The Doctor is summoned by a Time Beacon. He explains to Heart and Diamond that the Beacon is from an old friend. He homes in on it.
Exiting the Tardis, the Doctor and his companions find themselves surrounded by armed Sontarans. The Sontaran commander announces that he is their prisoner. A Draconian comes forward and suggests he meant 'guest.' The Sontarran immediately agrees that the Doctor is a guest.
The Sontararan commander then announces that the Doctor will be required to serve the Sontarran cause. The Draconian suggests that what he meant was that they were requesting the Doctor's assistance. The Sontaran commander agrees that's what he actually meant.
The Draconian comes forward to welcome his old friend, The Doctor to Sontar prime.
*******
The Doctor, it turns out, has been summoned to solve a murder. A Sontaran has been killed. In and of itself, that's not significant. Millions of Sontarans are killed every day in their thirty thousand year long war with the Rutan collective. Death is a part of Sontaran life. But this Sontaran is an anomaly. The census is perfect, all Sontarans are accounted for. So where did this one come from, and who killed him, and why?
The Draconian, however, is concerned. As an Emissary from the Draconian Empire, he has persuaded the Sontaran ruling council to have the matter investigated. But since murder is unknown to the Draconians, they have needed to bring in an outsider - the Doctor.
The Doctor has been accorded the status of Ambassador. However, Heart and Diamond are not Ambassadors and immediately arrested. The Tardis is impounded, although as an Embassy, it cannot be tampered with. The Draconian suggests this is merely incentive. The Doctor has no choice but to solve the mystery.
This turns out to be tougher than it looks. The body cannot be identified because it is identical. All Sontarans are clones. Their civilization is a stratocracy, a civilization of cloned soldiers, by cloned soldiers, for cloned soldiers. The victim is physically and genetically identical to every other Sontaran. All foreign biological traces are identically Sontaran.
The Sontarans, as it turns out, have no motivations to commit a murder. No Sontaran has anything any other Sontaran wants, there is no jealousy, no greed, no lust. The Sontarans lack any of the seven standard motives for murder. The Sontarans understand death and war, but they do not understand murder. They have no sense of self identity, so to be murdered is meaningless, and to murder is pointless. The Doctor's inquiries are met with baffled incomprehension.
The Doctor theorizes that if a Sontaran was murdered, then the murder must have been committed by a non-Sontaran. And since the number of registered Sontarans has not changed, the murderer must have assumed the victim's identity and is concealed among the Sontarans, as a spy.
The obvious candidate for a spy are the Rutan Collective - a race of mind-melded jellyfish.
The Draconian notes that the Rutan are one of the three most dangerous races in the universe, and without the Sontarans to fight them, they would have overrun the galaxy. For tens of thousands of years, the Sontarans have stalemated the Rutans.
Which is why the Draconian Empire, and so many other civilizations over the millenia have supported the Sontarans in their war, the Draconian reveals. In turn, the Sontarans rely upon the other races for materials and support. Better the Sontarans than the Rutans.
The camera pulls away to reveal that they are being watched on a viewscreen. A Sontaran frame, manipulates levers.
*********
Heart and Diamond are sitting quietly in their prison cell. Suddenly, Heart senses danger. The cell begins to fill with poison gas. Diamond uses her powers to break them out of their cell, and they flee, knocking over Sontaran guards like tenpins.
An alarm klaxon begins, with red lights flashing on and off, announcing the break out and escape of dangerous aliens. The intercom announces that the Doctor has aided the escapees and is an enemy of the Sontarans who must be destroyed immediately.
A Sontaran attacks, but the Doctor disables it and flees. However, the Doctor is pursued and ends up trapped, facing multiple Sontarans. One of them gives the order to fire....
At the last minute, the Draconian appears and intervenes on behalf of the Doctor, but this provides only a temporary respite.
Together, the Doctor and the Draconian retreat to a strange labyrinth of crystals. The Sontarans will not follow them there.
The Draconian reveals that this place is called the Memory Archives, where the body was found. Someone had tried to hide it here. The Doctor observes that if the Sontarans found the body in here, then they will eventually arrive.
As if on cue, the the Sontarans arrive, lead by the Sontaran Commander. The Draconian attempts to intercede. Once again, the Sontaran Commander gives an order to fire.
**************
Meanwhile, Heart and Diamond, fleeing into an elevator, find themselves trapped. The Sontarans plan to blow the elevator into space, and start counting down to zero.
Heart uses her abilities to psychically locate the Doctor and send a message to him through the communication system, calling for his help.
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The New Doctor! A Doctor Who Alternate History Story
FanfictionThis is a Doctor Who fanfic, like you've never seen before. Not a Doctor Who story, not quite, although it contains Doctor Who stories. It's an alternate history story about the making of Doctor Who... Or about a particular version of Doctor Who...
