Episode 31 - The Purpose of the Name

So... where was I?

"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

Oh, right.

It was clear to me that I might one day run into the Daleks. I mean, after the Gelth being on the Discworld and a Silence in Sherlock Holmes' London, it became a rather obvious possibility, escalating in likelihood after running into the other members of the Doctor's Rogues Gallery.

A rather dreaded possibility, for obvious reasons. There's a reason the Daleks are the greatest enemies of the Doctor.

And now I had to deal with them, with the fate of an entire world, perhaps an entire universe, at stake.

I took a step back and stretched out my arm. "On my signal," I said in a low voice, directing my words to the others. "We need to run."

"Can't you just remotely bring the TARDIS to us?", Liara asked.

"Not in front of them," I answered. "I can't risk that. Now, get ready..."

"You guys run," Wes said. "I'll hold them off."

"You'll do no such thing," I whispered back. "You'll fall back like the..."

But it was too late. Wes pulled out his blaster weapon and brought it up to shoot at the white Dalek.

"Weapons detected! Engage! Exterminate!" That Dalek and two on his flanks turned their bodies slightly. Wes' first shot struck the yellow one with some success, sending up sparks from the impact point. But it wasn't dead, and more to the point, the other Daleks were already targeting him. Their weapons returned fire and struck Wes repeatedly. He cried out and collapsed. Light erupted around him and he was back in civilian clothes. Badly charred ones at that.

"Wes!" Jen went up to him and grabbed him. "Wes, talk to me!"

"Get back!", I shouted. I looked to the charred wreckage on the ground that had been my sonic disruptor and felt frustration. To lose that now, of all times? If she hadn't been vaporized I would have been growling quite a few things at Tezzla. "Liara, can you shield us?"

She held up her hands and generated a biotic shield, just in time to deflect several more shots. TJ picked up Wes to carry him. "Where to?", he asked.

"Back the way we came," I answered. I held out the sonic screwdriver. The transmat device exploded in sparks. It wasn't destroyed, but it was crippled for the time being, and that would buy the Earth some time. But we needed time as well. Liara couldn't hold off the Daleks' fire if they concentrated, and I was certain they were about to. So I reached into my jacket.

Like I said before, I'd been expecting something like this to happen, and I always came prepared for it. In this case it was an emitter of sorts that, by the records I had on the TARDIS, could temporarily jam various forms of optic sensors. Including, obviously, Dalek ones.

There wasn't a flash of light but rather a loud electronic buzzing that quickly reached a high pitch. The Daleks started shrieking. Their headpieces started swiveling. "Vision impaired! Vision impaired!", they all cried out.

With the Daleks blinded, we retreated from the hall. Liara slumped a little once she was able to drop the field. I helped her to her feet. "I'm sorry, but we have to keep moving."

"I understand." Liara was struggling to keep up, but she was at least managing it.

The Rangers and Katara were ahead of us and running onward. As we ran the route back to the TARDIS, I tried to control the fear I felt. Certainly these weren't the Daleks at their Time Lord-threatening height, but they were still more than powerful enough to be a horrific threat to this entire world, if not cosmos. Something had to be done.

And that something was going to involve me, for obvious reasons.

"Doctor, what are those things?", Katie asked.

"Daleks," I answered. "They're engineered beings from the planet Skarro with a supergenius-level IQ that pilot those personal armored vehicles you saw them in. And they hate everything."

It was Katara's turn to ask things. "What do you mean 'hate everything'?"

"They hate every living thing," I clarified. "They hate us to the very core of their beings because we are not Daleks."

"Sounds pretty far out," Trip remarked.

"I wish it were," I growled. "But the Daleks are not to be trifled with. They're very big on extermination, as you heard back there."

We kept running until we got to one of the larger rooms not far from the TARDIS. Katara and Katie barely got out of the way when energy fire came down on us. "Exterminate!"

There were Daleks in our way.

With Liara's help Lucas and I pulled Katara and Katie back into the hall. Behind us a shrill cry of "Exterminate!" could be heard. We were trapped.

"We'll have to fight our way out," TJ said.

"Save the fighting for any Daleks you find near the TARDIS," I said. I took in a breath. I was about to do something incredibly risky. "Quick, I need to see Alex's morpher."

Jen shot me a look that I figured was a glare even behind that black visor. Trip was quick to do so anyway. I took the device and looked at it. I couldn't use it, not for what it was intended. It had a genetic lock.

But it would still have some uses as an energy source. I quickly fished an item out of my pocket, clipped it to the morpher, and ran the sonic over both. "Tricky, these things, but I think I have it."

"What are you going to do with Alex's morpher?", Jen asked.

"Use it to access the subspatial energy field you lot call the morphing grid," I answered. "And it will power this personal shield device so I don't get shot right away. Now, get ready to run!"

I didn't have time for a test. I stepped into the room and faced down the Daleks. "Hello boys!", I declared. "I've been wondering when you lot would come and annoy me."

"Identify yourself!", the Daleks demanded.

"Why don't you?", I challenged.

Evidently they had already decided to. "Lifeform scan complete. Time Lord identified!"

"That is not possible. All Time Lords have been exterminated!", the other declared.

"Almost all," I lied, smirking at them. "Because guess what? I'm not just any Time Lord, you tin-plated little monsters." I smirked. "I'm the Doctor."

For a moment they were silent, presumably calculating it in their head. To help them decide, I used the sonic screwdriver on one, making his eyestalk short out. As he shrieked "Vision impaired!" I used the momentary opening to sprint down another tunnel near the Daleks, not in the direction of the TARDIS.

Behind me I could hear the Dalek scream. "Tactical alert to all Dalek units! The Doctor is here! The Doctor is here! THE DOCTOR MUST BE EXTERMINATED!"

"Come and catch me!", I shouted back.

And so I ran into the bowels of the moon base, soon to be pursued by an army of Daleks.

So much for quick victories.

---

Nothing gets the hearts pumping like running for your life.

Add extra heartbeats if you're running from something like Daleks.

Now you might be wondering what my plan was. My plan was very simple.

Stay alive.

...well, alright, it was "Stay alive and keep thee Daleks from concentrating on the others". But the "stay alive" part was, in my estimation, the biggest part.

I went past one corridor hub and nearly got shot. "The Doctor is sighted," I heard a Dalek announce. "Exterminate!"

I kept going, ignoring the pains and aches as I did. My wounded right hand served as a constant reminder that I was without my sonic disruptor. My only defense from the Daleks, aside from running and not looking back, was the jury-rigged force shield device on my belt, powered by Wes Collins' morphing device. And rather inefficiently, I must add, but I did what I could.

I was nearly to another hall when two Daleks moved ahead of me. "Exterminate!, they shouted. They opened fire. One shot missed, the other one glanced off my force shield.

"Wohhhh, wrong way!", I shouted, almost sliding on the floor as I turned to go down the next hall. "What's wrong, Daleks, you seem a little slow!"

"Exterminate!" was the only reply I got. Daleks aren't much in terms of creativity, after all.

So I kept running.

---

The others were nearly to the TARDIS when they came upon the Daleks again. Two of them were in perfect position to shoot them down before they could get to the room with the TARDIS in it. They were forced back around a corner.

"If we're going to get around them, we need a plan." Liara braced herself against the wall. "I don't think I have the strength to take them out with my biotics."

Katara took the moment to check on Wes' condition. She had water on a couple of his wounds to try and keep him stable. "I need to get him to the pool in the TARDIS," she told the Time Force team.

"So what you need is a distraction," TJ said, balancing Wes to take pressure off of Lucas.

"We just need a clear path," replied Liara.

Jen looked from Wes to the hall beyond. She pulled out her sabers. "I'll get you one."

"You can't do that, it's suicide," Lucas protested.

"We don't have time for this."

Before she could charge forward, Katara walked up beside her. "Wait. I think I can get you a shot at hitting them first." She reached to her bottle and unscrewed the cap. She brought the water out with her bending and was putting it into motion as she rounded the corner. Katara rolled out of the cover and narrowly avoided the Daleks' shots, buying her the moment she needed. Her arms shot forward and her will or chi or however you want to describe it readied the water to become ice as it struck the Daleks' weapons. When it did become ice, it froze the aiming mechanisms within the Dalek chassis, keeping them from altering their aim as quickly. "Weapons impaired!," shrieked one.

Jen was already in motion at that point. She made an acrobatic jump to the wall and off of it to the next wall, closing the distance on the Daleks before they could melt the ice obstructing their weapons. Her weapons created sparks and shrieks from the Daleks as they struck them. Trip and Katie appeared around the corner to open fire with their blaster weapons. The Daleks cried out in pain and anger and kept trying to shoot, but their aim was off with Katara's ice keeping their weapons immobile.

Jen somersaulted backward, lined up with the other two, and they let loose a barrage of blaster fire that finished the Daleks off in a pair of explosions. "We're clear!", Jen shouted back. TJ and Lucas came around the corner with Wes between them and Liara took up the rear with Jason.

They entered the room and found the TARDIS unmolested. Liara moved ahead of the others and brought out the key I'd given her for just these emergencies. With a twist of the lock it opened and they entered.

"Follow me," Katara said to TJ and Lucas, directing them where to carry Wes.

Liara closed the door behind them, locked it, and went to the communication station.

"What do we do next?", Trip asked.

"We wait for the Doctor to make his way to us," Liara replied. She started tapping a key.

---

The intermittent whirring of my sonic told me Liara had made it safely to the TARDIS. Now I had to get there.

Which was somewhat of a challenge given I was being chased by an army of Daleks.

Chased and cornered, I should add, as every time I was trying to shift my way back toward the TARDIS there would be a Dalek or four in the way. I felt panic start to build as I realized I was a rat in a trap.

When I got into a machinery room I ran toward the opposite exit... and ran into a trio of Daleks. They opened fire as I dived for cover, again catching the force shield with a glancing blow. I heard a tone from it. The internals were starting to fail from the strain. I was running out of time.

Going back the other way was my only route. I turned to do so, sprinting back across the metal deck almost to the point that I slipped on it... and promptly found another group of Daleks coming in. "Oh bugger," I mumbled, moving away from them as well. I ran into the machinery area and started to look for an alternative way out. I spied one; an access hatch along the wall. I went over to it and used the sonic to open it.

The blast from the Dalek on the other end sent me flying. I hit the ground hard and cried out. A louder tone prompted me to look down to the smoking remains of my force shield generator. It had taken the full brunt of the Dalek blast, but it wouldn't be taking any more.

I scrambled away from the Daleks coming through the access hatch, which simply put me in sight of the others chasing me. "We have the Doctor trapped!," one Dalek announced.

"Exterminate him immediately!", the Supreme Dalek's voice decreed.

"Exterminate!," the Daleks agreed in unison.

I had no choice. I pulled out my remote for the TARDIS. I'd summon it to my location and get out before the Daleks could do too much damage to it.

The only problem was that the remote wasn't working.

Of course. They were jamming me, weren't they? Or even worse, they'd erected some kind of field to keep the TARDIS trapped. Orr at least unable to shift out, since Liara had clearly gotten inside of it.

But that was all academic for the moment. I was maybe a second away from getting blasted to death by a roomful of angry Daleks. And I had no other means to stop them.

"So, that's it then? No cup of tea, no chatting about old times? Just the old 'Exterminate!' and that's it?", I said flippantly. "No curiosity about how I got here?"

The Daleks posted for a moment, so I continued. "You weren't expecting me, were you?", I asked them. "Don't you want to know why?"

There were several more seconds of pause. Than the voice of the Supreme Dalek cut back in again. "We do not require such information. We will not permit you to live, Doctor. Exterminate him!"

"Bloody hell," I murmured, as I waited for the Daleks to gun me down.

They didn't.

Well, okay, I'm sure they fired, but I wasn't there anymore. I felt energy take hold of me and catapult me away from the moon facility. My surroundings changed to show a starship bridge. Four people in matching gray jackets and pants with colored underjackets in a color scheme becoming rapidly familiar stood from stations. The leader, a young fellow with long blond hair, was the first to move toward me. "Are you alright?"

"Andros, isn't it?" I looked around and realized it was that Astro Megaship that Andros' people had built. And yes, it too transforms into a giant robot. Because that's the kind of cosmos this is. I decided to be more simplistic in my response, though. "Impressive. First things first." I held out the TARDIS remote and prayed it would work.

I was answered with the beloved sound of VWORP VWORP VWORP. The TARDIS materialized on the opposite end of the bridge. "There we go." I breathed a sigh of relief. "For a moment I was afraid..."

The deck rocked violently under our feet. The other young man on the deck looked over a display, black visible under his jacket.. "Our shields took a direct hit. No major damage, but I don't know how many more hits like that we can take."

The blond woman with the yellow top under her jacket was at a different station. "There's an enemy ship pursuing us. They're firing again." The ship shook again.

Another young lady, with dark hair and East Asian features, took up the obvious weapons station. I probably needn't mention she was wearing the pink top under her jacket. "I'll try to get them off of us."

And yes, I know they have names, but I'd forgotten them for the moment. I only remembered Andros because the name reminded me of that bloody ape scientist from Venom.

Anyway, the pink one - Cassie I believe? - was firing weapons and the others trying to keep the ship from getting blasted to bits by the pursuing Dalek cruiser. I went to one of their stations as a familiar robot shambled onto the bridge. "Ai yai yai, we're under attack!"

"Just the robot I needed to see," I said. "Alpha... seven, is it? I need power systems access, I'm going to recalibrate the ship's systems to withstand those Dalek weapons."

Now by this point the TARDIS door opened. TJ stumbled out, now demorphed - presumably along with the others - and any thought of happy reunion with his old comrades was forestalled by the very immediate danger. The console near me exploded with sparks from a hit. "Ashley, how are our shields holding up?", Andros asked.

"They're failing. I've never seen weapons this powerful before!"

"Daleks do love their weapons," i muttered. "Quite good systems, just need a bit of a power boost to your reactor cycles and... there we go." There was a shudder through the ship. "Shields and engines increased."

"By how much?", Andros asked.

Before I could answer, the ship shook again. "Not enough, apparently," I sighed. "But that's the best I can do with this technology, so..."

As I was looking back to where a screen showed the pursuing Dalek ship, shaped like a saucer, I noticed a large form appear above it and come crashing down on the ship. Given how colorful it looked and the humanoid form, and the fact that there were no Cybertronians present in this cosmos, I imagined it was one of the Ranger Megazord vehicles. It was wielding a rather sizable sword which it bashed repeatedly against the Dalek shields. As the Dalek ship had directed its shields to deflect the energy cannons on the Astro Megaship it had weakened its shields in that quarter. The Daleks tried to adjust but they were rather late to do so. Flame and debris erupted from the wounds the Megazord carved into the Dalek ship. Its energy fire slackened. "Yeah!", I heard TJ shout. "The Galaxy Rangers! They got our call!" Others celebrated as well.

Cassie used the Megaship's weapons in another barrage that blew the Dalek saucer to kindling. "Target down!", she shouted happily.

"We need to get to Earth," I said to Andros.

"Yes." He reached over to flight controls and the Megaship turned back around toward the Earth. The Megazord that had come to our aid flew up beside us and kept formation. "What are those things? I've never heard of any of the forces of Evil using such ships before."

"They're called Daleks, and they're incredibly bad news," I answered. "Let me know when we land, I need to check on something."

After he nodded, I returned to the TARDIS. Liara was in the control room. I could see she was worried. "is everything alright?"

I gave her a look and shook my head. "So long as there are Daleks here, that question can never be answered with 'yes', Liara."

"Right." She nodded. "The others are with Katara in the library. Their friend, he's..."

I clambered up the steps to the upper level of the control chamber and through the hallway leading to the library and swimming pool. Katara placed Wes in the water and was standing over him, waist-deep in it herself. Only his face was above water, and I realized why as blue energy surged around him. The other members of Time Force were standing at the poolside. Their emotions were a mix of concern and distraught fear. The look on Jen's face was completely blank. I walked up to them and whispered, "How is he?"

"We're not sure," Trip whispered back. "Your friend is trying to save him."

I looked back to Jen and the tear rolling down her eye. I wasn't the only one who noticed. Katara had looked up at her too. Seeing the look on Jen's face seemed to harden her resolve and she redoubled her focus on Wes.

"Katara's one of the best healers her world ever produced," I assured Jen. "She'll get him back to his feet, don't worry."

She didn't reply right away. When she turned to face me, her eyes still red with tears, I could see barely constrained fury in her expression. "How do we fight those things?", she demanded to know.

"With every ounce of spirit we've got," I answered. "And with a plan. Once we get back to Earth and meet with the rest of the teams and their supporters, we can figure out what to do to stop the Daleks."

She nodded. "Good."

We looked back and watched quietly. I only turned away when I heard noise from behind. Liara and Andros were standing there. Andros looked rather intrigued by the combination of a swimming pool and a library. But it was a momentary flicker of thought, given how his face hardened back to quiet resolve. "Captain Mitchell is ready for us on the Lightspeed Air Base," he answered. "We're preparing to transport down with the Galaxy Rangers."

"Right." I nodded. "I'll be right there."

For another minute I watched as Katara worked intently on saving Wes. "Did you...?"

Before I could finish the question, Liara answered. "A full medigel dose, yes. We've done everything we can. The rest is up to Katara and Wes."

I nodded. And then I walked out. I had to put my mind to other things now.

Now that the Daleks were here, we had no time to lose.

---

A larger briefing room was the site of our next meeting. We needed the space given the attendees, which amounted... how many of these teams were there? I actually stepped up to Tommy and queried him on that. He gave me a bemused look. "All of us."

I blinked. "All?"

"Well, you've already met Space, Galaxy, and Time Ranger teams. The last three members of Lightspeed Rescue are here now, and the rest of my Zeo team." Tommy motioned to an older Asian gentleman and a young man with a close family resemblance, standing and conversing with the Space Rangers. "We even have the Wind Ninja Academy's Sensei, Kanoi Watanabe, and his son. They've been working on their own morphers."

"And that gentleman?" I indicated another fellow, a middle-aged Caucasian man standing near the senior Collins. Mr. Collins looked rather well, hiding his apprehension over Wes well, I thought. Or just using business to push it aside.

Tommy made a face. "Yeah. Andrew Hartford. He's a wealthy adventurer and joined our Joint Rangers Command to give us financial support."

