Chapter Text
ADRIC CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE
episode one
"You must accept that Adric is dead. His life wasn't a waste. He died like his brother Varsh, trying to save others." The blond haired Doctor told his two companions Tegan and Nyssa.
Tegan blinked back tears, "We used to fight a lot but I'll miss him."
"As will I," Nyssa said.
The Doctor swallowed and moved around the console to check coordinates, trying to sound more cheerful than he was, "I've planned a special treat just to cheer us all up."
Nyssa looked at the time and destination indicator, "Doctor? What's going on?"
The Doctor faked a smile, "What do you..." As he joined her at the indicator section of the console, his smile dropped, "Oh dear..." He began to hit more and more switches, something which always irritated Tegan. She never knew if any of those buttons and levers really did something or if they did, whether or not the Doctor actually knew what they did.
Tegan joined the pair and looked at the indicator. It was flashing numbers...all different numbers from all over the spectrum. "Years? Dates? Months? What does it mean?"
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at her but said nothing. Instead he went back to the other side of the console and began to work feverishly. Nyssa rounded the console also, "A fault?"
"Perhaps!" The Doctor snapped, then hit some more buttons which made Tegan roll her eyes.
Tegan puffed, "Well, is it dangerous?"
"If it indicates what I think it does!" The Doctor yelled.
"Well what?!" Tegan came to his other side.
"Change!" The Doctor said.
Tegan shrugged, "Change? Is that all? Change is good."
Nyssa's pupils darted toward her girl friend, "Not to me it isn't. Change is what happens when something bad happens. My father. Traken..."
"Nyssa I forgot...I didn't think of it that way..." Tegan bit her lip and moved around the Doctor's back to put her hand on Nyssa's shoulder. She moved to Nyssa's other side and reversed hands on the opposite shoulder, "Aunt Vanessa..."
"This is a change in the universal time factor...someone or something...." The Doctor stopped working and stood back from the console, making the girls both realize he was about to say something profound or more likely something which would not be good, "...has changed the fabric of time itself!"
Nyssa was wide eyed. Tegan looked at Nyssa's face, moving slightly in front of her. She let go of the girl' s shoulder and moved to where the Doctor was at the console but now she faced him, "Is that bad?"
The Doctor's look of fear turned to one of anger.
Death. Now I understand what the traveling with the Doctor was all about. Death. Death of loved ones. Death of strangers. Death of good people. Death of...of...me. All Adric knew was this is what was going through his mind at the moment. "You mean you saved me? You?"
"Affirmative."
"You...will answer our questions. You will have none of your own!"
"What time is this?"
"65,000,000 AD."
"Thank you. Now maybe...I'll answer a few questions of yours."
"You will have no choice..."
"Or?" Adric smiled.
"You will be exterminated."
"Oh. Oh, well if you must...I mean if I must...Why were you on the Freighter?"
"That.. is.. our.. question!" The Dalek, almost twice as large as Adric moved at him, "Stand.. there! There!" It pushed Adric with its bulk and forced him toward a stall.
Adric put his hands up, "Alright! Alright! I'm...I'm going." He did as he was told and stood in a small alcove with two stalls, each ending with lighted ball like things. "You are...Daleks, aren't you?"
"Affirmative! Why... were... on... the... freighter!?"
Adric had his hands on the stall tops. "I was trying to stop it from destroying the Earth."
Big and gold, this Dalek was imposing. Behind it was a black Dalek which said, "His... mission... was the... same... as... ours."
"Our... plans... for... the... Earth... are... safe."
"So, you didn't want the Cybermen to destroy it." Adric smiled, "See we are on the same side."
"You... were... on.. .the... freighter... in... the... far... past... of... the... Earth." The Gold Dalek make a sound and a smaller Red Dalek came whizzing past. It's suction cup raised and a screen
lowered. Adric caught sight of the room---there had to be about 50 Daleks of various colors--Red, Green, Blue, White, Cream, Yellow...there would be no chance of escape from here. On the screen appeared an old man. The Gold Dalek asked, "You... you... travel... with... this... person?"
"No," Adric lied. To his surprise the stall did not pick this up. Well, he thought, I don't travel with that man..even though Adric knew from the TARDIS databank that this was the Doctor.
"Do... you... know... this... man?"
A small Beatle haired man who looked like Moe Howard, someone Adric wouldn't have known anyway. "No." Adric shrugged and said non pulsed, "Look, I want to thank you all for saving me..."
"Silence...silence...silence!" The Black Dalek moved at Adric's stalls.
Adric's eyes went wide. Two very large Daleks in front of him blocking his view totally from the rest of the room made him very afraid. "I...uh..."
"Silence! Silence!" The Gold Dalek echoed the Black one.
