Doctor Who and the Final Confrontation (The Future Doctor Chronicles Part Two)

Chapter Sixteen

Romana slapped he hand on the wall in front of the Doctor and the eternity cage vanished.  

"Do you trust me Doctor?" 

He stared straight into her eyes as he carefully considered her question. 

"Yes for some inexplicable reason I do." 

"I'm afraid this will hurt a bit Doctor but only for a short time and then everything will be right again. Don't ask me to explain because when the time is right you'll know." 

She spread her arms out wide and hugged him tightly. Sylvester watched as an orange mist drifted from her body and enveloped the Doctor and as it did so he winced slightly. Once his entire body was shrouded in it Romana let him gently drop to his knees. As soon as he hit the floor the Doctor put his head between his knees and rocked back and forth. 

He had no idea what was happening and didn't know whether he should help them or not. Romana looked incredibly weak and pale and more in need of help than the Doctor so he approached her first. 

"Are you ok Romana?" 

"Did it work? Is he back to normal?" she asked in a weak voice. 

Sylvester looked across at the Doctor and to his complete and utter disbelief saw a young man staring back at him. The grey hair had turned black and the beard was gone. Whatever the strange orange mist was it'd restored the Doctor to his prime. There was something almost childlike about the way he stared at his hands as if he couldn't quite believe how much they'd changed. 

"Doctor I think you'd better come over here quick it's Romana I think she's dying." 

The Doctor's head snapped up and as soon as he saw Romana slumped forward on her knees he ran across. He knelt down behind her and supported her back. 

"Save them." she croaked before he head dropped down and her hearts stopped beating. 

Tears streamed down his face as he gently laid her on the floor. He had no idea who or what he'd have to face but all he knew was that for her sake he had to win. Her death wouldn't be in vain. 

The distant hum of machinery brought him back to his senses. It was the unmistakeable sound of a once dead Tardis coming back to life. 

"Come along Sylvester it's time to go." he stated as he raised himself up from the floor.

The air inside the underground bunker was stale and musty. It was hardly surprising though as there'd been no reason to use it for decades. Formally used as Churchill's Cabinet War Rooms it'd been requisitioned by UNIT following a series of near misses with hostile alien forces. They'd somehow managed to fit all the modern computer equipment they needed into the old fashioned concrete interior. 

The Brigadier stood watching the split screen monitor that took up most of the back wall of the room and was horrified by each and every one of the images he saw. The Earth was falling and there was nothing he could do. 

"How long has the human race got left if it continues at this rate Brigadier?" 

He turned to his right where the Prime Minister was standing. 

"America finally fell yesterday and it looks as if Russia won't be far behind." he replied pointing at the largest of the split screens. 

The Prime Minister found it difficult to watch as hoards of Cybermen marched in formation down the streets of Moscow killing everyone they came into contact with. 

Word had spread that it was the Daleks who'd been given the task of exterminating the United Kingdom. He hoped to God it wasn't true as they were the most feared race in the universe. 

It'd only been three months since he'd had the pleasure of announcing that his party had put a stop to the recession. That was a distant memory now when confronted by the unimaginable horror of the massacre of billions. The people had looked to him as their saviour but he'd failed them miserably. He could do nothing to halt the progress of the deadly army that appeared to have left them till last.  

Emergency protocol one was a wildly optimistic plan that was designed to safeguard the government and the ruling classes to enable the country to go on after the threat was over. In this instance the plan was utterly pointless as there'd be no one left to govern. 

"Our best guess is that we only have a matter of hours left rather than days. I believe the Master will oversee our destruction personally and given his dislike of UNIT it's quite likely he'll come for us. The perception filter we have over this place will only fool him for so long and he won't spare anyone." 

"How did it come to this?" he asked more to himself than to the Brigadier.