I smirked. "You don't seem to like him."

"I just have a bad feeling that the guy's going to get us all into trouble one day by unearthing the wrong artifact."

I chuckled at that. "Well. That does sometimes happen." I clapped my hands together. And I noticed Tommy get momentarily distracted. "What is it?"

He was looking toward a couple of new arrivals, a pair of women, one Asian and the other Caucasian. "More of your original... ah, I think I see." I nodded. "Trini and Kimberly, yes?"

His voice was rather distant when he nodded. "Yeah. Well, I've got to go get the presentation ready."

"Yes. Everyone should be here by now."

"Not everyone is here yet, but..." The look on Tommy's face lightened when he looked at another door. "...well, I didn't expect that." He smiled as his face turned from my immediate vision. He held up a hand toward a number of humanoid aliens. They had ridge structures on their face that formed a mask-like appearance and their heads, wider and larger than Human ones, had splotches of purple over the central ridge.

Amongst their number, a sixth human figure emerged, clad in glasses and a blue suit more like the aliens' than Human standard. I realized I recognized him a moment before Tommy called out, "Billy!"

Billy Cranston, or as you know him, the original Blue Ranger, called out Tommy's name in reply. The two of them embraced like old friends. "You've been busy without me," Billy said.

"Hey, it's a busy world," Tommy answered. He extended an arm to me as I stepped up. "Billy, this is the Doctor."

"Charmed," I said, offering my hand.

Billy accepted it. "The reports from Earth have talked about you a lot, Doctor." He gestured to the others. "These are the Power Rangers of Aquitar. Aurico, Delphine..."

He introduced them and I exchanged greetings. I had an easier time understanding their speech than most. But I'm used to occasionally communicating with species that don't develop vocal cords the way Humans do. "Well," I said, clapping my hands together. "Good to see you all. But we need to get started."

Tommy and I walked up to the main podium, where Captain Mitchell waited for us. "Everyone, please be seated," he said. "We've called this emergency meeting due to what's happened on the Moon. Now, I know you all have questions, but..."

"Captain Mitchell." I stepped up to him. "I understand you want to give everyone a chance to get settled, but I'm afraid we're running out of time."

I suppose I was being a bit out of line. But I also knew that we were rapidly running out of time. The Daleks were coming. Every moment, their transmat device could be bringing more ships, more Daleks, through the Crack. Even with all of the power that the Rangers possessed, if the Daleks got enough forces through it wouldn't matter.

Mitchell gave me a look that spoke of aggravation. "Doctor. I was about to call you anyway." He nodded and stepped away.

"I'm sorry, Captain." There was, after all, no harm in trying to mend any damaged bridges. "Hello, everyone. I'm the Doctor. I'm a dimension-hopping Time Lord. That young blue lady is my Companion Liara." I indicated where Liara was seated, not bothering with her holobelt. "I'm afraid that the Machine Empire's last General, Tezzla, made a grave error, one she's already paid for. She thought she was bringing through allies to rebuild the Machine Empire. Instead, what she brought through were Daleks." I held up the sonic and used it to remotely change a plasma screen above me to show the diagram of a standard Dalek with those of the New Daleks. "Specifically the New Dalek Paradigm, as they're known. The Supreme Dalek, their leader, has a white frame, with the Eternal in yellow, their strategists blue, scientists orange, and the senior drone Daleks red. Now, the Daleks are an aggressive engineered species from the planet Skarro, made to survive and to hate everything. And I do mean hate. The fact we exist fills them with rage. They consider all other forms of life to be nothing but pests fit only for extermination."

I noticed a hand go up. A young lady not wearing Earth fashions, with a sleeveless top tied in a knot above her waist. "Yes... Maya, isn't it?" I asked.

The Galaxy team's Yellow Ranger stood. "Yes. These Daleks didn't seem any stronger than the other forces we've faced. If we can defeat their initial attack, we can use the time to recover and think up a new plan."

"Ah." I sighed and nodded. "The New Dalek Paradigm is what's left of their empire after the Last Great Time War. A war in which they nearly defeated the Time Lords." I let that sink in for a moment. "That's right. My species, a species that can traverse time at will and has existed since the universe was young, was nearly wiped out by these things. That should tell you how nasty they are. Because one thing you must all understand, every one of you, is that the Daleks are like nothing you've faced before. They're not Rita Repulsa or Lord Zedd or whomever else you've fought. They're not going to send a monster at you, watch you defeat it, then give you a few days to rest and recover before trying again. The Daleks are relentless. They will not stop and they will not show mercy. They will keep coming, no matter how many of them you destroy, until they destroy you and kill everyone on Earth. And then they'll do the same to every other species they find. You must hold the line and fight as long and as hard as you can."

Silence fell over the assembled as that sunk in.

Carter Grayson stood up. "We understand, Doctor. This is going to be the biggest fight any Ranger team has ever faced, and we all need to be ready to do anything and everything we have to in order to save Earth."

"Not just Earth," Andros said to him. "The entire universe."

"Just holding them off won't be enough." Billy stood. "Doctor, this transmat device you're talking about. We should try and find a way to..."

Before he could finish, a tone came over the Air Base's PA system. "Command to Captain Mitchell. Sir, something's wrong with communications."

"What's happening?", he asked.

I already knew the answer. "They're coming," I said.

The officer on the PA didn't hear me answer and gave his own. "There's a signal overwhelming all global transmissions, Captain. We can't reach any of the support bases."

I looked around at a sea of concerned faces. Even the most veteran of the Power Rangers could sense that something terrible was starting.

Mitchell nodded to Kendrix, the Pink Galaxy Ranger, and she hit a key on one of the controls. An oscillator appeared and began to display the pattern of the incoming transmission.

As I expected, it was from the Daleks. And it consisted of one word spoken over and over, in that terrible electronic voice of theirs.

"Exterminate!"

Over and over.

"Those things sound like bad news," said a young East Asian man, Adam I believe. The green Zeo Ranger.

"It's coming from... sir, we've got multiple bogeys inbound! They're... we can't tell how they got so close! One thousand miles from Earth orbit and closing fast!"

Mitchell looked with horror to Tommy Oliver. "How could they have gotten past our defense systems so quickly?!"

Even as the Dalek chant of "Exterminate!" continued, Kendrix was busy at her systems. "We're getting false readings from planetary defenses. It looks like they remotely hacked all of our defense satellites and overrode long range scanners."

"We've got enemy ships inbound for all major cities along the West Coast. Angel Grove, Briarwood, Ocean Bluff, Silver Hills..."

"Alright Rangers!" Tommy stood up. "It's morphing time!"

The various Ranger teams reached for their morphing devices. They started their usual battle cries. I needn't list them all, I imagine you can find them out easily enough. The sonic screwdriver whirred in warning from the sheer amount of energy surging around us, creating bursts of sparks and explosions around the Rangers. "Maybe they should warn us next time," Liara murmured to me. She'd walked up beside me.

As it turned out, the excess energy shunting into real space from over a couple dozen Power Rangers morphing at once wasn't the real danger we faced.

The Rangers settled into their morphed forms just in the nick of time. We were all thrown to the deck as the Air Base lurched under our feet. I rolled to try and absorb the impact evenly and used the momentum to start to stand again. Mitchell, sprawled on the floor, shouted, "Command, report!"

"Enemy fire, sir! We're under..." There was a sudden cry... and then nothing.

I grit my teeth. The Daleks weren't stupid, after all. Between whatever Tezzla told them and the fate of their pursuit ship earlier, they knew what the main threat to them was on this world. And they were here to nip it in the bud.

"Captain Mitchell, this is the Main Engine Room!," another voice called through the PA. "We've lost Engines 1 through 3 and 6. Lift capacity is down to sixty percent and we are starting to lose altitude!"

Mitchell paled. "We're over Mariner Bay right now. If the Air Base goes down and reactor containment fails... the entire city could be..."

"Wiped out," I finished for him. "And if the Daleks have their way, every single one of us will wiped out too."

---

Our defense of Earth was not getting off to the most auspicious start.

The Lightspeed Rescue Air Base listed underneath our feet. The officer from their Main Engine Room came back over the PA. "Engine 5 is losing power!"

"Get to your Zords!", Tommy shouted.

"I'll go to the Engine Room and do what I can." I looked at Liara. "I need you to stay with the TARDIS. I can't let the Daleks get their metaphorical hands on it."

Liara sighed and nodded. "Right."

"You can't go alone, Doc," Jason said. He looked to his old compatriots Kimberly and Trini, now in their original pink and yellow uniforms. "We'll watch your back."

"We'll go too," Trip pledged.

"No," I answered. "Stay with the TARDIS, protect your friend." I looked to the three original Power Rangers and nodded. "Lead the way."

---

We all went separate ways from there. The Lightspeed Rangers took to their Aerial Zords, the Galaxy Rangers to their sentient beast ones, the Aquitian Rangers' Zords, even new humanoid ones for the Zeo team. "Alright everyone, let's keep them off the Air Base!", Carter declared as his Zord took to the skies.

The Daleks' smaller combat saucers were joined by Dalek air drones in the attack, and it was the latter who first came under fire from the Zords' energy weapons. The sky over Mariner Bay became a light show as the energy weapons of the Rangers and the Daleks lashed out at one another and the Air Base.

While that fight was going on Jason was leading us across the ship. By us I meant not just myself and the similarly-morphed Trini and Kimberly but Billy as well. We came across wounded and confused crew as we went and I gave them some perfunctory orders on what I needed.

We got to the engine room just in time. The engineering crew was taking cover from the force of Daleks, led by a red-colored Dalek, entering the room. "Exterminate!"

"Exterminate this!", Jason retorted, pulling his sidearm. A flurry of energy blasts further replied to the Daleks. One screeched as the shots blackened its chassis. It stopped for a moment before continuing on, if a little slower than before.

Not to be outdone, Trini pull out her own weapon and closed the distance with considerable skill. The blows of her weapon carved gashes in the chassis of the Dalek, drawing more screeches from it. A Dalek coming up top aid its comrade was intercepted by Kimberly's own ranged weapon.

"We've got this," Jason said to us. "Doc, Billy, do what you need to."

"Right."

Billy and I left the fight behind us and went to work. The engine room was a large, two-deck chamber with the main reactor in the middle and conduits leading out to the ten engines that provided the lift that let the Airbase move. Uniformed personnel were still in cover even with the Rangers engaging the Daleks.

Billy went to check engine status. "We're down to four engines," he said. "Lift capacity is at thirty-five percent and falling."

"If it goes below twenty or so, the entire thing will become uncontrollable." I went to check another station. "Engines 1, 3, 6, and 9 need direct physical repairs, can't be done in-flight. Well, not unless I were to go get Tony or Asami, I suppose..." I smirked at that thought. "We're going to have to land her."

"Land it where?", Billy asked. "We're over Mariner Bay, and we've lost most of our horizontal thrust. We'll never get the Air Base to somewhere open enough to land in."

I frowned and went over to where he was consulting a map. As I looked it over I smiled. I had an idea. "Nothing open on land anyway."

Billy turned and looked at me like I was mad. "You're going to land it in the water?!"

"In the water she only needs enough lift effect to offset negative buoyancy," I pointed out. "Considering the stated mass, the engine power... fifteen percent lift capacity should be just enough, if we've got her sealed up."

Billy looked over the figures himself. "Huh. You're right. That should work."

"Never doubt a Time Lord brain, Mister Cranston," I said with a smirk. "Well, unless it's a matter of the heart. I've been wrong about those before."

"Aren't we all?", Billy mused idly. "Okay, change bearing to 290, that should get us out over the water before we hit land."

"Bearing 290." I used my sonic on one of the controls. After several seconds my commands to the Air Base piloting system kicked in. The Air Base, which admittedly is not a very mobile air vehicle, started turning to the northwest. The Air Base shuddered around us. I saw a red light appear. "We just lost rear engine 4."

"They must know what we're doing," Billy said. "Maybe... maybe we can harden the reactor from the impact? If we end up hitting land?"

I shook my head. "I can't just shut down a tap reactor like that, the subspace bridge is the problem and those are tricky to meddle with." I thought for a moment and snapped my fingers. "But if we put a defensive field around the reactor, it could absorb any hard impacts."

"Excellent idea. Just one problem."

"Exactly. We'd need something to generate the field..." I blinked and looked down to my belt, where my burnt out force shield generator was still clipped besides Wes Collins' morpher.

Billy followed my eyes. Realization dawned on his face. "I know where to get the tools," he said.

"Right!"

While Billy did that I did what I could to keep the Air Base flying. I used the sonic to relay communications to another nearby station and opened a PA link. "We're trying to get the Air Base over the water, can you keep the Daleks from disabling the maneuvering engines?"

There were a few tense moments before I got a reply. "We'll try, Doctor," Carter answered.

I nodded at that and turned in time to see Billy coming up with an armful of electronics and tools. I pulled off my ruined force shield generator and opened up one of the containers he had brought. "How are the engines?"

"We lost Engine 4. Lift capacity is down to twenty-six percent." Billy was shaking his head. "At this rate I'm not sure we'll get into deep enough water."

"Just try, I'll get the force shield up." I took the vital electronics I needed from the generator, using that salvage to begin building a larger device with the parts Billy had provided. My mind raced several steps ahead while I worked. Outside of the hall the sounds of battle were still to be heard.

But I knew that battle likely paled in comparison to the one around the Air Base.

---

Flying Daleks were swarming the Air Base on the outside. Already the main control tower was a smoldering wreck and most of the defensive guns were out. Only three lift engines remained active.

But the Daleks weren't acting with impunity. The humanoid Zords of the Zeo team were formed much like their older ones, presumably an intentional design decision, and the ranged weapons they had available were blazing away. "There's too many of them!" Rocky swung his blue-painted Zord over, stitching energy blasts into the sky. He clipped one Dalek and brought it down as it screamed in rage.

"Concentrate your fire toward the rear of the Air Base!" Tommy shifted his Zord in that direction. "We've got to keep them off the directional engines!"

"I'm on it." Katherine, the Pink Zeo Ranger, moved her Zord in that direction to get a better shot.

"We shall protect the forward engines." Aurico's voice bubbled over the comm line as the Aquitian Zords took up position to do just that.

There was a series of explosions in the skies overhead. The Lightspeed team was giving the best air support they could muster. "Is there any end to these guys?!", Joel asked.

"Keep them off the engines," Carter insisted. He noticed the threat ahead and added, "Everyone, break right!"

The Lightspeed team did so. And that allowed them to avoid a barrage of intense fire that blasted half of the control tower of the Air Base away. Two Dalek saucers came closer and began shooting up the deck around the Zeo team. "Woh, these guys mean business!" Rocky almost fell over. "There's no way we're getting that many."

"Leave them to us!"

The voice was from Andros. From above the Astro Megaship descended, already transforming into its humanoid Zord form. And yes, they had a new Megashuttle, don't ask me where from. Presumably built by the Joint Command.

For that matter, don't ask me why they call their mecha "Zords". Presumably because it's shorter than "Gunmen".

One of the Dalek saucers turned its attention toward the Space team, which had to maneuver their Zord to avoid the majority of the shots sent at them. The other saucer was left alone to continue its bombardment. Which proved a mistake.

The Galaxy team's Megazord flew up from the ground and brought its blade slicing into the first Dalek saucer's hull as it tried to track the Space Megazord. Explosions erupted from the wounded hull and the Dalek saucer began to lose altitutde. The Space team turned and after a bombardment of energy blasts the Dalek saucer exploded into debris and vapor. Both gave a cheer and turned to pursue the second saucer.

It reacted by turning its firepower on the two incoming Megazords. Intensified amounts of fire made it impossible for them to dodge. The Galaxy one took several hits that tore entire chunks out of the metal flesh of the Galactabeasts that made it up. Leo - that team's Red Ranger - fought with his controls to align the Zord and keep the damaged parts from taking more hits.

The Daleks were without pity, as usual, and focused their attack on their wounded prey. Blast after blast hit the Galaxy Megazord until it began to break up. "We can't keep them together!", Leo shouted to the others. "We're going to have to land and..."

The Dalek saucer's main gun hit them head-on, blasting a gigantic hole in the torso. The entire form fell apart, becoming five constituent parts again, and the three that made up at least part of the torso were in bad shape as all plummeted into freefall.

This left the Dalek saucer open to the Space Rangers, though, and they used their weapons to blast that saucer to bits too. A moment too late, however.

Standing on the deck of the Air Base, Tommy looked up and saw the five Galaxy Zords plummeting. "Guys, bail out!", he shouted.

"We can't leave them!", Maya protested.

The creatures had other ideas, apparently, as they fell to the deck. Each of them forcefully ejected their pilots. "No!", was an almost uniform cry from all five. "Don't...!"

Adam shook his head. "They're still in freefall, they'll never make it!"

"I'm on it!"

Joel started to maneuver his Lightspeed Aerial Zord tightly. He caught the nearest Ranger, Damon, and Maya after him. Going by the records, he pushed all of his piloting skills to the test, corkscrewing to the air while the Rangers he caught used every iota of enhanced strength they had to hold on.

Kai got just close enough to grab one of the wings. Leo held his Galaxy saber out and it bit into the armored hull of Joel's Aerial Zord enough to find purchase, letting him hold onto it. His free arm flew out and was just in time go grab Kendrix as Joel went flying by her as well.

"Yeah!", Tommy shouted.

"He did it!", Rocky added.

Carter was quick to give praise. "Great work, Joel. We'll cover you so you can drop them off!"

"Roger that, I'm going in to land!" Joel twisted his craft to begin an approach on the Air Base. "Looks like at least one of the runways is still clear. Okay everyone, hang tight, I'll slow down enough for you to jump off!" They responded in the affirmative.

While Joel brought them in for a landing, the fight around the Air Base continued. The Aquitian and Zeo teams fought the individual flying Daleks and the Space team was locked into combat with another approaching Dalek saucer, taking hits and giving them in return.

Unfortunately, yet another Dalek saucer was coming in from behind.

The Space Rangers made a mid-air maneuver, endured several hits that left gouges in their armor, and successfully sliced open the Dalek saucer with their blade, causing Dalek drones to spill out into the air. They flew on toward the newcoming saucer as the last one exploded behind them. "We've got to stop them!", Carlos shouted. "Firing megalasers!"

