just outside the great rift in the Medusa Cascade nebula refueling itself with rift energy—a process that had already taken well over 36 hours—then waiting was the only option available.

The last few months had been quite a strain on the TARDIS' main energy source. Hidden deep within the heart of the TARDIS, the Eye of Harmony provided all the power that a Time Lord would ever need to travel across space and time on many adventures; and perhaps even, on occasion, to save the universe. Still, the Eye of Harmony was not infinite. Every now and then it needed to regenerate itself in proximity to a rift or other similar space-time event that emitted a certain type of energy which the Eye required to satisfy its hunger. Much to the vexation of the Doctor, this process took an eternity...or so it seemed to him. Nonetheless, the months behind had been trying ones.

It had been only five months since the Doctor had rescued humanity (along with the rest of the universe) from the Dalek Crucible in this very nebula and had used the TARDIS to tow the earth back to its own solar system. It was during that time that he lost his dear friend and companion, Donna Noble. Without Donna's sacrifice, the Medusa Cascade would have been the final resting place of the Earth and the focal point for the end of all existence. But her sacrifice was also not without cost. Donna's mind was consumed with the great knowledge of the Time Lords—something a human brain could never endure. It would have destroyed her if the Doctor had not removed all remnants of it from her mind, including all memory of him and the experiences they had shared together. He missed Donna. He missed their conversations, both insightful and ludicrous. He missed her incessant jeering and insults, as well as her unexpected (and often accidental) flashes of wisdom and inspiration. But above all, he simply missed the companionship she provided. The Doctor did not like to be alone.

Then there was Rose Tyler. Dear, sweet, beautiful Rose. Losing her all those years ago was like death. The last words he had spoken to her were through a crack in the wall of a closing space-time rift. That rift had connected this universe to an alternate universe where she would be trapped for eternity. How he wished he could have told her then what he truly felt for her. But time had run out when the rift sealed itself too soon. It had closed forever, or so he thought. Then, as if by miracle, the rift had opened again and brought Rose back to him. That too was only months ago and saying goodbye a second time was worse than death. Again, he could not tell her how he felt. Not because he ran out of time as before but because he dared not. She had a life now in that far away universe where he could not stay, and he had no right to take her from it.

Refueling the TARDIS while reminiscing gloomily on the past was not the only reason the Doctor had come to the nebula. He could have done that at the rift in Cardiff as he sipped tea and downed biscuits with any number of friends he had on earth. The Doctor's presence here served another purpose, and only this rift would do. Since his arrival (37 hours ago now and counting), the TARDIS had been transmitting a message deep into the rift and listening carefully for a response. The Doctor had tried every form of communication technology he knew of: radio waves (all bands), sub-waves, subspace, transpace, hypercube, temporal interrocitor, even an old flip-style cell phone. The entire TARDIS sensor mesh was fixed on the rift. If any form of response came through, the Doctor would know it. But nothing came out of the rift but background space-time noise which the TARDIS also sifted through diligently, looking for something important. There was simply no indication of anything intelligent dwelling on the other side of the rift. So, the Doctor waited.

You have to be here; you just have to! He thought to himself, frustrated. Please answer me!

He was certain that the carefully crafted message he had spent months preparing would have provoked some form of response from within the rift—perhaps out of intrigue, curiosity or even simply out of irritation.