Coverup by Committee

The General looked at the acquisition. Normally, she would have shot this particular individual into the nearest black hole and had a quiet celebratory drink as the body was dragged past the event horizon. However in these times of austerity, she had to use every resource that came her way.

And she had just the job in mind for this particular resource.

"Take him to Mnemonics. Hold him in stasis until we've established the new Continuity."

The technicians wheeled the temporally frozen body of the Master into the depths of the Capitol.

"Are you sure that's the Master?"

The General nodded. "Biodata confirmed beyond a doubt."

The Minister frowned at the image. "I met him once. Unpleasant experience. This … I don't recognise him."

"If you'd like to reacquaint yourself with his file, you'll note he has an unprecedented number of resurrections, body hijackings, and is going through his second official life cycle. His core identity is … significantly reconstructed."

The Minister frowned in distaste, while a score of underlings, aides and junior ministers were watching, taking notes, murmuring to each other.

The General continued, hoping to keep this meeting on track. "As I was saying … the Master was attempting to hack into the Matrix … we suspect it's where he gathers intelligence for his various schemes … and this time, we caught him." The General mentally congratulated herself for finally convincing the security people to actually go their job rather than elevate their status. "He and his TARDIS were captured completely by surprise. We can restore them to the instant they were captured with new memories and all the evidence needed to support the new narrative."

The Minister leaned forward. "To what end?"

"The Master coincides with another problem; too many individuals know that we survived the Time War. And we are nowhere near our previous strength. What I propose is this." The General tapped the control to change the central display holo to a picture of Gallifrey. "We wipe the last few minutes before his capture, and replace it with a scenario where Gallifrey was destroyed."

One of the Juniors raised her hand. "Destroyed? Again?"

"Yes. Unless you can contrive a situation where Gallifrey's infrastructure, resources, and overall power is instantly restored to pre-War levels, concealing our very existence is our best possible solution until we can rebuild."

"Yes Ma'am … it just seems … repetitive."

"Can't beat the classics."

The Minister frowned. "And how is Gallifrey destroyed? Again?"

"We were thinking industrial accident. An attempt to recreate the Eye of Harmony … unfortunate disaster … chuck some compressed matter and some irradiated debris behind when we relocate, and nobody's the wiser."

One of the Minister's attendants raised his hand. "Ah, General? That scenario … really doesn't align with our current 'Strong and Stable Gallifrey' message."

The General gave the attendant an expressionless stare. "You're concerned that our covert operation won't be in line with your current political messaging."

"Our guiding theme to all of a united Gallifrey."

The General placed her left hand over her right. It stopped the twitching.

"You are concerned that the story ... our false story planted to conceal the fact that we are surviving and existing might contravene the latest round of slogans plastering the walls."

"It's more than a few slogans-"

"A false story designed for everyone else in the universe that would do us harm-"

The Minister raised his hand. "Gallifrey is still somewhat reeling from it's change of leadership, General. Best not to disturb the official messaging."

The General wished she had kept her sidearm. In situations like this, it was far better to create some massive event, and let the intended audience fill in – and argue amongst each other about – the details. Instead, she had a cluster of self-important individuals who were so eager to display their terribly clever and detailed plan to the universe, who would be the first to be surprised when somebody who was slightly more determined or slightly more bored would start picking apart their house of cards.

And if she didn't go along to make sure these terribly elegant and clever details were kept to some degree of reality, then one day she would be hauled in front of a committee asking why her terribly stupid and hamfisted plan had been implemented in the first place.

"Do you have something in mind, Minister?"

"Since we have the Master as a central part of this concept, why not make him the author of the disaster?"

The General leaned back. "It could work … we've suspected that the Master managed to steal a few significant weapons from both sides during his service and cache them somewhere for later..."

An aide was whispering into the Minister's ear. The Minister was concentrating very hard on not making his face display an iota of reaction, which meant something significant was being trasnferred, which meant ...

"... let's not go along those lines."

The General, slowly, with great effort, unclenched her fist. "Then what-"

"Onboard weaponry on his TARDIS."

"The Master possesses a standard Travel Capsule. Not a War TARDIS."

"The latest model. With his own modifications."

"Even if ... do you believe that any Renegade would have the means to destroy Gallifrey, with minimal modifications, with any Capsule? Would anyone believe that we would have no ability to defend ourselves from our own technology?"

The Minister leaned forward. "It would send a message to the universe. Even our most pedestrian capsules can wipe out even the most powerful, glittering civilisations."

Yet another rickety barrier to pick apart. If she didn't need them to stage this ...

Which reminded her to push on. "And how are we going to ..."

Another Junior beamed, eager to show off, and inserted their own image into the holostream, showing a smoking, molten, destroyed Capitol.

"During the War, a number of dimensional fissures became more accessible. We found one of a Gallifrey that suffered a significantly destructive bombardment. And it's significantly close enough to ours that it's near indistinguishable with enough applied demolition."

The General looked at the image. "Very close … I assume we've been salvaging materials, recoverable resources?"

The Junior glanced at the Ministers, the cluster of aides. "We've ... been using it to dump bodies, General."

The General pinched her nose. "... hopefully that will add to it's authenticity."

One of the more senior aides stood up. "We've been consulting the Master's biodata extract, and we've come up with a convincing motivation for his ... 'destruction' of Gallifrey."

The Minister nodded. "Quite clever, this little story they've cooked up."

Judging from the precedent of this meeting, this was going to require a medicinal amount of alcohol afterwards. A risk-of-regeneration amount. "Go on."

"You've heard of the Timeless Child?"