Energy blast after energy blast struck the Dalek saucer, pounding at the ship's protective shields until they faltered and successive hits blew away hull and matter in flaming gouges. The Daleks, nevertheless, opened fire.

On the Air Base.

Specifically, on the Air Base's aft engines.

---

The explosion sent everyone flying. I cried out from one of the tools slamming into my temple, tearing skin and drawing blood, and I started to get blood in my vision as I got back to my feet under the pitching deck. Billy had clambered back up and was looking over the status screen. "All rear engines down! We're losing forward thrust!" He looked back at me. "Doctor, we're not going to make it to the ocean."

"Right." The lurching ship made it hard for me to stand and I hit the floor again, but this time close to the tools I needed and my mostly-finished force shield generator. I started working on it again. "Where are we at in lift capacity?"

"Twenty-two percent," Billy answered. "Engine 7 is starting to fail. If we lose it, we'll drop below twenty percent."

I nodded and frowned. The fact that 7, 8, and 10 were the only engines still active explained why we were listing; they were all toward the aft of the Air Base. "Do what you can, I've almost got it."

For another tense minute I kept at it with my sonic and other tools, preparing the generator to take a lot more power and to pull it directly from the tap reactor that powered the Lightspeed Air Base. "Twenty one percent!", Billy warned me.

"Almost there!" I kept working, feverishly.

The door opened and the three other original Rangers entered. Jason was helping Trini, who was demorphed and injured. "They just kept coming," he said.

"Like I said. They don't stop." I didn't bother looking up completely at him. I was too busy.

"Twenty percent!", Billy shouted.

I fiddled with a reinforced powerline. "Almost got it!"

"Power to Engine 7 is decreasing. We're losing it!"

"Do what you can, I'm almost there!" i slipped the powerline in and fit it into the shield generator. Just had final checks to go... come on, don't tell me I missed anything, I know I didn't. I know I...

A ha!

"It's ready!", I shouted. I stood back up, as well as I could on the angled deck, and started running for the tap reactor as fast as I could.

There was a sudden violent shudder in the ship. "Engine 7 down! Lift capacity going below..."

Billy didn't have a chance to finish. I felt the ground come out from beneath my foot as the Air Base, having dropped below minimum lift, did what all massive objects must do in a gravity well; they fell toward it. And we all went into free fall. I managed to grab on to the railing on the second level with my free arm. My right hand held the generator. But it might as well be a paperweight.

And then there was a pink blur in my vision. Kimberly, in freefall same as us, jumped off the wall, hit the bottom of the catwalk beside me, and grabbed the generator from me. "I'll get this!" She kicked off from the catwalk with enough power to get to the reactor's housing, and the modification slot where the generator would go. "How do I do this?!"

"Attach the black wire to the black porrt and the red wire to the red port!", I shouted.

She kept her attention on that. She had to fight the effect of gravity while hooking it up, not an easy task even when empowered by a subspatial energy grid, and for several seconds I wasn't sure she'd make it.

Butt then the lights on the generator came on. I held out my sonic and used it to remotely activate the generator. A blue field popped up over the reactor.

And then the ground rushed up to meet me. And everything went black.

---

"Doctor! Doctor!"

I started to come back to consciousness. I could only see out of my left eye when I opened them; the right was covered in blood from my wound. My body ached like, well, like it hadn't in a bloody long time. I was going to need weeks in my hot tub to get rid of these bruises.

Trini stood over me. Not only was her hair disheveled, but a massive bruise covered half her face, and her left arm was hanging limply from her shoulder. In the entirely wrong direction, I'll add.

I groaned and sat up. My head was swimming for a moment. I looked around and found Billy helping up Jason. Billy looked like he was mostly intact, with just a bump on the forehead.

Jason... well, let's just say that I didn't want to see his right femur and leave it at that.

"We're going to need to get everyone to the TARDIS," I said. With the Air Base down, the Daleks could attack it at will and easily destroy it, provided we gave them the reason to by remaining. "And we'll find a fallback base." I held up my sonic and used it to remotely access the internal communications in the ship. "Everyone report to Landing Bay 5, we're going to get everyone on the TARDIS." Having said that, I forced myself to stand. The room spun a little. But my head was finally clearing and it didn't last long.

"Where's Kimberly?", Trini asked.

I looked over to the reactor. The impact had thrown her clear of it. I walked around a subdivision and found her sprawled out beside some of the coolant pipes. She was demorphed as well and looked barely conscious. I went over to her and knelt down. "Kimberly? Kimberly, can you hear me?"

"...who...?" She blinked. Her eyes seemed to have trouble focusing. "I..." I could see horror flash across her bloodied face. "...my legs... I can't... I can't feel my legs."

I swallowed and used the sonic to scan her. "Your spine. Several lower vertebrae have been broken." I frowned. I dare not move her lightly, not in this condition. Even reconstructive therapies might be hampered by excessive damage from a careless movement. I looked around and spotted a couple of the engineering crew who looked like they were fit. "You two! I need a flat surface large enough to fit her on, and tie straps or anything else that can secure her. Find it in the medical bay if you must!"

Trini and Billy came around the corner, Jason limping behind them. Billy came up toward her. "Kim! What..."

"Don't move her!", I shouted. "Spinal break, several vertebrae." I didn't have to say more.

"I'll go get a medical team," he volunteered.

"Fine." I looked to Jason and Trini. "You two. The TARDIS, Bay 5. Now."

"But Kimberly..."

"I'll secure her," I promised.

They nodded and hobbled out together. Billy returned with two partly-wounded medtechs carrying a stretcher. "You'll be okay, Kimberly," he assured her. "We'll get you fixed up."

She said nothing. But she did nod.

Billy looked to me and handed me an object. A communicator. I held it up to my head. "This is the Doctor. Can anyone respond."

"Zeo Red here," Tommy answered. "The Zeo team is roughed up, but we're okay."

"Lightspeed Red. All accounted for."

"Aquitian Red. We are intact."

"Galaxy Red. We made it. But the Galactibeasts..."

I sighed and nodded. "Go to Landing Bay 5 if you don't have a Zord, we'll get the crew out with the TARDIS."

"Has anyone heard from Captain Mitchell?", a worried voice asked. I didn't recognize it immediately beyond it being female, but it wasn't hard to guess who was inquiring.

"He was heading to auxiliary control,", another voice answered. "This is Hartford. Collins and I got the other support personnel to the Doctor's timeship already. Doctor T'Soni is getting us prepared to accept casualties."

"I'll go to auxiliary control to find him," I said into the comm line. "All teams, cover us until I get everyone into the TARDIS. Then send me coordinates on a narrow beam channel to a fallback point. Somewhere the Daleks won't easily find us."

"I know just the place," Tommy said.

"Looking forward to it." I nodded at Billy. "Stay with her. I'll go find Mitchell."

---

The Air Base was a wreck. Bulkheads were ruined or scorched, rooms destroyed from the impact, that sort of thing.

And the bodies. And, here and there, empty shells of Daleks destroyed by the Lightspeed Rescue security forces. Energy weapons do help. Just... not enough.

Auxiliary control was wisely built into the hull of the ship, below the main landing decks. I made my way through the debris and fires and all that and found the room wrecked as well. A dead crewwoman with a broken neck was my first sight. I swallowed and for a moment shut my eyes in grief. The other crew present were all wounded to one degree or another. Given one screen, I could see how close we came to my original goal. We were outside Mariner Bay proper and along one of the beaches. The starboard aft corner of the ship was pressed up against a cliff.

Captain Mitchell was standing over one of them, a young woman of Indian extraction. Deccan, I thought. She had a broken arm and a gash across her forehead that he was bandaging. One of his hands was mangled and his forehead was a mass of blood from his own head wound. He glanced my way. "Doctor. Thank you. I'm guessing we have you to thank for still being here."

"Billy Cranston and Kimberly Hart deserve that credit as well," I replied. I aided in in helping the young woman to her feet. "We need to get to the TARDIS. I don't dare move her until I know every other evacuee is secure."

"Can't you just move it back?", he asked.

"Normally. But with Daleks about? They've used technology to interfere with it before." I shook my head. "I'm not sure I can take that risk.

"And I'm not sure we can move these people that far," Mitchell answered. He swallowed. "My comms are out. My people, did they...?"

"Lightspeed's intact," I answered. "The Galaxy team lost their Zords but they're all right. Three of the originals got badly mangled by the crash, though."

Mitchell swallowed. "Yes. I see."

"Do you have internal sensors? I can see the progress of our evacuation."

He directed me to one of the few intact screens. I brought it up and found the moving indicators of people coming toward Landing Bay 5.

...and then I saw other indicators. Non-Human ones.

"The Daleks," I murmured. "They're starting to invade the ship."

Mitchell frowned. "We can't let them take the Air Base. If they repair it..."

"Doubtful they'd do so."

"But we have data here. On the morphers, on our Zords, we can't let that fall into their hands." Mitchell's expression was grim. "We need to scuttle the Air Base."

I swallowed. "I could set the tap reactor to a limited detonation. It'd vaporize the entire base and everything immediately around it. But given we're at the beach... there won't be any collateral damage."

"Works for me," Mitchell pledged. He looked back at the internal sensors. "And you'd better hurry."

I looked as well.

The Daleks were moving toward us.

I rushed to work immediately while Mitchell checked his weapons and barricaded the entry ports to auxiliary control. It wasn't hard to configure the reactor to do as I desired. I kept looking back to see more life signatures get to Landing Bay 5 and disappear; they'd gotten into the TARDIS.

Some didn't. Some ran into the red dots. And then disappeared.

I took in a breath, trying not to imagine those poor men and women as they were gunned down by the Daleks. But I failed. I could see it in my mind. It was what I had been expecting all along, after all. Ever since the Daleks had shown up.

And I also noticed the red dots coming toward us. Almost on the marker for auxiliary control.

"Here they come," Mitchell murmured.

There was a clanging on the starboard port. And more clanging. And then it began to redden. The Daleks were going to cut in.

I looked to the internal sensors again. There were only a few people left near Landing Bay 5. I held up the communicator. "Liara, can you hear me?"

"I hear you, Doctor."

"I need you to get those people in now, there's just a few left. And get ready for me. I'm going to remotely pull the TARDIS to my location so we can get the last of the crew out before the Daleks break in."

"I'm getting the last of them now... almost... almost... we have them all!"

I held out the remote control for the TARDIS toward the open section of auxiliary control and activated it. The TARDIS' VWORP filled the air and it materialized. The door opened immediately. "Get everyone in!", I urged Liara and Trip before returning to work. I had only a few adjustments left.

The door blew open violently. The roar was deafening. And it was joined by the Dalek war cry. "Exterminate! Exterminate!" The lead Dalek started to enter.

Mitchell raised his blaster gun and fired, striking the Dalek directly in the chassis. Sparks flew up and it shrieked. When it returned fire Mitchell ducked back behind a control. The blast set fire to the electronics within it. He had to run to another control panel for cover.

Behind that Dalek another one came in, firing. A Lightspeed crew member running for cover was hit. I could see his skeleton shine through the X-rays and he fell, dead.

"Time for Time Force!"

"Quantum Power!"

Three of the Time Force Rangers, plus Eric Myers, the Quantum Ranger, stepped out of the TARDIS with energy weapons blazing. The Dalek exploded as multiple shots converged on him.

A shot lashed out and struck Eric in the chest. He cried out and fell back as sparks erupted from his suit. He didn't demorph though, and it looked like he'd rebound soon. But the shot heralded the arrival of another Dalek.

Meanwhile the port door exploded as well. And another line of Daleks entered. "Exterminate!" They began moving toward us and firing. Mitchell started shooting at them and hit one's eyestalk. "Vision impaired! Vision impaired!" It twisted around in a panic and was hit by a second shot from Mitchell that blew the top off.

"Exterminate!" The other Daleks turned toward him and started shooting, keeping him pinned in place.

"They keep coming!", Katie complained after blasting one Dalek with Lucas. "No matter how many we kill!"

"That's what they do," I answered, hitting a couple of keys. "Safety locks disengaging. Entering override." I used the sonic to do that quickly. It was hacking, yes, but hacking for a good cause. "Now I'm setting the reactor to overload..."

"Look out!"

Someone slammed into me... and carried me away from where a shot from the Daleks hit the controls I'd been using. They exploded in sparks.

I looked up and saw Liara laying on top of me. She sighed. "You need to be more careful," she scolded me. "And we need to leave!"

"Mitchell's still trapped," I pointed out, sitting up. "And I need to set off the reactor."

There were a few more energy shots. I could hear boots hitting the metal grating. Mitchell was moving positions. "I'm tying this station into remote reactor control!", he shouted. "I'll be able to set the reactor off in twenty seconds!"

"Put it on a timer!", I shouted.

"Exterminate! Exterm...!" The Dalek cries turned into a scream when fire from Mitchell and Katie converged and destroyed the Dalek in question. Trip reached out and pulled her out of the line of fire of another Dalek.

And to make matters worse, the aft-side door now exploded.

"There's no time to argue, Doctor!", Mitchell shouted. "I'm pinned in anyway. Get my crew out of here!"

"Captain Mitchell..." That was from Trip. "Sir, are you..."

"That is an order, Time Ranger Green!", Mitchell thundered.

I swallowed and glanced around while Liara pulled me into the TARDIS. The Daleks were coming from every direction. We couldn't hold them off in this situation.

Captain Mitchell was right.

And I hated it.

"Godspeed, Captain Mitchell," was all I could say.

I got back to my feet inside the TARDIS. Lucas helped Eric in and Katie and Jen took up the rear, Trip giving them cover fire. As soon as they were in I snapped my fingers and the TARDIS doors closed. I looked at the planetary coordinates Tommy had sent to me and translated that into coordinates for the TARDIS. I grabbed the activation lever and pulled.

Our communications were still tied into the overall system, so as I did so, Captain Mitchell's voice came over the speakers. "Dana, Ryan... I love you. And I'm sorry."

"Dad?" It was that worried woman from earlier. Dana, presumably; Lightspeed Pink.

"Dad, what are you doing?" Male voice. Ryan, their team's Titanium Ranger.

"Carter, take care of them. Please." There was an informality in his voice that hadn't been there before.

Only a moment's silence followed before Carter answered, "Yes sir. I'll protect them with my life."

I could imagine the horror of Mitchell's children, which only added to my own grief and anger. "Thank you."

That was the last thing he said. I could hear a Dalek screaming, "Exterminate!" in the background.

And then nothing.

"DAD!", Dana and Ryan cried in unison.

Later, I would see the results. The small bits of charred, half-molten steel and metal that marked what remained of the Lightspeed Air Base. There were no remains from the crew who died upon it, or of the Daleks that slaughtered them. To mark the passing of Captain William Mitchell there was just an intense flash of light as subspatial energy erupted from the tap reactor that powered the Air Base, turning sand to glass in an instant and vaporizing a few hundred cubic meters of ocean.

And, of course, the entire Dalek attack force sent against the Air Base and Mariner Bay.

Captain Mitchell's sacrifice had saved the city he'd pledged to protect.

It would be up to us to ensure that sacrifice was not in vain.

---

The TARDIS arrived at its destination, which I noted to be completely underground. But it looked more like the inside of a large bunker, splintering off in different directions. Energy signatures showed large amounts of mass being teleported in, powered by another tap reactor. Presumably the Zords of the other teams.

After checking up and finding Katara busily trying to heal the other wounded now and my medigel reserves running dry, I left the TARDIS and found my way to a control room. A young Caucasian woman with dark hair greeted me. "You were at Mariner Bay, right?" There was urgency in her voice. I noticed the ring on her finger. "Did Lightspeed Green...?"

"Your husband is alive, Mrs. Rawlings," I assured her. "Excuse me, Doctor Rawlings."

Relief showed on her face. But it faded when she saw my own expression. "Who...?"

"Captain Mitchell."

Tears formed in her eyes and she looked away.

I entered to find more individuals within. One was another young woman of Doctor Rawlings' coloration but with red hair, introduced as Hayley Ziktor. To my surprise the third figure was barely out of adolescent, a young girl with dark short-cut hair. The fact they called her "Doctor" made the surprise even greater.

Shortly afterward others filed in. Liara came to join me, for one. Hartford and Collins, of course. Billy was representing his team with Jason and the others so badly injured. The others were a few from each team; Tommy, Adam, and Kat for Zeo, Trip and Katie for Time Force, Carter for Lightspeed, Leo and Maya for Galaxy, and Andros and Cassie for Space. "Where is Cole and his group?", I asked.

"Turtle Cove," Tommy answered quietly. "They're trying to contact the Animarium and get their powers and Zords back."

"Daleks heading their yet?"

"Not yet." Tommy stepped ahead of me and looked at the others. "I'm sure you've heard about Captain Mitchell by now." I clenched my fist at that, trying to push thoughts out of my head along the lines of "If only I'd saved him!" "The Lightspeed Air Base is gone. So are BioLabs and the Clock Tower in Silver Hills."

"Then were are we now?", Maya asked.

"The old underground Command Center," Cassie answered. "I thought Divatox destroyed it?"

"I've spent a long time rebuilding it," Tommy replied. "We were able to salvage enough technology to help construct all of the new morphers."

"What about Cole's team then?", I asked. "Wouldn't they just use such too?"

"We offered," Collins said. "They said they needed the ones from Animus."

"Ah." I sighed. "So, this is where you find ways to make more spandex..."

"It's not spandex!," the girl roared. "it's a self-assembling nano-fiber formed with...!"

"...inter-cellular shape memory alloy, yes," I finished for her. "I just use spandex for short, because that's quite a mouthful."

That won me a hot glare.

Tommy coughed. "K, please?"

I raised an eyebrow. "K?"

"It's my name," the young girl said, her voice still betraying her irritation.

"Ah. Child prodigy, then." I smiled and nodded. "I think you'd be quite the interesting conversational partner. But right now we have more important matters."

"We do." Hayley's face was turning white. "Look." She indicated to us a screen on the wall.

The screen showed us a scene of devastation, with burning buildings and Dalek saucers moving through the air with flying Dalek chassis. They repeatedly fired into buildings and, in the shadows, fleeing people. "Reefside," I heard one of the others murmur.

The screen flashed again. Hartford's face paled this time. There were people fleeing in the streets as flying Daleks poured fire into the crowd. Whenever a hit was made, there would be a flash of a skeleton from within the bright X-ray light and the victim would stop moving. "San Angeles," he gasped. I saw him pull out a cell phone and turn away.

