The Last Great Time War: part III

Kolox, part I

The War Chief looked out into the time vortex through huge, floor-to-ceiling viewscreens on the bridge of his Time Dreadnought. On the screens were glowing maps of the vortex routes they were taking and their corresponding areas in real space and time.

Behind him were eighty thousand Gallifreyan warships of every kind. The War Chief had been thwarted by the Renegade before, and he was determined never to let that happen again. The Renegade's bases of support and the galaxy of his favorite planet were all going to burn today.

"The enemy is closing in," the Renegade said to his troops. "Their fleet's about to split. Activate the time corridor!"

Thousands of NTA ships equipped with modified Dalek stealth technology created a tunnel in the vortex around the War Chief's fleet. The Time Lords did not notice at first, since such tunnels were originally designed for travel anyway.

"Commander, we've gone off course," said the War Chief's navigator. "Both halves of the fleet have looped back into each other."

"Correct course and open fire," the War Chief ordered. "They will not stop us!"

"Sir, no enemies have been detected," said another crew member.

"Then what happened?"

"We can't tell, sir," said the navigator. "We're trying to correct course, but more time corridor keeps forming ahead of us and looping us back. We're going in circles."

"Then smash through the walls!"

The fleet jerked by 720 degrees and 300 years, turning too sharply for the NTA to keep up and tearing open the time corridor. The artificial pathway through the vortex dissolved, and the Gallifreyan fleet went into disarray as the streaming undercurrent of time and space was disrupted.

"Attack," the Renegade ordered.
The standard part of the NTA fleet phased into the vortex, joining their invisible comrades and raining destruction upon the War Chief's fleet. The Time Lords fired back, temporarily distracted from their goal.

The Renegade's TARDIS shot through the heart of the enemy fleet, firing a stream of destruction into their ships. The outer shells of War TARDISes corroded away and burst apart, spewing their contents across time and space. Bowships buckled and snapped under the strain, while exploding Black Hole Carriers sent waves of gravitational energy through the time vortex.

The TARDIS dropped like a stone, shot up like a cork, and twisted around like a snake as it dodged the enemy fire. Waves of hyper-compressed vortex energy, history-drainer beams, time torpedoes, antimatter slugs, de-mat pulses, and other lethal exotic weapons surged around the battlefield, turning ships into debris, raw ore, energy, half-finished skeletons, or just memories of things that never were.

"Proceed to the target," the War Chief shouted. "Don't let them slow us down!"

Half of the Time Lord fleet shifted out of the vortex and into real space at the edge of Mutter's spiral.

"They're here," the Renegade said.

"We can see them," replied the human leader of the Terran Temporal Battle Fleet.

"Attack and draw them to Kolox," the Renegade ordered. "Don't let them destroy any star systems!"

The human fleet joined with the NTA fleet and that of the Skrawn. The Renegade pulled his TARDIS into orbit around Kolox, the Skrawn homeworld, as the battle moved closer through the surrounding systems.
Before long, the Time Lords were pushing the NTA fleet into the Kolox system and into orbit around Kolox itself.

"Raise a sky trench," the Renegade said. "Cybermen, Gallifreyans, and Skrawn, board the enemy fleet! The rest of you, fall back and form a defensive line!"

The Renegade flew away from the battle, with a horde of enemy ships on his tail. A squadron of Thal battlecruisers flanked him, covering him from enemy fire.
The Renegade was giving his weapons time to charge up. It was going to take just the right amount of firepower to pull off the stunt he was planning, and that amount was quite a bit.

Once the charge was full enough, the TARDIS swooped toward a Time Dreadnought.

"NOW," the Renegade shouted. All of the pent up energy blasted into the colossal ship and seared open a hole. In the split second before the shields went back up, the TARDIS and several other timeships had materialized on board.

There was no one in the room where the Renegade's TARDIS was. The crew of the Time Dreadnought were elsewhere, repairing the damage and trying to fight off the other intruders.

The room was a soldier's bedroom. It had plain light-gray walls, and the only furniture was a cot and a nightstand. Taped to the walls were pictures of the soldier's family, many of whom were missing in action. Also on the walls were propaganda posters claiming that the NTA was a terrorist group and listing rewards for the capture of its leaders. The reward for the Renegade was circled, and it was enough to buy a cliffside estate on Mount Perdition, a thousand acres of Gallifreyan wilderness, and, most importantly, a pass to keep one and one's family out of the War for life.

The Renegade pulled out a pen and wrote "I'm sorry" on the poster. Then, he put the TARDIS one second out of sync and left the room.