The General frowned, nodding. "One of the creation myths before we attributed our regeneration to the Untempered Schism?"

"Well, the Master has a past history of discovering ancient resources and exploiting them. Why not ... he discovers something about Gallifrey? Some dark hidden secret?"

"And this inspires an act of Genocide? The last time he discovered something damaging about us, he found it entertaining. Broadcast it to the whole of Gallifrey, got an entire High Council dismissed."

"Yes, the Ravalox scandal. That's why we came up with something that would insult the Master personally."

Maybe this wasn't so half baked. "Continue."

"He accesses the Matrix. And discovers the existence of our darkest secret."

Any hopes of not half baked immediately evapourated. The General wondered why such a secret would be kept in the Matrix at all, let alone documented in any form.

"That an early precursor to the Time Lords discovered an unknown innocent - the Timeless Child. And through continual experimentation on the child, discovered the means of regeneration, implanting it into every Time Lord evermore."

"And this long dead child is supposed to..."

"Oh no General. This child has no set limit to their regeneration. It is still alive. Spending it's history sent out to enact covert operations for Gallifrey, then having its mind wiped to conceal it's special existence, even from itself. And we know this child. The Timeless Child is, in fact ... the Doctor."

The Minister beamed. The Aides and the Juniors politely applauded.

The General exploded.

"You cannot be serious!"

"General-"

"If something – someone like that existed … possessing the core origin point for our biodata makeup, it would be a catastrophic vulnerability for our species! Bio warfare, temporal manipulation, bio catalyser … any of those are within the capacity of species that the Doctor encounters regularly. And you consider it plausible that an Intelligence operative, an agency, would, rather than lock them up until the end of time, if not outright terminate them, would let them flit around creation?"

"Be reasonable!"

The rage was growing, building like a wave, a tsunami.

"Let's discuss reason Minster! We would not let such an individual out of our sight! We would not allow someone like that to leave Gallifrey! We would not, after finally capturing him, exile him to a distant planet for a few years, then let him go about as normal! Endangering not only himself, but by extension the whole of Gallifrey! To ask anyone to believe that would only ..."

The wave finally broke, replaced with a calm. The calm that follows finding a solution to a previously inexplicable problem.

"Leave us."

The attendants to the Minister hastily left the conference room, leaving the General to stare down the official.

"I apologise, Minister."

"You're quite welcome."

"Rather than … go on like that … I should have let you explain."

"Quite forgiv-"

"Explain what exactly you're trying to cover up with such an inane, convoluted scenario. To ask anyone to believe that would only ask themselves what truth you're trying to conceal with such a bizarre lie."

The Minister looked away.

"That conveniently destroyed Gallifrey that you're trying to pass off as one of our operations. You found it while looking for something else, didn't you?"

The Minister finally looked the General in the eye.

"Gallifrey still has enemies. Those who we previously ignored now have the capacity to harm us. There is only one weapon Gallifrey has that can consistently defeat those enemies with even less than our now limited resources. One weapon that can not only succeed, but cannot be attributed to us or our continued existence."

The General slumped backwards in her chair. "The Doctor. Specifically, another Doctor."

"A Doctor from the universe where we chanced upon a destroyed Gallifrey. We captured her, installed enough perception filters so that she would perceive this universe as her own. Then set her loose, doing what she does best ... and sometimes she'll find herself on a world, fighting an evil regieme where they stray too close to discovering us."

The General got up, pacing.

"The situation's very well managed. Our people ..."

"Your people! Do you imagine the outcry-"

"We are discussing doing the same thing to someone else!"

"We are implementing the dissemination of disinformation, using an asset, and if any harm comes to said asset, it would not be a fraction or an iota to what he deserves. You are implicit in the manipulation of one of Gallifrey's greatest war heroes!"

"An alternate version of the Doctor-"

"Yes! The Doctor!" The General stopped dead. "He's already discovered your Doctor, hasn't he?"

"Projections indicate their time tracks will soon converge." The Minister leaned forward. "The Doctor, our Doctor overthrew our High Council just by demanding it. Imagine what he'd do, what two of them would do-"

"Is there just one of your Doct-" The General broke the question off, deciding that this was a question she didn't want answered in her earshot.

"So ... we just throw this narrative out there, and the Doctor dismisses your little scheme as one of his forgotten 'Timeless Child' adventures, rather than digging further into it?"

The Minister smiled. "We use the alternate Matrix. Beam images and half-memories into his head."

"One of the Master's old schemes."

"Let's use your asset fully. Implant a urge to put the Doctor into the alternate Matrix, to rub it in his face. Attribute it to the insult of having the Doctor's genetic material irreversibly inside him. Implant the memory fully into the Doctor. Add a redacted version of events that should explain away any holes in this new continuity."

The General was about to ask why would something so secret be in fact documented at all, but didn't have the energy to dispute.

"So do I have your support, General?"

The General took out a tablet, and slid it across the table. "If I have your signature."

The Minister shied away, knowing that one of the rules of covert operations was having your name on as few documents as possible. "I would rather not tread on your-"

"Your signature. And my promise I won't look too closely at why you're so keen to hide even the mention of weapons being stolen and stored for future personal use."

The Minister glowered. The Minister signed.

The General watched the Master's TARDIS fly away on the display.

Normally, she'd watch something as epic as transplanting one planet in the place of another, and then the transport of her home planet to a safe, secret location, preserving her race and the ultimate fulfillment of her duty.

But right now, she had to polish off enough alcohol to come within a hair's breadth of triggering a regeneration.

That was the best use of a resource she could employ to this day.