Another flip and we saw live footage coming in from yet another city. A reporter was screaming and the camera bounced, undoubtedly held by a cameraman.. or person, I suppose. They turned a corner and faced a Dalek. "Exterminate!" The Dalek's first shot hit the reporter as she cried in terror. The same X-Ray effect... and she fell. The cameraperson screamed as the Dalek's weapon shifted slightly and fired again. The camera suddenly dropped and remained in place. It auto-focused on a sign illuminated by flames: Jungle Karma Pizza. For a brief moment a purple-garbed figure seemed to flash across the flames, carrying a wounded civilian, but the details were too dark to make out.

"Goddess." I could hear the horror in Liara's voice.

One final screen showed something that made Tommy's expression harden. Even I recognized the sight.

I believe it was called Ernie's Juice Bar.

It was burning.

People were screaming and running. And the Daleks were moving out of the doorway, pursuing them. "EXTERMINATE!," the Daleks shrieked.

I heard a small sob and turned back to see Maya crying. "We've got to stop this," she insisted.

"We will," I swore. And I started walking away, those horrible images still in my mind. "I just need to pick something up."

My thoughts were dark and horrible as I stormed toward the TARDIS. All of this death and destruction. What could I do against it? A bloody sonic screwdriver, would you give me a break? How did the Doctor do it? Aside from getting bloody lucky, I mean? Because that's what usually happened. He got lucky.

I didn't think I was that lucky.

And I didn't think this was a problem I could think my way out of.

Liara followed me. "Doctor, are you..."

"Today..." I swallowed. "...Today is not a day I can be the Doctor. That's not what this world needs right now."

"What are you talking about?", she demanded.

"Do you remember the things I told you I never wanted you to bring with us?", I asked.

Liara swallowed and nodded. I think she understood. "Yes. I've honored that request."

"I know. For today... consider yourself released from that request."

"Goddess... are you okay?"

"No. No, I am most definitely not."

I entered the TARDIS and went from the control room deep into one of the side halls, to a chamber I'd prepared... during a darker time. Some of the things within I'd disassembled, vowing to never use again.

Others I had saved for this day. Or others like it. Others when I might need to do something... inappropriate.

I tapped the entrance code for the door and entered my armory.

My incomplete spare sonic disruptor was still in its place. It would take hours to finish. Hours we didn't have.

But there were other items in that room. I went over to some of them. I took up a belt with several equipment satchels on it and fixed it over my suit's built. As I did so, the images kept playing in my head.

Wes, shot repeatedly by Daleks.

A wrist-mounted device. I put it on my right wrist and checked to make sure it was working. It was, of course.

Trini and her broken arm. Jason and his leg. Kimberly's shattered spine.

Another device to go on the belt. Oh yes, I needed that one.

The dead bodies on the Air Base.

I shed my purple suit jacket and matching trousers and threw them into a corner. The material I put on was the same color, but even darker. It felt light, deceptively light given how strong it actually was.

Captain Mitchell. His face. His grim determination.

And all of those victims.

The last item came from a box. I checked the power charge on it. More cells for it were in my belt. Every part of it had been modified for this potential purpose.

Modified by the Time Lord Triumphant.

Sometimes I thought I should have thrown it out. But I didn't. A practical side of my brain refused to. I kept it, as insurance should the day ever arise that I would need it.

A day when I could not be the Doctor. Not in my own mind.

The modified RK-5 Starforged Blaster was heavy in my hand. Heavier than it appeared to be, even by its mass. It represented something I abhorred. The idea of brute force over brains.

But the Daleks... what choice did I have? If I dallied... there would be more Captain Mitchells. More people like that poor reporter and cameraperson.

I snarled. This world was burning while I pondered platitudes!

With a heavy heart, I slipped the blaster into the holster on my second belt.

When I stepped out of the armory, Liara was waiting for me. She was wearing Asari Commando combat armor. On one hip she had a M-12 Locust mass effect submachine gun, and on the other hip was a familiar weapon; a Carnifex, like the pistol I'd once had Commander Shepard shoot me with.

"Are you sure about this?", she asked.

The weight of the RK-5 on my hip grew in intensity. A part of me revolted at this. This wasn't me. I couldn't help but think I was making a dreadful mistake.

But all I could see were the dead and injured. The people the Daleks were hurting. The fury I felt at them for daring to come to this world, this universe, and attack it.

I had to stop them, and to do so, I had to speak to the Daleks in their own language.

"Yes," I said hoarsely. "Let's go."

---

The library/swimming pool area had been turned into an impromptu medical ward. Medics from the Lightspeed Air Base were employing the medical first aid equipment I had assembled with Katara using her waterbending healing to stabilize the worst cases. Including, yes, Jason, Trini, and Kimberly.

With all of the time she spent healing Wes and the additional work on the others, Katara was taking a break by this point, if only to avoid collapsing from exhaustion. She was in my recliner laying her head back.

Jen took up a seat opposite from her. "Thank you for saving him," she said.

"You're welcome." Katara pulled her head up to face Jen. "He means a lot to you."

Jen nodded quietly. "Yeah."

"But you're from the future and you have to keep going back there and leaving him behind." For a moment Katara stopped speaking, presumably to figure out how to say what she had on her mind. "I can relate."

"Yeah?"

"I'm what the Doctor calls a 'Timeline Orphan.' I come from a 'timeline' that no longer exists."

I could imagine Jen's shock at the idea. Given her profession and all. "I... I don't see how... how is that possible? Why couldn't you reintegrate with the you from the main timeline?"

"The Doctor said it had to do with the TARDIS." Katara shook her head. "I'm not upset at losing that world, though. Everyone I loved and cared for was dead already."

"But in the proper timeline..." Jen realized what Katara was talking about. "There's already a you. And she's living the life you could have had."

"Yeah." Katara crossed her arms. "So I can't be with anyone I love, I can't be with Aang, because that other me already is."

As she was a time traveler, I wonder how much that might have amplified Jen's horror at hearing Katara's predicament. Had she ever considered such a circumstance? Having a duplicate created of her, or even being that duplicate, unable to undergo temporal re-integration and stuck forever in a world that wasn't her own?

Liara and I stepped into the library and interrupted their considerations. "It's time," I said to them.

They looked at my... well, let's not be dishonest about it. It was combat gear. I was dressed to fight with a protective suit and a firearm holstered on my hip. Katara looked more confused than anything, but she hadn't been traveling with me for long. She didn't understand me as much. But while I'd never interacted with Jen too much either, what she did know of me led her to look at me with stunned bewilderment. Her eyes focused on the RK-5 holstered on my hip. And the mass effect firearms on Liara's belt.

"What is that you're wearing?", Katara asked.

"A protective suit," I answered. "With other things we'll need for the fight. We should get going. The others will be waiting."

Liara gave me another concerned look. I didn't return it. Instead I looked intently at Jen. She looked to where Wes was laid out on a cot, still very much alive, and back to me. She nodded her head and put her morpher back on her wrist. "Right," she said. "Let's go."

---

I was standing by the controls for the TARDIS and watching some of the last injuries being brought out. With the Daleks about, the safety of the TARDIS was not as guaranteed as it had been in prior situations like this, and I thought it better to get those injured cases to the dedicated infirmary in the rebuilt Command Center.

"Doctor, can I talk to you for a moment?"

I looked over and watched Billy enter. He stepped quickly to give room for the litter carrying a wounded man from the Air Base crew and went up the walkway toward the controls. "I've been looking at the information we have, I think we might need a new strategy here."

"Oh?" I leveled a look at him. "Do tell."

Billy took a moment and sighed. "Even if we beat the Dalek invasion fleet, we're going to kill ourselves doing it. And we won't be able to attack their moonbase to take out the transmat system."

"So your suggestion is that we launch a direct assault on their moon facility? Through the teeth of their fleet and their prepared defenses?"

"It's better than killing ourselves trying to stop them bit by bit. Even if we save those cities now, nothing can save them if the Daleks grind us down."

I nodded quietly. "Good thought. A very good plan. The problem is that I can't simply materialize the TARDIS in their midst." For effect I entered the appropriate coordinates and pulled the lever. Nothing happened, as I expected. "The Daleks have acquired, or perhaps re-acquired, the means to block a TARDIS," I answered. "Until we find out a way to get through their defenses, a frontal assault will simply get us wiped out."

"Facing them in an open fight is going to cost us more people, if we..." Billy sighed and reached for his head. "I... Angel Grove was my home too, and I can't stand seeing what they're doing to it. I just..." For a moment words seemed to fail him. "I'm just worried that we're only going to get one shot at this."

I nodded. "Understandable." After a moment of thought I continued, "How many long range scanning systems are left for you to use?"

"Not many," Billy admitted. "But I think I can get a few of them working again."

"Do so," I said. "Find out what you can about their defenses. We're going to need that knowledge."

Our conversation ended there was the last group came out. Trini's arm was in a protective cast. Behind her a medical technician pushed a wheelchair with Jason in it. They kept his injured leg elevated.

Billy gave Trini a hug and shook hands with Jason. His face fell further when the stretcher carrying Kimberly came out. I would need to make a special trip to get the materials necessary to heal her grievous injury; until then all they could do was keep her comfortable without further damaging her spine. Billy couldn't even give her more than a slight embrace.

When they were gone, he looked to me and nodded. "I'll get to work on that."

"Good luck."

Billy stepped to the entrance. Beyond him, a couple of the teams were preparing to board the TARDIS while the others planned to take their Zords. Billy looked back at me before he stepped out and nodded. "Good luck to you too," he said.

He left, and the others came in. The Galaxy team was obvious, as they didn't have Zords at the moment given the unknown final fates of their Galactibeasts. Additionally the Time Force Team, without Wes to help pilot, would be joining me on the ground for the time being. Leo nodded to me. "We're ready."

"Right." I looked over to where Liara and Katara stepped out of a hall. They nodded. "Let's go." I reached for the TARDIS controls and set the coordinates.

I didn't give any cute cries when the time came to pull the lever. This was not an enjoyable excursion after all; we were up against the Daleks and every moment counted. I simply pulled it and sent us off to Angel Grove.

It was time to speak to the Daleks in a language they would understand.

---

We arrived near a resort along the beach side of the city. There were a number of people who were stunned to see us when we exited, although their expressions did brighten when they saw the Rangers. Hope filled their eyes and some began to cheer.

Leo pointed his thumb to the TARDIS. "Everyone into the ship!" I held out the sonic and remotely shifted the TARDIS door to enter a prepared refugee room. People began streaming in.

There was a sound in the distance. The familiar shriek of "Exterminate!" was joined by Human voices screaming. I started to run toward the sound on a course that took me through the resort halls to its front doors. I found a number of people huddling behind furniture that would give them no protection while the Daleks were crashing through the windows and doors that made up the glitzy lobby of the resort. Liara came up behind me, joined by the Galaxy team. They drew their quasar sabers and I... held up my right arm.

The device on my arm responded to a neural command and an emitter extended. A solid beam of red light lanced out from the device. I swept it from right to left at a level at the base of the Daleks' heads. They shrieked in turn as the beam sliced through them one by one, outright blasting the head domes off of several with the resulting explosions of energy. When the last Dalek was destroyed the beam terminated. The device on my wrist retracted its emitter and ejected a smoking heat sink. I forced myself to not wince as my right wrist started registering pain from what I'd just done. There was a reason I hadn't used this device before, why even Triumphant hadn't bothered.

Liara looked at me with concern. "Are you okay?"

Blast it. I must have shown some indication of the pain I was feeling. "Right as rain," I grumbled in answer. I saw the others looking my way. "Yes?"

"You're not being truthful with us," Maya observed.

Empaths. Sometimes useful, sometimes not so useful.

I sighed. "The device has to generate a lot of power to create that cutting laser. Even with the heat sink and the best insulation I could install in this suit, the heat it generates still gets through." As I spoke the pain was subsiding a little. But that wouldn't last, not if I had to fire again. "I'll have another shot in about ten minutes. In the meantime, let's get these people to the TARDIS, eh?"

There was agreement and everyone started to do just that. "Maybe Katara could..."

I shook my head at Liara. "Later." I held out my sonic screwdriver. "We have Dalek power sources in the next resort over. Let's go." I started to run that way.

"Shouldn't we wait for the others?!", Liara shouted at me, following closely behind.

"Every moment they wait is another innocent person the Daleks could be murdering," I pointed out. "I can't allow that."

"But you're..."

I ignored her protest and kept running. The two resorts were separated by brush and palm trees, but a well-worn path was visible through the square landscaped bushes that surrounded the palms. Once we were through the path we came to a side entrance to the main building and entered. In the first room on the right, a laundromat room for the hotel staff, I saw several of the maids and other hotel staff huddling together. "Go through the south door and to the resort beyond," I hissed at them. "You'll be directed to safety there!"

They gave me confused looks that belied some suspicion. "Who are you?", one asked.

"I'm... a friend of the Power Rangers," I answered, biting back both my initial response and a personal introduction that would be meaningless and, given my current demeanor, entirely inappropriate. "Now go!"

They seemed to accept this and fled while Liara and I continued down the hall. We eventually were led out to the pool area, where several people were huddled behind a refreshment stand while a pair of Daleks were moving around the area. "Humans, you cannot hide from the Daleks. You will be exterminated!"

A voice called out from nowhere, "Exterminate this!" and a glob of what looked like silly putty or something like it flew out and struck one Dalek in the eyestalk. As it shrieked "Vision impaired!" for a moment two figures erupted from the resort's palm bushes and the like and rushed into the other Dalek before it could turn.

You'd be surprised how light Daleks can actually be. The two had enough mass to literally push the Dalek into the pool, and since they're not very buoyant the Dalek sunk right to the bottom.

It wasn't hard to guess who they were, given the disparity in their builds and the foolish courage they'd just shown.

"Bulk and Skull," I murmured. And then I drew the blaster.

With a surge of energy the putty that had obscured the Dalek's eyestalk vaporized. "Vision no longer impaired! EXTERMINATE!"

The Dalek they'd dropped in the drink similarly activated its levitation and emerged from the pool, directing its weapons at the two as they stood in stunned realization that they'd only bought time, not defeated the evil robot things they thought the Daleks were. "Exterminate!"

I brought the blaster up and fired. Instead of a single pulse of energy like it would normally have fired, a solid beam of purple light erupted from it and sliced into the nearest Dalek. Amber light briefly appeared over the Dalek's shape and it began to turn, but not nearly fast enough; the purple light pierced the amber shield over the Dalek and sliced into the Dalek chassis, causing the entire thing to explode and burst into flames.

The Dalek arising from the pool also had its amber shielding flash to life. Liara's Locust was out and in her hands, spraying mass effect-accelerated slivers of alloyed metal into the shielding. Because of the slight modifications I made to the weapon, the acceleration was greater than normal with a larger round, and together those aspects ensured the weapon overwhelmed the Dalek's shielding and armor. Sparks erupted from it until it went dead and fell back into the pool.

"Wait a minute, just who are you two?", Skull demanded.

"Here to help," I replied succinctly. I walked up to them. "Rather brave of you to do that. The Daleks aren't like the creatures you're used to dealing with."

The two looked at us with bewilderment.

I sighed and continued. "I'm a Time Lord and the Daleks are the enemies of my people. I'm here helping your world's defenders, the Power Rangers, in trying to fight them off."

"So you're saying you're with the Rangers?" There was a bit of skepticism in Bulk's voice. "How do..."

Before he could make that line of inquiry, we were interrupted by a shout of "Exterminate!" and the arrival of more Daleks, these coming from the main building. Liara and I turned as they fired on us. Their beams intersected on me and were promptly stopped by a blue energy field that popped up around me, courtesy of the built-in shield generator in the combat suit. The neural linkup showed me how far they'd drained the shields for the moment, namely that I couldn't take another hit like that. I brought up my right wrist and the device I wore there generated an even stronger shield dome to absorb their shots and protect us.

Of course, this also meant that it was going to start burning my wrist again. And when the capacitor overloaded the shield would shut down.

Liara opened fire on the Daleks. The hail of rounds destroyed one, at least, but we had half a dozen trying to destroy us, and we couldn't flee without abandoning the people huddled behind Bulk and Skull's refreshment stand.

The water in the pool suddenly rushed upward in a gigantic wave which descended upon the Daleks with enough violence to knock a couple of them over. It hardened into ice.

I dropped the shield and turned to watch Katara lower her arms. The Galaxy Rangers jumped over her and closed the distance. Their sabers went to work on destroying the frozen Daleks before they could free themselves. As they hacked away the people behind the stand stood and cheered.

"Hey, Time Lord guy, do you have anywhere to put these people?"

"We evacuated the other building," Katara told me before I could reply to Bulk's question.

"Ah. Well, to answer your question Mister Bulkmeier..." I held up my TARDIS remote and the TARDIS materialized.

"I don't get it," Skull said. "How are we supposed to..."

The door opened and the large refugee chamber within was visible, its new occupants clearly still finding spots to lay in and the TIme Rangers just inside, watching the door. The duo's eyes bugged a bit. I smirked. "Bigger on the inside." I nodded to them. "Get your people in, they'll be safer there than anywhere else on the planet."

I didn't add "mostly".

While they evacuated the Galaxy Rangers finished their work without a hitch. Leo walked up to me. "Doctor, Grayson just called. There's a lot of people trapped in the city center. The Daleks are trapping them."

"Undoubtedly to get them all in one shot," I growled.

"With what?"

Maya's question was answered by a shadow looming overhead. We all looked up to see the approach of a large Dalek saucer, a full-sized warship of the Dalek fleet.

"I'm guessing they'll use that," Kai remarked.

As it moved overhead, we could see it wasn't going on without resistance. Some US military jets were pelting it with missiles. More visible damage was done by the energy weapons on the Lightspeed Rescue Aerial Zords now that they were engaging.

"Come along, everyone," I said. "We'd better help those people before that thing gets in firing position."

---

The Lightspeed Zords, six in all, made another firing pass on the Dalek capital ship, which retorted with its own secondary weapons. One blast grazed the side of Kai's Zord, which he had to fight to keep control of. "This thing just keeps taking damage!"

Above them more fire poured in as the Astro ship descended, lasers blazing. The Dalek guns turned on it and played fire over their deflectors. "Lightspeed team, we'll draw their attention, you go for their engines," Andros said.

"Sounds like a plan," Carter answered. The Lightspeed Aerial Zords maneuvered away to make another attack approach while the Astro Megaship poured more fire into the Dalek saucer. Large metal shapes jumped from it and landed on the saucer. The Zeo team's Zords started shooting at it directly, their shots coming close enough to directly impact the deflectors protecting the Dalek hull. Same deflectors were also causing some steady damage to the feet of the Zeo Zords. "I'm not sure how much longer we can do this," Adam protested.

"We do it as long as we need to," Tommy answered. "We've got to take this thing down!"

---

The city center was filled with people. More than I could reasonably sustain in the TARDIS for any given amount of time. We needed to get them out of their encirclement before the Dalek capital warship was lined up to put its main gun directly on target.

To do so, I materialized the TARDIS in an alleyway. Time Force didn't remain behind as guards this time. We'd need every available hand. Rather, I took a different approach.

"This is a quantum diffusion field disruptor," I explained, hefting the large device into Skull's arms. He nearly doubled over. An even larger one was in Bulk's arms. "Now, the way it works is that Bulk's energetic repulsion system will create an area effect that will disrupt the Daleks' defensive capabilities, and then this will cause a field that disrupts the Daleks on a subatomic level through quantum diffusion. So, you use them together and, should any Daleks actually come through the door, you should be able to stop them. Any questions?"

Bulk and Skull looked at each other and then at me again. "Yeah," Skull said. "This is a what and does which to who?"

I sighed. Before I could try to explain again, Liara stepped up and said, "Your device will drain their energy and yours will destroy them," pointing from Bulk to Skull appropriately. "That's it."

"Oh. Okay, we can do that."

Liara gave me a satisfied look and I chose not to dignify it with a response. We walked out the door and I locked it. And, for additional security, I remotely activated the stealth field so the TARDIS disappeared.

Together with the Galaxy and Time Rangers, and Liara and Katara at either side of me, we walked briskly into the open street from where the Dalek circle was constraining the Human crowd beyond.

A few of the Daleks were turning our way. We didn't give them the opportunity to see us before the attack commenced. The Time Force members ran for cover, primarily abandoned vehicles, and opened up with their energy sidearms. The usual Ranger battle cries came from the Galaxy team as they closed the distance and started hacking and slashing with those Quasar Sabers of theirs.

I held the sonic out and used it to cause a fire hydrant to erupt. With all of the ammunition now easily provided to her, Katara's arms started swishing and moving, blasting Daleks with icy water that froze the joints that moved their weapons and manipulators. Walls of ice would briefly form, thick enough to completely absorb a shot from the Dalek weapons, and then turn back to water to be used as she directed.

Liara jumped behind cover with the Time Force team and combined her biotics with the Locust in her hands, the former stunning or restraining the Daleks, even knocking them around a bit, so the latter and the attacks of others could chew them up.

What did I do?

I took out my blaster and started firing.

The device on my right wrist lit up with white hot pain whenever the energy field hat to defy a Dalek shot. It helped me focus, if anything, as Dalek after Dalek came into my sight. Purple beams repeatedly sliced into them, igniting flames and sparks in their armored forms as they shrieked in what I presumed was agony.

I ignored this and kept going, and as I did I caught snapshots of the battle around me. Jen pulling an impressive off-the-wall kick while blasting away with her weapon, taking out several Daleks in the process. The other members of Time Force advanced with her into one flank of the Daleks, going from energy blasters to their saber weapons while flipping and dodging to avoid getting hit.

On the other end the Galaxy Rangers were fighting hard. I noticed Damon was fighting a little slow and his suit looked like it had taken a glancing hit. Nevertheless he dodged one shot, sliced through the grill of one Dalek, and while turning drove his saber into the rear of another one that caused sparks and flames to erupt from within.

Maya jumped on top of one of the Daleks, using it to jump higher into the air, and in mid-air she pulled out a pair of daggers that she swept together, creating a massive discharge of electricity that stunned or destroyed half a dozen of the Daleks. She landed in the midst of more, which might have been dangerous if water had not swept around her, forming an ice barrier. Katara swept in on it, Kai and Damon sliding behind her with Damon's dagger weapons turned into a crossbow of sorts that poured energy fire into the Daleks. Kai landed and the claw-shaped daggers he held created a bust of energy that threw one Dalek back into another in a shower of sparks and flame.

Trip slid under one Dalek's shot, causing it to hit another Dalek and damage it, and brought his saber sweeping up into the Dalek's main body, creating a gash that exploded in sparks and caused a shriek of pain from the enraged Dalek. He followed the maneuver up by jumping over it. As it swung to attack him, Katie came up on it with her own weapons and finished it off with a powerful blow. They turned and faced another Dalek, which was so busy aiming for them that it missed Lucas slashing in from the side.

Given the situation... we were actually winning.

The Daleks realized that too. From among the numbers of the Daleks several red ones began moving into position. "Enemy presence detected! The Doctor is detected! Tactical alert to all Dalek units, the Doctor is here! EXTERM-!" He exploded in sparks as the purple beam from my blaster speared him. Another red one fell to a hail of bullets from Liara. Eric's Quantum Defender dispatched another.

I shot another Dalek, used my wrist device to absorb a shot with a defensive dome, and returned fire that eliminated my latest attacker. I moved my blaster slightly and faced...

...a terrified Human woman.

We'd broken through.

"Everyone out!", I shouted, motioning back down the street. "Get at least six blocks away and find shelter!"

A few responded to me with that command. Jen jumped out of the fight and landed beside me. She motioned down the road as well. "Everyone, leave this area now! Evacuate in a calm and orderly fashion!"

People immediately surged around us. I was momentarily afraid we'd get trampled given their sheer numbers, but they obeyed Jen's instructions for the most part and flowed around us.

I looked up and saw the Dalek saucer was growing closer. I also saw it was covered in the signs of battle, with flying Dalek drones buzzing about and engaged with the Zords that had landed on it.

---

Tommy swung the arm of his Zeo Zord around and bashed another Dalek drone from the sky. "There's no end to them!"

Thanks to his cover, Kat had returned to pouring what fire she could into the Dalek ship's hull. "I don't think we're cutting through!"

"We can keep it... woh!"

Adam took several hits from damaged Dalek flying drones slamming themselves into his Zord to destroy him, even at the cost of themselves. This sent him falling over the side of the saucer.

"Adam!" Tanya turned her Zord to come to his aid, even though it was too late and it resulted in her own being blasted from the rear.

Thankfully, in one of those things that tend to happen in a cosmos like this, Adam was caught mid-air by one of the Lightspeed team. He landed on Joel's Zord and with care balanced himself on it. "Ha! Good catch, man!" Adam held out his arms and began firing the weapons mounted on them again.

"You're talking to an ace, man!", was Joel's enthusiastic reply. His weapons started firing once more and the two together carved a path through the dwindling numbers of Dalek flying drones until Joel got enough altitude for Adam to jump his Zord back onto the Dalek ship.

"Alright guys, time to take this to the next level!" Tommy hit the appropriate controls on his Zord. "Form Zeo Megazord!"

"He's got the right idea guys!", Carter announced. "Lightspeed Air Megazord, form up!"

"Forming Astro Megazord!", Andros added.

You can imagine the usual transformation sequences going, particularly interesting for the Air Zords. It was like watching Superion form, I suppose, when considering what they were.

Very impressive, still.

Also rather too late.

The Dalek main gun began to fire.

---

Brilliant emerald energy flashed over our heads and crashed into buildings, destroying them with such force that they immediately began to topple.

The crowd screamed in panic and began to run further, just to stop when a shot went shorter and slammed into a nearby building. The part of the structure not vaporized collapsed like a house of cards, creating a large cloud of debris that overwhelmed us all and obscured sight briefly. It made me long for having Korra along, if only to get the benefits of airbending.

Thankfully we had Liara. She created a biotic field that acted to repel most of the fine material and pushed it toward the street, creating a visible pathway for the panicked multitudes to follow.

That just left the Daleks pressing in on us from all sides, pursuing the fleeing crowd now that their trap had been broken. My wrist burned with agony from the shield I had to keep up. I quickly exchanged the heat sink again. The one I ejected was still glowing hot and looking like it was going to melt even as it smoked. "They're flanking us!", I heard Jen shout.

Leo was quick to reply. "If we move, they can hurt th-". His speech was cut off by a sharp cry of pain.

"Leo!" I turned as Kendrix rushed to his side. His left side was a big scorch mark. "Leo, I've got you, let's..."

"Kendrix, look out!"

She turned in time to see a Dalek fire at her. She would have taken a blast to her helmet if I hadn't gotten there first with my shield. The agony was white hot and my shot was almost a miss from the distraction. Thankfully, unlike Mr. Montoya or the Dread Pirate Roberts, being a Time Lord relieves me of that whole mess about one hand or the other being the dominant one. The beam from my weapon speared the Dalek and destroyed it.

Unfortunately, shielding them meant I wasn't shielding Maya, who was fighting valiantly to protect a family near the rear of the fleeing crowd. Her weapons flashed around and lightning lashed out, but she simply couldn't defeat enough Daleks to keep them from focusing on her. Several blasts struck her and spent sparks flying from her suit as it tried to absorb the damage.

But she'd taken too many hits. Light surrounded her form as she collapsed and lay upon the concrete. She didn't move.

"Maya!" Kai and Damon leapt to her defense, cutting through a few Daleks to get to her. Damon took another hit that caused him to fall over and de-morph. He struggled to his feet again and faced down a Dalek.

"Exterminate!", it shrieked.

Damon would have taken a killing blow if a wall of water hadn't formed into ice around the two Galaxy Rangers and their fallen comrade. At this point I lost visual contact, but I imagined Damon picking Maya up and working with Kai to get her to safety under Katara's protection. Several plumes of steam erupted from the ice wall as the Daleks began to destroy it. I looked back to see Leo struggling to stand and Kendrix desperately trying to protect his other side.

We were losing this battle.

---

Meanwhile, high above us, three Megazords were locked in a struggle with the Dalek capital ship. It was streaming fire in some places from battle damage. But for all of the damage taken, nothing vital had been hit yet.

Which, of course, meant the Dalek ship's main armament was still firing, destroying more of Angel Grove with every shot.

Other batteries filled the air around the saucer with emerald fire. One bolt of this weapons fire blasted armor plating from the shoulder of the Astral Megazord. "There has to be some way to bring this sucker down!", TJ protested.

The main gun fired again and disintegrated a high rise. Inside the cockpit of the new Zeo Megazord, Tommy looked to his teammates. "Guys, I've got an idea." When they nodded, he said, "Space Rangers, Lightspeed Rescue, get their attention!"

"We're on it!" The two Megazords kept up their attacks, drawing the secondary batteries away from the main one.

"Alright Rangers, let's do this!", Tommy shouted. The others agreed and together the team piloted their Megazord right up to the Dalek main battery. They dodged as it sent a shot at them that blew apart another building toward the perimeter of the Angel Grove downtown. The Zeo Megazord's sword came out and they moved it into a slashing position. When it came down it hit with enough force to slice through the internals of the Dalek gun just as it fired for another shot.

Including the capacitor.

The energy release was cataclysmic, The Zeo Megazord fell away, which is the only reason it survived what came next.

The feedback surged into the Dalek ship and overloaded its electrical systems. Explosions flowered all along the ship until the entire thing detonated with enough force that even we, on the ground, were knocked down by the shockwave.

The Lightspeed Rescue and Space teams had their Zords flipping end over end until they crashed to the ground, damaged but intact. The Zeo Zord survived as well, but when it impacted, the damage was so severe that the Zeo team had to jump out as the sparks of burning consoles overwhelmed their bridge.

They picked themselves up and looked up. "Zeo Red here, is everyone alright?"

"Lightspeed Red, we're good. Just a little banged up."

"Space Red. We took some damage in the landing. The Megaship's going to need repairs."

"Right." Tommy sighed and looked to his intact teammates. "Okay everyone, let's get to the city center and help the others!"

---

At that time, in the city center, we sorely needed the help. The blast of the Dalek ship exploding might have knocked us down, but the Daleks were only momentarily stunned, and when they attacked it was with renewed ferocity. I heard Lucas cry out from a couple of direct hits. The fact he didn't de-morph at least indicated the damage wasn't that bad.

But Maya was still unconscious. Leo could barely move, and Damon looked like he was ready to collapse. And it seemed like every Dalek in Angel Grove was now in the city center. We were losing this fight unless something changed.

I looked around and spied for buildings not destroyed by the Dalek ship. One, a bank building about a hundred yards away, seemed the best bet. "Katara!", I shouted. "This way! Give us an ice wall!"

The young waterbender was dripping with sweat from her exertions. If I had been in a more calm state of mind I would have lamented that instead of getting the quiet time to rebuild herself she needed, she was yet again in a life or death situation. She moved her arms in the direction I indicated and the hydrants I had opened with my sonic screwdriver. With the movement of her arms the water rushed ahead of us in a wave, powerful enough to sweep Daleks along with it. As it rushed the water behind it formed the ice barriers we needed. "Come along!", I shouted to the others. Katie picked Maya up and Kendrix got Leo, with Damon and Lucas limping along together. Liara took up the rear with a biotic field to protect us for the moment. She looked to be on the verge of collapse.

She received help once Katara finished our pathway to sanctuary, carving ice walls right up to the doors we needed. She turned, pulled the water in a great gushing wave over her head, and brought it down right beside Liara, hardening it to ice. I caught Liara's arm and helped her limp in exhaustion into the bank with us.

The bank was lifeless. Note that is not the same as empty. The bodies were not a nice addition to the decor. We ignored them as everyone set up around the lobby. Katara went to Maya's side and gathered water to apply to her wounds. "Her life's fading," she said to the other Galaxy Rangers. "I'm not sure I can heal all of these injuries."

I could imagine the tears on Kendrix's cheeks despite the helmet, given the sob in her voice. "Please, you've got to."

Katara winced from exhaustion as she did indeed try.

With Leo down, Jen was now what you'd call the field commander of the Rangers. "We need to retreat," she said glumly. "Summon your TARDIS."

I held out the TARDIS remote. Outside I could hear the calls again. "Exterminate!"

But just as I did so, the chants stopped. And a Dalek voice instead called out, "Doctor! Your presence is detected! We would negotiate an arrangement."

I stopped. I looked to the others, who looked incredulous. "Maybe... maybe because we blew up their ship?", Trip suggested. He actually had a bit of hope in his voice.

"They have more," I pointed out. "Daleks tend to negotiate only as a ruse." Nevertheless, it did buy us time to play along. I went up to the front doors. Thankfully there was an opaque structure around them I could hide behind and not be visible from the road. I opened the doors completely with the sonic, locked them open, and hid where I couldn't be seen. "All right! I'm listening!"

There was a momentary pause. "We have terms. If you accept, we will leave this planet and cease extermination of the Humans."

"Well, that's mighty generous of you, mighty generous indeed. What are your terms, then?" I smirked. I had a good idea of what they were.

"Surrender, Doctor." The Dalek's answer was cold and clipped. "Surrender to the Daleks and we will spare your precious Earth."

I looked up and saw the others watching me. Jen shook her head. She understood, as well as I, that this was likely a trick. Even if it wasn't, the Daleks would never abide by it forever. Eventually they'd come back and destroy Humanity anyway.

"Well, isn't that an interesting offer, here I thought you'd want me to dance a jig," I replied with fake wit while my mind raced. Just a little more time and maybe the other Ranger teams could make it here. "What guarantees would I have that you'll keep your word."

There was silence for a time. When the reply came, it wasn't what I expected.

"One thousand four hundred twenty-six," the Dalek answered.

I blinked. "Pardon me?"

"One thousand four hundred and fifty."

"And just what does that number have to do with this conversation?"

"One thousand five hundred." I heard whirring from the Dalek head moving a little. It was coming closer to the door. I looked out and saw one red-colored Dalek standing out amongst the others. "That is how many Humans we have exterminated during this conversation. One thousand five hundred and fifteen."

I felt cold rage fill my hearts. This was manipulation, pure and simple. And it was working. The Daleks knew their mark indeed.

But perhaps not as well as they thought they did.

Clearly the intent was to draw upon the Doctor's Compassion. Get me to submit because every moment I didn't, people were dying.

All of those people dying. Even as we stood here. As I stood there, dumbstruck by the callousness. It wasn't surprising to known intellectually, but to see it evinced in first person...

I remembered the weight on my belt. It looked like it was time to use it. So I checked my blaster to make sure that the charge on it was full again and gave it a new cell when it didn't show such. I quickly exchanged capacitors on the device on my right wrist and forced out the pain I felt under it. I needed to focus on what had to be done.

I'd like to pretend my choice was purely rational. One of me thinking it out and discovering a strategy to prevail despite the odds. But I can't do that and be truthful.

The honest truth was that I was just so consumed by rage at the Daleks I stopped caring about other things.

When I stepped out of the building I didn't have my hands up. My left hand was up, granted, but that's because it was holding the blaster.

Right at the Dalek negotiator.

It had been in the middle of updating the list of dead people when I shot it directly in the chassis. A shriek filled the air before the entire Dalek exploded in sparks and toppled. "YOU BLOODY BASTARDS!," I screamed. "ALL YOU CAN EVER DO IS KILL! YOU'RE GOOD FOR NOTHING!" I brought up my right arm. "BURN!"

I swept it across the paths of the Daleks in front of me. The ruby beam from the device on my wrist sliced its way through all of them, causing multiple Daleks to explode in the process as I killed... probably at least twenty of them, I suppose. No, more, because the beam cut entirely through their first rank and their second before losing enough cohesion.

And it felt good.

I fell back into cover as the next rank moved up and swapped capacitors again. The pain in my right wrist was actually receding now. Which was not a good sign.

This time when I stepped out I started blasting away again, this time with my blaster, and using the wrist device to protect myself with a shield. The Daleks rained shots on me, every shot being absorbed at the cost of increased heat to the device itself.

I screamed at them as I fired. I had to. I was so full of hate and rage at what they were. What they had done. The Daleks were... well, worse than animals. They were monsters. Absolute, complete, total monsters. I thought back to all of the people they'd hurt this day. The burning cities. The slaughtered people. I thought of gentle Maya and brave Wes, of Captain Murphy and his orphaned children.

And it made me want to destroy them all.

The purpose of my charge wasn't just to shoot them though, but simply to get far enough away from the building to employ the device on my belt. I blasted my way through the Dalek ranks, still jumbled up from all the Daleks I'd destroyed with my opening attack, until I reached the proper distance. At that point I took cover behind a couple of destroyed Daleks, letting what was left of them take shots from approaching Daleks while I pulled the device from my belt off. I looked back at the building, then the approaching horde of Daleks, made some calculations in my head while I considered my sonic screwdriver and whatever Human life forms were in the area, and finished the settings to avoid them.

And then I threw the thing into the air. It was already lighting up with red warning lights while an anti-gravity repulsor in it aided its flight, pushing it to the programmed distance I wanted it to go.

I started running back to the bank. I saw Jen and Katie emerging, chrono blasters at the ready. I waved at them. "Go back in!", I shouted. "GO BACK IN NOW!"

They did so. I got to the door just in time.

There was a loud pulsing sound. A wrongness in the air. I turned back in time to see an expanding red sphere move toward us. It stopped just shy of the building, with a group of Daleks already moving up toward us. They hit the barrier and could not move beyond it. I looked at them and smirked. I've got you, I thought. I've got you all.

Nearby was the Dalek who had been "negotiating" with me, on its side and swiveling its head to point its failing eyestalk toward me. It was still within the field, too, so it was going to suffer the same fate. And it had been able to observe despite the damage I'd inflicted. It'd seen my rampage, heard my shouts of rage, and knew something of what I'd just done.

It explains why it said what it did.

I'll never forget what those words were, either.

"You would make a good Dalek."

And then came the sound, like a gigantic foot stomping. A rush of air as the sphere violently contracted, forcing everything within it into a smaller and smaller space until the sphere was compacted around the device creating it, crushing the Daleks within as well as buildings and street signs and everything else. There was a rumble of thunder, a burst of light, and then nothing. Just a massive crater in the city center of Angel Grove to mark the destruction of probably hundreds of Daleks.

I stood there for a moment before looking back to the others. Jen's eyes looked ready to pop out of her head - her visor was actually open just so I could see this reaction. Trip, Kai, and Katie were stunned into silence. "What... was that?", Jen asked.

"Implosion sphere," I said. "I based it off of technology from a rather nasty species that were called the Shadows, it crushes every-."

I was shot in the back.

Pain surged through my body as I twisted and fell over. My eyes fell upon a Dalek that was levitating in mid-air over the crater. One of many. I looked up and saw another Dalek saucer looming overhead.

After all of that... it didn't matter.

As I told them before, the Daleks just kept coming.

Jen and Katie dragged me back in with Kai and Trip providing cover fire. Trip took a hit and stumbled over before we got back into cover. "What do we do now?", he rasped.

I didn't have an answer for him. I couldn't think of anything.

Fortunately, I didn't have to.

Another shadow loomed overhead, and we all looked up through the glass ceiling of the bank lobby as another colossal shape, even bigger than the Dalek saucer, moved swiftly into place over our heads. I could just make out the features and realized what it was.

A pillar of light shot down from the new arrival to just beside us. Six figures appeared. I immediately recognized two.

Cole and Taylor.

"Wild access!"

Well, you can guess what that prompted. Everyone got into their colored uniforms, the goatee-wearing fellow looking pretty fearsome in his wolf-themed one, and as one they charged out into the Daleks. I looked out and saw that they weren't alone, as the Zeo team swept in and joined the fray. A final glance up saw a rather huge, robotic-looking figure and flanking animals charging onto the Dalek saucer from the hovering island. A booming voice declared, "This is our planet!", and I watched lots of carnage erupt on the Dalek ship.

And then my wound and my exhaustion became too much. I lapsed into unconsciousness.

...granted, I also found myself not entirely unconscious, but rather surrounded in a familiar dark area.

I was dreaming again.

A voice echoed. The Dalek. "You would make a good Dalek."

I scowled at that and turned. "Well, time for another lecture, Doctor?", I asked.

But I didn't see the First Doctor.

Someone else was standing there.

Someone I had seen before. Someone I still saw, but only in my worse nightmares.

"He adjusted his suit. Dark blue jacket, light blue vest and not-as-light blue dress shirt. Blue dress trousers, green shoes.

I swallowed. He wasn't the one I wanted to see.

"Well, isn't that too bad?" He stepped up to me with a dark look and a little smirk of amusement.

"What are you doing here?", I demanded.

"Waiting for you." The Time Lord Triumphant crossed his arms. "You and I need to have a talk."

---

Well, this dream was totally bollocks.

I mean, it's one thing to occasionally be lectured by the Doctor in his various forms. That I can take. I'm the idiot who took his name, after all. I'm the idiot who decided to become him. He had every right to come into my dreams and give me lip about it.

And yes, I know it's probably just my subconscious mind at work, I'm being rhetorical.

But to have him here? My worst nightmare? That's just going too far.

"Worst nightmare? Really? That's awfully unkind of you." Triumphant walked around me. "So, I see you found purple that didn't make you look like the Joker?"

"What do you want?", I sighed.

"Oh, no time for pleasantries? You'll exchange M&Ms and jellybabies with Four but not even a line about fashion sense to dear old me? I'm insulted." Triumphant stood before me again, arms crossed. "Which is really aggravating since we're the same man, really."

"We were. I walked away from your madness."

He made a buzzing sound. "Wrong! I'm still in here. I'm still a part of you. I'll always be in here." He looked at me with barely-concealed anger. "And you won't even accept that. Look at what I am to you now. A bloody nightmare! And yet when the going gets rough, you still call me in! What else do you call it when you go into my armory and put on my gear?"

I narrowed my eyes in reply. "The situation called for it. I wasn't proud of the choice."

"And that... that is the problem I have." Triumphant pointed his finger in my face. "You don't get to spit in my face and do things my way whenever you please. It just means you do things half-arsed. You and I both know there is so much more you could do to deal with this situation. For instance, instead of nitpicking about, you could have gathered those spandex-wearing nitwits and thrown them at that Dalek moonbase to give yourself an opening to get inside."

"And a whole lot of people would have died," I replied.

"That Dalek made it clear they were going to die anyway," he retorted. "So, stop mucking about and throw what you can at the Daleks. Before the rest of these nitwits get themselves killed trying to put out fires they can't control."

I glared at him. "You and I both know you're inflicting a death sentence on them."

"Yeah. They'll probably get wiped out," Triumphant agreed. "But it'll stop the Daleks, won't it? Things will be better off."

I gazed on my other self in horror. This was what Triumphant had ultimately become. "Making the world better" at any cost. Even if it meant the lives of allies.

I replied to him with a shake of my head. "I'll find another way."

"Oh please! If there was another way, you'd have found it by now!" Triumphant laughed in my face. "You weak idiot. If only you'd listened to me, things like this wouldn't be happening."

I glowered at him. "You... we... were a monster. Nerys saw that."

"The Nerys who lived in caves and fought the Cardassian Occupation would probably disagree. Before you filled her head with naive trivialities."

"I showed her a better way!"

"And look where that's led you! This entire cosmos could be taken by the Daleks because of you and your better way." Triumphant shook his head. "No more games, Doctor. You know I'm right. They'll know I'm right. Make the call. Get them to make the attack. It's the only way to save their world."

I swallowed. I was still running my mind through possibilities, running it and running it. But I was too tired. I was emotionally and physically spent, almost to the verge of exhaustion. My wounded and bruised body wasn't helping matters.

"Good chap," Triumphant said. "You recognize it, don't you? That mine is the only way. If you're going to stop the Daleks, you've got to beat them head on. No tricks, nothing but force. It's the only way."

"Oh, what a load of rubbish!"

The familiar voice made us turn. Two more figures joined me and my mad counterpart in the dreamscape. The Tenth Doctor followed up his pronouncement by tromping up and looking Triumphant in the eye. "Aren't you the simple one? Simple plans, simple solutions, and look at where it got you. Running ragged trying to fix things that couldn't be fixed easily until you were ready to just blow things up."

Triumphant snarled at Ten's face. "I did what had to be done!", he roared.

"No, you did things the easy way. Blowing stuff up isn't simply 'what had to be done." Ten faced me next. "And you! Shame on you! You should know better!"

"Excuse me?", I asked.

"Going out and doing the cowboy thing like you're the hero in some Yank movie," Ten protested. "And you call yourself the Doctor!"

"I was only doing what I had to in order to save lives."

"No, you were listening to this clown!" Ten held his hand up toward Triumphant. "Simple solutions instead of putting that Time Lord brain you've got to work!"

"Oh, that's rich," Triumphant laughed. "You calling me a clown? You, the buffoon running around space-and-time mucking about and acting the sad clown over the Time War? It's bloody hilarious, that's what that is." He looked to the other figure who had yet to speak. "The same to you. The overgrown child who won't grow up. You and your antics, always trying to impress the kiddies so they'll run away and play with you like you're Peter bloody Pan. Neither of you wanting to make the hard choices, just to run along and bury your heads in the sand. I made those choices, and I'll make them again if anyone will ever listen to me!"

The Eleventh Doctor showed no signs of responding to Triumphant's provocation. All he said was, "My, aren't you rather full of yourself? You really think that you're better than us at this, hrm?"

"I know I was."

Eleven shook his head and walked up to me. "You know better, don't you?", he asked me. "You've come to realize it. You're just questioning it because of what the Daleks have done. That's alright. The Daleks have always pushed us like that. But you know better. You know this isn't the way to fight them. You won't accomplish anything with his methods."

That set Triumphant off. "Oh no?! I actually accomplished things!", Triumphant raged. "I saved worlds and put down terrible things by being proactive about them, not just stumbling into them like you lot!"

"That isn't the issue at hand," Eleven retorted. "The problem is that you're playing into the Daleks' hands by choosing to fight like that. You're giving up your biggest advantage. The thing that sets you, that sets us, apart from everyone else."

Triumphant rolled his eyes. "Oh, just what gobbledygook is this now?! Don't you listen to them," he insisted, glaring at me. "They're just a delusion. A... a fantasy! You and I know what it's like out here, the compromises that have to be made! You can't always shy away from them. The Daleks have made you realize that, haven't they? You can't always play the straight game, you've got to take control! You're a bloody Time Lord, act like one!"

We all looked at him. Ten shook his head in aggravation. "You are just unbelievably thick, aren't you?"

Triumphant glared at him. "Me? I'm the thick one?"

Ten nodded. "Oh yes. You're thick. Thick as thick can be. You're Thickie Thick, the Thickiest Thick that was ever Thick from Thicktown. You are thick."

"Is that what you call it? Your record with the Daleks, how well was that again? How many people died? How many times did you only win through sheer dumb luck?" Triumphant pointed at them and looked to me. "Are you really going to listen to these clowns? Do you think you'll always get so lucky? What, do you think things will turn out like they normally would in this silly cosmos, with those silly Power Rangers and their silly poses always winning the day in the end by determination or whatever? You're fighting Daleks here, mate, Daleks. This isn't the kiddy league, so you need to put away those kiddy ideas! Make the hard choice, it's the only one you've got, the only one we've got!"

Triumphant's face was starting to turn purple from pent-up anger. The rest of us just stared at him for the moment. And all the while, the words he spoke set wheels turning in my head. "What?!", he demanded.

"Oh my, he really is thick," Eleven sighed. "He doesn't get it at all, does he?"

"Would you stop saying that?!", Triumphant raged. "There's nothing to get! Just the ramblings of a couple of self-righteous dolts unwilling to get their hands dirty!"

I shook my head. I knew what they meant. "It's not about luck," I said to him. "Not dumb luck. It's about making my own."

"Excuse me?"

I laughed gently. "If you're smart enough, you make your own luck. You arrange things so the odds are in your favor, as much as they can be. That's what this is all about, isn't it? It's what it means to be us, to be the Doctor."

"Well, looks like he's gotten it, doesn't he?", Ten asked Eleven.

"Oh, I think so," Eleven agreed, a boyish grin on his face. "He's clever when he puts his mind to it."

Triumphant looked at them like they were madmen. "Gotten what?"

"What our purpose is," I answered. I kept my tone soft as I spoke. This wasn't something to be declared aggressively or loudly. "Being the Doctor, I mean. Sure, we do our share of running, ducking through fights, that sort of thing. All of that action-adventure stuff. But being the Doctor's not about fighting. Not directly. Our biggest weapon is up here." I tapped my temple. "Time Lord brain. Marvelous thing, isn't it? That's always been my best tool when going up against the gribblies and nasties of Creation. And it's this that makes the Doctor... makes us... who we are. It's what makes the Doctor the greatest threat the Daleks have ever known."

"You're talking nonsense!"

I didn't pay attention to him. I now realized what I had missed. My purpose here. My place in any situation like this. It wasn't to run off into battle. Sure, those things could be necessary. But that's not what I was needed for.

After all, I wasn't a Power Ranger. Nor was I an elementbender or a biotic or a Jedi. I'm the Doctor. I had my own role to play.

"I can't beat the Daleks at their own game," I said to him. "So you're not welcome. All you were ever good for was picking on civilizations that couldn't stop you. The Daleks require something more."

"You're being an idiot...!" Triumphant's enraged expression turned to worry.

"I know what I need to do now." I looked to Ten and Eleven. "I'm... not entirely sure what parts of my psyche you two come from, but it was a pleasure to have you two talk some sense into me."

"Oh, would you look at that," Ten said to Eleven, sotto voce. "He thinks we're just parts of his mind."

"Well, maybe we are," Eleven conceded in sotto voce, "but where's the fun in conceding something like that?"

Then they were gone.

"Jellybaby?"

Triumphant and I turned to see the Fourth Doctor step up. "I would have come in, but I thought they were handling the discussion quite well." After I'd taken mine, he held up the bag to Triumphant. "I don't think I like the look on this one. Still, I'm not one to be stingy..." He offered up the bag.

Triumphant growled in rage and knocked the bag from Four's hand. "Don't patronize me!"

"Oh, that's rather rude," Four sniffed.

"Why don't you go on, Triumphant," I said. "This conversation is over."

"If you think you can get rid of me, you're mistaken!", he shouted. "I'm in here too! I'm a part of you!"

"Good," I shot back. I stepped up to him and met him eye to eye. He had my face, of course. Twisted, too. Madness and fury and arrogance bordering on megalomania. I didn't like looking at those things in my face. "I want to know you're still a part of me because knowing you're in here, waiting to get out, that'll keep me on my toes! You already cost me enough once, Triumphant, and you caused hurt to people I care about. You started things that others had to clean up, and it hurt people doing it! Nerys, Janet Peratrovich, Korra, all of the other people harmed because of what you did, or the results of what you did, I can't allow that to happen again! Because when it comes down to it you're just a big dumb beast and I've got to keep you locked up so you don't hurt anyone. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a universe to save, so bugger off."

One of the benefits to being in one's own mind is that, when you become fully cognizant of that, you can start to shape it a bit. I did just that, using my mind to expel Triumphant as he glared anger at us. He wavered from sight.

"Well, that was rather interesting, wasn't it?" Four picked up his bag and scooped some spilled jellybabies back in. He looked back to me and smiled. "Good thinking, Doctor. I think you know what to do." He offered me another.

I accepted it and started chewing on it. I was finished with it rather quickly. "I do believe I have a good idea on it, yes." I smirked. "Sourpuss gave me the idea, actually." I clapped my hands. "Now I just need to wake up. But first..." I held out my hand and a little dark baggie materialized. "I really recommend the classic M&Ms..."

---

I awoke and immediately realized I was soaking wet. I sloshed as I came to an upright position in what turned out to be the TARDIS pool. Katara was standing beside me and seemed slightly startled. "Wait, are you okay?"

My body reported the pain a moment later. It wasn't nearly as bad as I figure it'd be. Triumphant's body armor had taken the brunt of the Dalek shot. I looked around and saw I was the only one represent. The dream was still vivid in my mind, and with it my idea, but I was able to force myself to think about something else. "Maya...?! How is...?"

"Alive," Katara confirmed for me. She looked utterly exhausted. "They have her in the infirmary with the others. Doctor Oliver wants to speak with you."

"Oh, and I want to speak with him, and Billy, and all of those scientists they have," I proclaimed.

"You should hurry." Katara's face fell. "They say the Dalek fleet is getting reinforcements. We don't have much time before they..."

"Don't worry, my dear, we have all the time in the world!"

That caused Katara to blink. "You seem... different than I thought you'd be. You were so upset earlier..."

"Had an epiphany. Liara will confirm how crazy I get when the brain is firing like it is." I tapped my skull. Looking down I saw only pasty skin above the waist. Obviously from Katara's effort to get to my wound. "Is she here?"

"She's resting in her room."

"Do let her know I'm fine," I said. "And tell the others I'll be with them shortly." I clambered out of the pool and reached for the towel rack. I ran it over my shoulders to begin drying off. "I've got to go change!"

I heard Katara ask why, but I was already running out the door. So all I shouted back was a "You'll see!"

---

Everyone was staring when I made my energetic walk into the rebuilt Command Center's main conference room. It was probably the energy I was showing. I'd just been shot, after all.

The fact I was back in my proper suit and not that combat suit was pretty mystifying to them too.

"Hey everyone. I hear Maya and Leo are going to be okay," I said. "Now..."

"Doctor, wait a moment." Jen looked at me like I was mad. "Why are you... back in the suit? Shouldn't you be using your armor?"

I made a disapproving face briefly. "Oi, not that. That wasn't me. I was being stupid, playing Cowboys and Rangers. Fighting is your forte, not mine. Trying that was just playing into the Daleks' hands."

Tommy crossed his arms. "Doctor, what are you saying?"

"What I'm saying, Tommy Oliver, is that I am not a Power Ranger or anything of that sort. I'm the Doctor. And my best weapon will always be..." I tapped my temple several times. "And this is what I have to use so we can stop the Daleks."

"If we can," Adam sighed. "The Zeo Zords are down."

"And the Megaship is badly damaged." Andros shook his head. "It'll take days to repair. We definitely can't fly to the moon now."

"And more Dalek ships are arriving every minute," Cole added. "There's no way we can fight them all."

I grinned. "Well, no, not all of them. At least not in... normal circumstances. But, that's the beauty of it. We don't have to fight them all." I turned to Billy. "You were right, Billy Cranston. About what strategy we needed. I should have been more open-minded toward you."

Billy shook his head, his sad little smile showing understanding. Seeing his hometown trashed had not been easy. "It's alright. I understand. And I've been analyzing the Dalek defenses. It looks like they're mostly positioned here..." At a press of a button he brought up a top-down view of the former Machine Empire facility. Large numbers of Daleks were visible on all sides of it. "Along the north and eastern sides. The others have rugged terrain that would make it harder to get in."

"So we'll need an army to take that place," stated one of the Wild Force members. Max, I believe.

"Oh, i think I can arrange that," I said. "But the important part is getting there. And then getting back to their central control room."

"Why?", asked Cole.

"To take control of their transmat device," I answered. "And then turn it against them. Instead of bringing more Daleks here, we'll send the ones that are here back through the Crack."

Tommy nodded at that. "I like that plan. Only problem's going to be getting through that army of Daleks."

"And getting to the moon in the first place," noted Ashley from the Space team.

"That's where the TARDIS comes in," I informed them.

Joel was the one who spoke up on that. "I thought you said earlier that the Daleks blocked you?"

"Oh, they did," I acknowledged. "But I did a little thinking. And I've found an obvious hole in their defenses."

"Yeah?" TJ's eyebrows went up. "Like?"

"Well, it has to do with how the TARDIS shifts across space-time," I said. "The Daleks can block my usual methods of that. But there are others." I felt my grin widen and my pulse quicken while my brain raced, running the calculations again and verifying them.

Billy's eyes widened. And I noticed the shock on Doctor K's face. They'd figured it out.

"Oh yes," I said to them. "The TARDIS can go anywhere, after all."

"Uh, Doc?" Adam smirked. "In English? For the rest of us?"

"The TARDIS normally shifts through the Time Vortex, but the Daleks can block me from coming through within their field," I explained. "And through most of the extradimensional approach vectors I could use. But there's one they don't know about. Or at least, the one they have no experience with, because it only exists here, in this cosmos."

I watched the realization come across their faces. Tommy's face split into a grin of realization.

"I know you lot made a lot of use of that 'It's morphing time' cry back in the day." My smile felt like it couldn't grow any more. "But might I suggest that in this current situation, we amend that to 'It's Morphing Grid Time!'?"

"You're actually going to shift your time ship through the Morphing Grid?!", Doctor Rawlings asked, clearly surprised at the very idea.

"Oh yes," I answered, enthusiasm dripping from my voice. "Oh yes indeed. And the Daleks will never see it coming."

---

The preparations were done quickly. Quickly enough that I was even able to get my backup sonic disruptor partly functioning, enough to generate protective fields at least. I found K's contribution to be especially useful in adjusting the TARDIS for what came next. "So you're sure this is going to work?", I heard one of the Rangers ask. I'm not sure which one. After a while they start to blend together, you know?

"Quite sure," I said while adjusting something under the control panels. I slipped out from it and looked to K. "Is that new line stable?"

"As stable as it'll ever be," she answered.

"Doctor Rawlings, the connection, is it..."

"...reading green! You're set!"

"Excellent." I clapped my hands together and looked to a large number of assembled Power Rangers standing about in the control room. Tommy, Carter, Cole, Billy, and Andros were nearest to me, on the outer edge of the circle around the TARDIS controls and along the stairs going up or down, and of course I had Liara and Katara with me right in the middle around the controls. K was beside me and Doctor Rawlings was below finishing a final connection. She was coming up the stairs as I stood. "Well, that does it. We're ready." I looked around the control room. "Are all of you?"

The assembled Rangers nodded.

"Well then. Ladies." I nodded to K and Rawlings. "You may depart if you wish, or..."

Before I could finish K shook her head. "I'm not missing this."

"It's going to be dangerous, K," Tommy pointed out.

"And if this doesn't work, the Daleks will hunt us down anyway," Rawlings insisted. She looked to where her husband was standing with his team, near the port leading out to my library. He gave her a supporting nod.

I smiled. "Well, I think this will be for the best anyway. Another pair of hands and all." I walked over to the controls. "Well, everyone, get ready for..."

I was interrupted by a knock at the TARDIS door. I sighed but didn't lose my smile. "Come on in, then," I called out, snapping my fingers as I did so.

A lone figure stepped into the TARDIS as the door opened. He was dressed mostly in casual wear, although it showed some wear and tear. Presumably from being a refugee. That appeared even more likely given the healed cut on his face, creating a bit of crimson on his otherwise dark skin. But despite all of that, he had a grin on his face.

Much like the ones that grew on the faces of Billy and Tommy. "Zack!"

Zachary Taylor walked in and gladly accepted handshakes from his former teammates. "Hey guys. It's been a while."

"Yes it has." Tommy bumped fists with him. "You've got some strange timing."

"Better late than never," Billy said.

"Yeah. I had to make sure my wife and kids were alright."

"Woh, you... really?"

"Yeah. They're with the others. And I made sure to give Jason, Trini, and Kim a quick visit." Zack nodded. "But the world needs saving, right? And you'll need everyone you can get."

I stood, patiently, with my hand on the TARDIS lever, watching the scene play out. Tommy gave a look to Adam, who nodded in understanding and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out a familiar looking device and tossed it to Zack, who caught it easily. "Once a Power Ranger, always a Ranger, right?", he asked rhetorically after looking it over.

"Always," Tommy agreed.

"Good to have you along, Mister Taylor," I said. I snapped my fingers and closed the TARDIS door. "Now everyone, I suggest you hold on. I'm still not entirely sure how bumpy this ride will be."

I gave everyone a few seconds to find a handhold before I pulled the TARDIS lever.

The TARDIS VWORPed like usual at first. But the tenor of it changed perceptibly as she shifted into the subspatial domain of the Morphing Grid. The TARDIS shuddered and then began to shake around a bit. I held on as it did. "Energetic turbulence," I said. "But we're fine, we're good! Just have to ride it out while we transition to the right point to shift to the moon."

Dr. K was the first to speak. "We're in the Morphing Grid," she whispered. "We're actually in the Morphing Grid."

"Doctor, the power output is increasing exponentially," Liara reported from another console. "Are you sure this won't overload."

"Quite sure. We're going to need that power in a few minutes, in fact." I pulled another knob and felt the TARDIS right itself. "Everyone okay with the ride? Nobody hurt?" I was answered by a near cacophony of affirmations. "Good. Because here we go!"

I threw another switch, twisted a couple of knobs, and pulled the lever again. The TARDIS' shudders became more of a vibration. A couple of button presses confirmed the linkage I needed was established.

The energy was... immense. Not in the way that the Time Vortex was either. This was more like a vibrant pool, no strong currents but ever-shifting flows and eddies of pure energy. I'd only seen the energy pattern once before; my scans of the power rings of the Green Lanterns and a few of the other types. Which made a bit of sense, really. Didn't it?

Actually, not just that. The more I looked at it, the more it was clear that the energy was also rather similar to the Spiral energy I'd seen in the cosmos of Kamina CIty. Frankly just as fitting.

"Drink your fill, girl," I said. "I need that connection."

"Power is approaching critical," Liara pointed out.

"Good. We'll need the power when we get there. Which will come just... about... now."

There was a deep rumble through the TARDIS as we completed the shift. I took a moment to confirm our location before going up to the door, sonic disruptor in hand. I stepped out of it with Liara and Katara behind me and the other Rangers filing in behind them, spreading out.

Across the sandy field of this cosmos' frankly bizarre counterpart to Earth's Moon was the outside of the former Machine Empire facility. And between us and it were the Daleks.

A lot of Daleks. Normal ones, red ones, some of the blue and orange ones. Daleks levitating in mid-air. Quite the assortment.

One levitating platform hovered above them all, bearing the white-plated Supreme Dalek and his immediate council. "Time Lord," it stated. "We know you have lied to us. You are not the Doctor."

I laughed. "I'm not that Doctor, true. But it's still my name. And his code is my code."

"We predicted you would penetrate the field. We have been ready. This gesture is meaningless. You cannot resist the Daleks. You will all be exterminated."

"I don't think so!", Zack shouted back. He pulled his arms back and made that usual motion they always make with those morphing devices. After identifying the Mastadon by name energy surged around him and he was in the old black suit.

"You heard the man, Rangers!" Tommy drew his out and began the process.

And to my surprise, so did Billy. I turned just in time to see him back in those old blue duds.

Surprisingly - well, unless you were me - there wasn't any eruption of energy from them morphing together. All of that energy got shunted elsewhere. The final tipping point, you might say.

The Daleks were clearly not impressed. "We are not intimidated by this display. We are superior in every way. Your extermination is inevitable."

"The odds don't matter, we'll still fight!", Tommy declared. "For Earth!"

"For every planet!", Jen added.

"And every living thing!", Cole thundered. "We'll stop you!"

"Now now, he has a point," I said, grinning. "These odds are pretty bad, even if the Daleks can't access the Grid like you can." I pulled out my sonic screwdriver. "Funny thing, the Morphing Grid. Do you know what I've found out about it? Quite a few things, but specifically, it's tied to sentient life. In fact, each and every Ranger here is tied to it, and always will be, even if they give their powers up. It's a part of them now. It permeates them. So, of course, that got me to thinking, and after I decided to use the Grid to move the TARDIS, I realized what that could mean."

"What Time Lord deceptions are you plotting now, false Doctor?"

"Oh, not a deception," I said. "A simple fact. The Grid bonds with any living being that makes use of its energy." I pointed the sonic screwdriver backward and used it on the TARDIS. "My TARDIS is alive. She's now bonded to it as well. And that means I can do this."

Light began erupting from within the TARDIS. The lights swiftly diverged as they spread out amongst us, appearing on the flanks of the Dalek army, amongst the Rangers themselves in a couple of cases. They formed columns of light as they hit the ground before they formed figures.

Suddenly Billy and Zack were joined by Jason, Trini, and Kim. Wes appeared alongside his team, as did a young man who looked just like him; Alex presumably. Maya and Leo alongside theirs.

And so many, many more formed new figures. Humans, human-looking aliens, that sort of thing. I even saw a woman with cat features standing beside a humanoid dog.

"Here they are, Daleks," I said. "Beings from across all of space-time who became linked to the Grid. Rangers of the past, present, and future, brought here by the TARDIS and its link to the Morphing Grid. And they're here to stop you."

And a host of battlecries erupted from them. "SPD Emergency!" "Dino Thunder Power Up!" That sort of thing.

The resulting eruption of energy rippled around us, throwing multi-colored explosions flying through the air. The blast-wave threw the flying Daleks to the ground. Only the platform with the Supreme Dalek managed to remain stable.

"All right Rangers!", shouted Tommy Oliver. "Let's go!"

"EXTERMINATE THEM!," the Supreme Dalek commanded. "EXTERMINATE!"

There was a roar and a rush as a literal army of Power Rangers ran down the ridgeline and attacked the Daleks through a hail of energy fire. I watched some draw energy blasters and let loose with them. Carter Grayson flipped into the air amidst the rush and fired downward into the Daleks, sending up sparks and flames from where his shots landed.

Others went to work with melee weapons. One group of Rangers seemed to be using swords exclusively, Japanese katanas, and they sliced cleanly through the Daleks given the sheer energy at play.

On the field the Zeo Rangers ended up near one of the other teams that had been warped in, one of the groups with dinosaur style designs on it. That proved interesting, given that the black-clad member of that group seemed to be aping Tommy's moves rather... oh. I remembered that one at that point.

Well. Huh. Time travel, people. It leads to fun stuff like this.

And there was more. Quite a bit more. For all that the teams were different, they all seemed to work together like they'd always been. Perhaps it was the common energy source they had furthering a bond. Or just experience. I saw Rangers with police designs on their uniforms come to the aid of the Space team; a group with dinosaur emblems joined up with Lightspeed Rescue, and the two then merged with a group of Rangers with flowing capes in blasting their way through a multitude of Daleks. And to make things more confusing, another pair of teams in what looked like the Zeo and Turbo uniforms met up with the Zeo team I knew of and barely exchanged glances before watching each other's backs.

Picking out individuals in the chaotic melee wasn't easy, but I managed it here and there. Trip and Damon combining attacks to eliminate a pair of Daleks coming down on the backs of one of the other teams. Jen jumping on top of one Dalek and flipping in mid-air, blasters blazing. Leo and Andros went through a trio of Daleks and, faced by several more, moved out of the way to allow Carter and Kelsey to blitz by and put the Daleks down while their weapons were pointed away. Cassie and TJ met in mid-air and the former was catapulted by the latter further up, enough to rain several pinpoint shots down. As soon as she landed, a blue-suited Ranger in what looked like the Turbo outfit - I think? - took out another Dalek that was coming toward her blind side.

I briefly remembered the blue one had been an adolescent when he joined that team. Granted, that was a few years before. He'd be a teen now, I believe.

See what I meant about the Grid being a part of them, even after they retired?

Bursts of wild energy came from one group, the ones with the capes, or rather cloaks. Gave them a bit of a wizardly appearance. They were being backed by... seriously? Rangers with a pirate skull and crossbone emblem? That's just bizarre. One of them even had a sword that looked like a cutlass. Oi. Either way, the Daleks were having trouble with them too.

I don't want you to think it was a one-sided massacre, though. The Daleks are tough little buggers. They were enraged and ready to destroy, and they fought back with the full power of that rage, screaming "Exterminate!" throughout the fight. I saw some of the Rangers take hits and be shielded by others, some not even from the same team, until they recovered enough to rejoin the fight. And even as they fought, the Supreme Dalek was screeching order.

There was a loud shout, something like "Ayyah!" or something, and I saw Tommy - both Tommys - jump up into the air and run melee weapons along the lower surface of the Dalek platform. "Why don't you come down here?!", one of them shouted.

"Tactical alert! The Supreme Dalek is threatened!," one of the Daleks on the platform shouted. "We must withdraw the Supreme Dalek immediately! All Daleks, attack! Exterminate the intruders! Exterminate the false Doctor!"

Yeah, they hadn't forgotten about me either.

Now you might be asking me what I was intending to do in this grand fracas. This cataclysmic fight for the future of their cosmos. The answer is... nothing.

Because the entire fight was a distraction.

I ran back into the TARDIS with Katara and Liara. Rawlings and K were inside by the controls, which I quickly assumed. I looked up and saw Jason and his team were entering as well. "What, not interested in joining the others?", I said.

"We figured you were up to something." Jason thumped at his chest. "And whatever it is, we'll be there to protect you."

"Well, that's quite good." I pulled a knob. "How's the leg?" I looked to Kimberly. "And your back?"

"It feels like it always has," she admitted. "What did you do to us?"

"Well, to be honest I didn't think it'd link to you at this point of time. Probably an issue of least resistance from a temporal point of view. But rather, the sheer energy of the Morphing Grid, and its connection to life, regenerated your broken bones. For all of you." I nodded to Trini. "Granted, it might not last entirely after we're done. You may still need some physical therapy to recover. Right now, though, we have other concerns." I looked to the others. "Ready?"

"We're ready when you are," Liara confirmed.

"Right." I pulled back on the TARDIS lever. This time she was set to normal travel, since we weren't going very far. "Here we go. Time to get to work."

I shifted the TARDIS into the Dalek base.

Time to begin Phase 2.

---

This time I materialized the TARDIS right in the central control room where the transmat and the reactor were located. As I suspected, the Daleks had guards ready for us when the TARDIS door opened.

But we didn't step out.

You see, I had shifted the door to the library.

And so instead of us stepping out, the Daleks facing the door were slammed by a powerful deluge of water from my swimming pool and attached tanks, all guided by Katara. The Daleks cried out in confusion. "Target not identified! Target not..." And then they were swept away.

Jason and the others surged out behind the water and laid into the Daleks with their weapons while they were stunned. Liara turned and threw a biotic bolt that wrecked a Dalek near the entrance. Its companion turned to fire at her. Katara's waterbending formed an ice wall in front of Liara first and caught the initial shots. Liara used that extra few moments to throw another powerful biotic bolt that blasted the dome off the Dalek's head.

I was already at the controls for the transmat at this point. I began working on the Dalek security systems. "Oh, nasty encryption. Downright sadistic. This will take me a bit," I muttered.

While I worked the Rangers went after the arriving Dalek units. Zack proved to still be fighting fit, somersaulting into the air and bringing his axe crashing down on a Dalek. Sparks erupted as it cleaved through the Dalek armor. Jason came up behind him and deflected a blast from another Dalek with his sword. With that enemy facing him, it wasn't ready for Billy to come swooping in with his hand weapons, which sliced through the Dalek armor and caused the creature to explode in sparks with its death cry echoing.

From another door some Daleks were coming in, and immediately they were intercepted by the energy arrows coming from Kimberly's bow. Trini jumped in with her blades spinning about, slicing through the Daleks standing damaged from Kimberly's attacks.

"Another layer of security, oi," I sighed. I looked up to the TARDIS. "K, Rawlings, I could use the extra hands!"

The two scientists emerged and came up to me. "While I try to penetrate the security, can you start preparing the reactor for increased capacity?"

"We're on it," Rawlings pledged. They went over to its various controls and went to work.

The sounds of battle gradually ended behind us. "Woh, here comes some more!", I heard Zack cry out. I looked back to see the Supreme Dalek and Eternal Dalek enter from the upper floor.

"Blast 'em!", Jason shouted. They shifted their weapons into the energy blaster mode and opened up. An amber energy field popped into existence to absorb their shots. It was a rather powerful field to do so. Given the fact the Daleks weren't shooting back at all, it was likely a two-way isolation field. The Rangers couldn't shoot them, but they couldn't shoot us.

"Your resistance will now end," the Supreme Dalek declared. "Increase the transmat's power! Bring through the fleet!"

Given they already had quite a few saucers already, the ones still attacking Earth, hearing that they had an entire fleet still in the wings was rather concerting. I looked at the readings, saw that the Daleks were indeed transferring enough power to bring through such a fleet, and looked up in time to see Dalek war saucers start to materialize in abundance.

"These pitiful Power Rangers cannot fight our ships. They will all be exterminated!"

I smirked at him. "Well, for one thing, thank you very kindly for increasing power as I wanted. Secondly..." I held up the sonic screwdriver and triggered it at the TARDIS. "...I thought you might try something like this."

The TARDIS engine powered up again and, yet again, tapped into the energies of the Morphing Grid. Not to summon more Rangers, but to, well...

This time the lights erupting from the TARDIS were larger and more vibrant. They blasted right through the walls and sent debris flying outward as they left the building, expanding our view of the surrounding area in the process. Because of this we got to see the lights coalesce.

Coalesce, of course, into Megazords.

All of them.

The Ranger teams were quick to take to their respective machines. Save, of course, the original Mighty Morphing team since they were sort of watching my back and all. Over the external speakers shouts came from the cockpits, identifying which was which and that they were ready.

The Dalek ships opened fire, as did the Megazords with ranged weapons, while others took to jumping or flying up to start stabbing or slicing or hitting the Dalek ships. The battle was almost insane in its chaotic mess, but had that kind of adrenaline pumping effect you might get from seeing giant bloody robots fighting evil flying saucers. Don't ask me to say which was which. I thought I recognized the Lightspeed Aerial Megazord in the mess, but that was it.

Oh, wait, there's the Astral one too, blowing up one of the saucers. And Animus and the Wild Force Megazord working on another. Okay, I did recognize them. Another one, made up of dinosaur parts as well, bashed through the protective screens of one of the Dalek saucers and started tearing interior hull away until renewed attack forced them to back off.

Either way, the Supreme Dalek's reaction was immediate. "This is not possible! Explain! EXPLAIN!"

"Nothing's impossible for the Power Rangers!", Jason shouted back.

I nodded and smirked. "It's that sort of cosmos, all right." I clucked my tongue. "You lot really should have picked another place to invade."

"Doctor, we're almost ready!", K told me. "We're finalizing checks now!"

"Good," I called back. I looked to where Katara and Liara finished off another straggling Dalek coming from the side entrance. "Everything all right?"

"Everything... is fine," Liara panted. "So long as... we get a... vacation."

"Oi, another vacation?" I made a face. "So soon?"

That won me a heated glare.

I turned away from it and finished peeling away another layer of security from the Dalek systems. Just one more to go. "Almost done," I said. "Then all we have to do is send them back through!"

"Foolish Time Lord," the Eternal Dalek proclaimed. "You do not know the futility of what you are doing."

I looked up at him with skepticism.

"The breaks between dimensions cannot be destroyed by you. They cannot be permanently sealed by you."

"So you lot think, eh?"

"You remain unaware of the origins of these tears. You are an inferior working to a purpose you cannot comprehend."

"Oh yeah?" I shook my head. "Nice psychoanalyzing of my motivations. I'm afraid it's entirely superficial. You're not very good at this."

The sounds of battle were picking up around us. More Daleks were arriving by the score. Everyone was wrapped up in fighting. Billy and Trini were nearest to me, hacking and slashing at Daleks coming from that direction. Liara threw a biotic bolt against a Dalek coming at Kimberly's side and Katara, still using the water we'd pulled out of the TARDIS, wrapped a wave around to knock over Daleks approaching Jason and Zack's backs.

"You cannot stop what is coming."

"Oh yeah?" I laughed. "What is coming?"

The Supreme Dalek's eyestalk faced me directly.

"Destruction."

I looked down. I'd broken through the last gap of security. I was ready to start. But hearing that... I looked back to him. "Destruction? What do you mean? Destruction of what?"

"Destruction of everything."

"Doctor..?!" Rawlings was looking at me. "Everything's ready! It's up to you!"

I didn't act, though. I was too busy talking to the Daleks. If any of the species I'd seen come through so far could know what the Cracks were coming from, they would be the ones. Not that I could entirely trust what they said, but how they said it might give me some insight. I couldn't pass that up.

Plus they were still rather infuriating.

So I shouted, "Yeah? Who? You lot?! Who's going to cause this destruction?! Is it the Cracks? Do you know who is behind the Cracks?!"

"We have determined the one responsible for the tear in dimensions," the orange scientist Dalek confirmed.

There was a grunt from outside of my vision. "Hey Doc!" Jason's voice sounded pained. "Any time!"

"Who?!," I demanded.

I never expected the reply.

"You."

I blinked. "What?"

"Doctor!", I heard K call out. "What are you waiting for!"

"You are the cause of the breaks," the Supreme Dalek answered. "That is our determination. The Universes will be destroyed because of you."

I stared at them. I didn't believe what I was hearing. "You're lying," I charged.

"Daleks do not lie. We exterminate."

"You're lying!", I screamed. "It's not me! This is just a trick, you're...!"

I never saw the blow coming. An open hand struck my left cheek with enough force to make my head turn. I turned back and looked into Liara's intense blue eyes. "Snap out of it!," she demanded.

I sucked in a breath. I glanced upward. Even more Dalek ships were arriving. Several of the Megazords were sparking and struggling. They were being overwhelmed.

Things weren't any better in this room. Katara was desperately forming ice walls to protect the fallen Jason, Trini and Billy were being overwhelmed, and Kimberly was covering Zack as he recovered.

I forced my disbelief and anger out of my mind and worked the controls again. "It doesn't matter," I said as I finished the initial transmat commands. "Lies or not... I'll stop it. It's what I do. Now bugger off and don't come back!" I hit the activation key.

Daleks began to disappear as the transmat gripped them and threw them back through the Crack.

"You are the Destroyer," the Supreme Dalek insisted. "You are responsible for the tears in the dimensions. You will bring about the collapse of our Universe, of all universes.. You are the one! You! You! Yo-!" He disappeared, courtesy of the transmat.

I ignored those words as I went to work on the ships next. One by one I sent them back as well. As they disappeared from the sky celebrations broke out around me, courtesy of the Rangers. Overhead more Rangers stood on their Zords and cheered wildly.

Using the scanners I tracked every Dalek power source straight to the Earth and, with a press of a button, whisked it away.

Within a couple of minutes, they were all gone.

The Dalek invasion had ended.

As those around me cheered, I stared forward to where the Supreme Dalek had been standing.

The Daleks... thought jI was responsible for the tears? How would that work? Why?

"You did it!," I heard someone shout. I turned and was given a powerful hug by Kimberly. The other Rangers came up and took turns patting me on the back. I gave them a smile in return. But I couldn't focus on it. Not after what that Dalek had said.

Was it just a lie? Something said to anger me? A delaying tactic to keep me from finalizing my plan?

It had to be?

Right?

Right?

---

With the battle won, the army of Power Rangers quickly dispersed. Their purpose here was over. And for those from the past, remaining here would be a questionable thing anyway.

With them and their Zords gone, all that was left was to give everyone a ride back to Earth. Some of the Rangers had been wounded in the fighting and needed assistance. Furthermore, with the fight over and the power from the Grid subsiding, those like Leo and Kimberly - who had taken injuries - found themselves needing help as their bodies reverted at least partially. The Grid had healed them some of the way at least - Kimberly's back was no longer broken, for instance - but as I had suspected, not all of the healing stuck past the battle. Once they demorphed the injuries returned in some fashion.

And speaking of injuries...

I grimaced as Katara peeled off the bandage she'd set over my right wrist. The skin underneath was... not a pretty sight. That infernal wrist device had inflicted second degree burns on my epidermis. Katara held a hand up and moved water to encircle the wound. It started to glow as she applied healing energy to it. "It's been a long time since I had to treat burns this bad," she admitted.

"Yes, well, it's been a long time since I was burned this badly," I answered. "If at all." I lowered my eyes as I was deep in thought. The Daleks' words haunted me. Probably more than they should have.

"You don't think they were lying, do you?", Katara asked.

I drew in a pained sigh. "Oh, I don't know. Truth be told, I've been haunted by that thought for years. Ever since I saw the first Crack. The idea that it could be me after all..."

"I don't know anything about these time travel and dimensional problems you talk about. But I do think it would be a mistake to let it get to you. You help so many people, and there are many more you can help."

I nodded. "I know." I felt a tinge of pain in my wrist. "Well, at least the nerves are intact, eh?"

"It's going to take a while to heal it fully," Katara said. "Unless you want to use the technology you've talked about."

I smirked. "I don't know. Perhaps having a burn scar there will be an illuminating lesson, yes?" I laid my head back in the recliner. My wounds and bruises were starting to sap at my constitution a bit. Liara's insistence upon a vacation was sounding more and more inviting.

There was movement at the entrance and I looked over to it. Liara and Billy were standing there. "We've found that spatial tear you talked about," Billy said. "It's about a mile under the lunar surface."

"Oh, of course. Makes sense, doesn't it?" I sighed. "Which means we have to dig it out before we can close it. And that's a pain."

"With the transmat shut down, nothing else can come through," Billy pointed out. "Maybe we should leave it alone."

I shook my head. "Then it'll just send energy into the environment around it. You probably don't want that. All sorts of nasties in this cosmos could possibly tap that power. It's better if we close it." I rubbed at my forehead. And then I smiled. "Ah yes, of course."

"Doctor?"

Liara smiled. She knew that look on my face. "You've got a plan to dig the Crack out?"

"Not so much dig as... well... that transmat's not dismantled yet, and the power source is still there. It'll make for an excellent drill, wouldn't you say?"

Billy blinked. And then he grinned as he crunched the numbers in his head. "Yeah, I think it will."

"I think K and Rawlings can handle it." I yawned. "Let them know where it is and say I need a tunnel down there. It shouldn't take long."

"And what are you going to be doing?", Liara asked, arms crossed.

I answered by yawning. "Probably getting some sleep," I admitted. "I am rather exhausted."

Liara laughed at me. But it was a good laugh.

---

I won't bore you with the monotony of sealing away the Crack. Nor the dismantling of the transmat afterward as a further precaution (after all, they already had their own transporter technology).

After everyone was back on Earth, things shifted into cleanup mode. The Rangers employed their Zords to help with the rubble. We all helped where we could and I made some trips to Layom Station for medical supplies and the like.

The Daleks' words still haunted me of course. How could they not? But Katara had been right about how I was needed. Until I knew more, until I could figure out what was going on, I couldn't just stop. That wouldn't be productive at all, would it?

A week passed. Across the world, memorial services were held for all of the victims of the Dalek invasion. The Rangers chose to hold their service in Mariner Bay in the park, the very same park where the TARDIS had first arrived when this happened. A crowd of Power Rangers and their allies and loved ones gathered to join the Mayor, the Governor, and other dignitaries in honoring the loss of Captain Mitchell and others of the Rangers and Lightspeed Rescue organizations.

My Companions and I were given seats of honor at the front. We sat and quietly listened to the speakers. Tommy Oliver proved the most poignant, I thought. "We've lost a lot of good people," he said. "And we're going to miss them. But we've got to press on. We're not going to let their deaths turn us away from what has to be done to protect the Earth and all of the other worlds out there from the Forces of Evil. I promise you, Earth will always have the Power Rangers to protect it. It's the least we can do for Captain Mitchell."

Afterwards Dana and Ryan Mitchell were called upon to break ground for the memorial that was going to be built for their father. One by one, each of the Rangers present, regardless of their team affiliation, pushed a shovel into the soil and contributed to the foundation. After doing his part, Tommy Oliver walked up to me and extended a shovel. "Your turn, Doctor."

I considered the shovel for a moment. "Well... I'm... I'm honored, but I'm not a..."

"You might not be a Power Ranger in body, but you're one of us in spirit," Tommy insisted. He looked to Liara and Katara. "All of you."

At that I could do naught but nod and accept the proffered honor. We all pushed our shovels in and took out a load of dirt.

---

The cleanup in Silver Hills was still ongoing, and one of the first structures rebuilt was the Clock Tower. Katara, Liara, and I stood in front of it with the Time Force team beside us. Jen was talking through their chrono-communicator systems and smiled at what she heard on the other end. "The timeline distortion is over," she announced. "The future's safe again."

"Good to know," I said cheerily. "So, I guess you lot are going home. Want a lift?"

"I think that'll be alright, Doctor, they're sending a chronoship for us," Jen said. She looked to Wes and I saw her features cloud a bit. "I guess this is goodbye again?"

"Yeah," Wes sighed.

Eric exchanged an exasperated look with Jen's other teammates. I rolled my eyes and cried out, "Oh, for Pete's sake, would you two just get off it?" They looked at me like I was mad. "If you two want privacy, go inside, but seriously... just kiss each other and be done with it."

Their cheeks turned a little pink. My remark did draw supporting nods from the other Time Force Rangers. "It... okay, this is silly," Jen complained. "We can't be together. It just... it wouldn't work?"

I rubbed my forehead. "Oi. You Humans are such a bloody pain sometimes..."

"I mean, I'm from the future and... and..." Jen looked at Wes and finally sighed. "Oh, whatever." And she promptly kissed him. Rather passionately too. And much to the enjoyment of her comrades.

When they were done, Katara took a step forward. "Why don't you just stay with him?", she asked.

Wes and Jen looked at each other and then at Katara. "Wait, what?"

"Stay with him." Katara smiled sadly. "You mean so much to each other. Whatever sacrifices you have to make for it, isn't it worth it?"

"Yes, but I can't... Time Force regulations... I mean..."

"I can always scramble their systems if it helps?", I suggested whimsically.

"But I know things, I can't have that knowledge overheard in the past!", Jen protested.

"So don't." Liara also stepped up to her. "If he means that much to you, secrets about the future aren't a big thing. It's worth it."

"Yes, but..."

"I think the Doc and his friends have a point, Jen," Trip said. "You weren't really happy back uptime. And it's not so bad in the early 21st Century. Why not?"

"Besides, we already know Wes needs to have descendants, right?", Katie suggested.

Jen pursed her lips and looked to Wes. He smiled brightly at her. "I'd love to have you stay," he said.

"I... I..." Jen sighed a lament and started pulling off her Time Force gear. Save her morpher of course. "Okay, you three can take this back to our time and explain things to Alex. Don't be surprised if he gets upset."

"If he does, tell him to talk to me about it," I suggested, laughing.

---

Soon enough it was time for us to leave. I was at the old Command Center to give some final data to Rawlings and K. "This should help you monitor for the Crack re-opening," I told them. I also handed them a beacon. "Wes has one, but this way you don't need to bug him for it if you need me."

"Thank you very much," Rawlings said. She looked at her watch. "Oops! I've got to go! Our plane leaves in a couple of hours!"

"Plane?", K asked.

"Yeah!" She was already heading to the door. "Joel and I are going on a vacation!..." Her voice faded as she went through the door and down the adjacent halls.

K looked back at me with the remote in hand. "Hopefully we won't need you."

"Yes. But I don't like leaving these things to fate, y'know?"

K nodded in agreement. She put the beacon in her lab coat. "Are you leaving?", she asked.

"Well, yeah. Liara wants another vacation. I'll be spending the next few weeks poolside, I fear."

"You've earned it."

"Right." I noticed the look on her face. "What is it?"

K was trying to hide concern. And she was failing. "Doctor, I... okay, this is..." She sighed. "Before the Crack was sealed, I had some sensors set up to scan it. For scientific purposes."

"Alright, can't blame you on that." Truth be told, I tried to get what scans I could, but it's hard when you know the Daleks are on the other end and trying to find a way to get through. "Did you find something?"

"I didn't think so," she said. "But then i did some checking and found, well..." She hit a few buttons. On one screen a sound analyzer popped up. "I cleaned it up as well as I could."

A voice began to speak. It was obviously a woman, with maybe an English accent, but the sound was so garbled I couldn't make out the voice enough to guess if I'd heard it before. At least not beyond some vague familiarity.

After a few bursts that made the voice almost unintelligible, K's best work finally made the voice understandable, if still garbled beyond recognition. "...need help! Please! I need your help!"

My eyebrows went up. "That's interest..."

Before I could finish the sentence, the speaker resumed. And this time I felt my gut twist.

"Please! He's dying! The Doctor is dying! I need your help!"

K looked back to me with worry written plainly on her face. I know mine betrayed all of the emotions I was feeling. Surprise, confusion, and quite a bit of fear. "Did you... determine anything about that transmission?", I asked.

It repeated again as I asked. The line was painfully clear. "The Doctor is dying!"

"I'm not sure where it came from," K answered. "Or if we could have even answered it."

I drew in a breath and rubbed at my forehead.

"Does this mean..." K swallowed. "...does this mean you're going to die?"

"Not necessarily," I sighed. "Help could come."

Of course, for me, the question wasn't just whether I'd die. It was "Which Doctor is dying?"

I suddenly had the sick feeling that the Doctor was on the other end of the Cracks, dying from whatever. And that I wouldn't find out what was going on in time to save him.

"I'll keep listening for it," K promised. "Since you said the Crack still exists in the higher dimensions."

"Thank you, K," i sighed. "I most appreciate it."

All of the sudden, I needed another lie down.

---

I returned to the TARDIS to find Liara and Katara waiting for me. Liara was in a swimsuit and had talked Katara into one as well, a fairly modest one-piece of blue and teal color. "So. Djilami 2, the Verdant Shores?", Liara asked.

"Really?", I said. "Is that where you think we should go?"

"It's not too hot, still very warm, and the water is refreshing," Liara insisted. "So yes, I think it's the best spot for our vacation."

"Well." I sighed and nodded. "The Verdant Shores it is."

As I began inputting the coordinates, Katara gave me a worried look. "Are you alright?", she asked. "You look worried."

I looked back up at her. Liara also seemed concerned. "I'm just... preoccupied," I said. And it was quite true. "Just... this whole situation has me rattled, I suppose."

"All the more reason to take a break," Liara said. She smiled. "I know how restless you are. But even Time Lords need to get away from it all."

"Yeah." I nodded and finished inputting coordinates. "You might be right. Well, everyone ready?"

"Oh yes," Liara said. "Very ready."

"Right then. Off we go. Tally ho!" I pulled back the lever.

And as I did, I couldn't help but think about it again.

The Daleks said I was the one causing the Cracks. That I would destroy everything.

And now... now I've learned that the Doctor might be dying.

And I still had no bloody clue about what was going on.

But I couldn't stop. Long ago, Rashid the Gatekeeper - a swell chap from the cosmos of Harry Dresden - had told me that I would find what I was looking for if I kept traveling. And Death - yes, Death, that fellow from Discworld who TALKS LIKE THIS - had said I was still needed.

My choice was clear.

I had to keep going.

And so I would.

...after a refreshing vacation, of course.

---

End of Series 3

Next:
Series 4, "Time Lord Vindicant"
September 2015