"Okay!" Adric shut his eyes and yelled.
A white haired man, taller, elegantly dressed, some wrinkles in his face and a beak like nose. "No, I have never been with him." Adric said forcefully, but his voice quivered and cracked.
"He... is... telling... the... truth..."
The fourth Doctor's face came up. Adric gulped.
TARDIS:
"What can you do about it?" Nyssa asked.
"Wait...until all these numbers start to slow...ahhh," The Doctor stared at the indicator, "65,000,000 AD...no, BC..." The Doctor blinked, "AD, BC."
Tegan smirked, "AC...DC...it sounds like a band." Neither Nyssa nor the Doctor laughed. Tegan inched back, her eyes like a scolded puppy, "Sorry."
"It's just that this is serious," The Doctor said, "One of these dates..."
"We just left," Nyssa told Tegan, looking her squarely in the eyes.
"The date Adric...." Tegan was wide eyed now.
"Yes," the Doctor seemed to start to talk to himself rather than the two girls, "Whatever this time change is...Adric is a part of it..."
"Ahh, yes, that's the Doctor..."
"He... was.. the... reason.. you..were... on... the... Freighter?"
"Yes, I suppose...well, not this one..."
A new picture came up. The Fifth Doctor. "This one?"
"Yes."
"Continue...do you.. know any ...of... these... people?"
Adric's eyes widened as he saw the Sixth Doctor, "I should say not.."
"An... answer... of... no... will... be... sufficient. Say... no... only."
Seventh. "Not really. Well..."
"No or yes only!!! NO OR YES ONLY!"
"NO OR YES!" About five other Daleks said along side the Gold and the Black.
Adric's head hurt, "NO!" The lights on the stalls' tops glow red, indicating Adric was not telling the truth, "I MEAN YES!"
"You... traveled.. with... him?"
"No, but I met him once. My Doctor was..."
"This one!"
"No."
There were more Doctors to look at, many more including a blond haired woman! Adric wondered why the Daleks were not happy in finding out about his knowing the Fourth and Fifth. "It... is... as... we... suggested," The Gold Dalek stated, "This... boy... is... one ...of... the... Doctor's... companions."
"May I come down now, I've proven that I don't lie," Adric said, taking his hands down, "Besides my arms hurt."
"Doctor's... companions... always... lie. Hands on stalls!"
Adric obeyed. "No, well, maybe yes," Adric shrugged, "But you've mistaken me for one of the Doctor's companions. I'm not." Well not anymore Adric convinced himself. "You see the Doctor...is not what most people think. He lands on planets...causes trouble, gets some people killed and then just leaves."
"You... do... not... approve... of... his... interfering?"
"I should say not," Adric said, "Look, he landed on my planet, interfered with my civilization, got a lot of people killed, including my brother...and then...of all things, he got me to steal for him."
"You... did... not... go... with... him... of... your.. own... free... will?"
"No, not really." Adric stepped down and this time to his shock, not one Dalek yelled at him, "The Doctor is a troublemaker. Where he does death follows. And change. For the worse." Adric moved around the Gold and Black Dalek, stepping between them as they moved for him. "He asked me to put this image translator I stole for him into his TARDIS. When I went in to put it on the console of his TARDIS, the cur shut the door and took off."
"... he... kidnaped... you..."
Adric thought about this and pulled a face, "I would say...y--yes, you could put that way. Yes."
"Then... the... Doctor... is.. a... kidnapper?"
"Well, he isn't in the sense of that he does it subtly...just kind of shuts the doors. I guess it is because he needed me for my mathematical excellence..." Adric put his hand to where his gold
star should be and recalled it was gone. He hoped the Doctor put it to good use inside a Cyberman chest unit, the horrid metal giants he hated for having killed him. But just as he did this, he realized he made a mistake.
"You...you... are... the... reason... the... Freighter... did... not... destroy... Earth. Your... mathematical... skills... caused.. the... first... two... combinations... to... unlock... the...
computer at least... enough.. for it... to ...lesson ...the impact... once... the... Freighter... hit... the... atmosphere."
"Oh, ahh, I'm not very good, I don't think that did anything. It still would have hit the Earth. I made no difference whatsoever..."
"Negative," the Gold Dalek said, "I... was... there."
"Then you yourself saved me. Thank you. I should thank you personally. Did you use your sucker to..."
"Silence! I.... examined... the... computer systems. You, Doctor Boy,... you... stopped... it ... it... merely... hit... with... less... impact... and... killed... only... the life forms... on... Earth... known... as... dinosaurs."
"Pity I couldn't get the Silurians and the Sea Devils while I was at it," Adric tried to change the conversation.
"We... have... need... of... one... such... as... you."
Adric now knew he was in trouble. He tried to smile or fake a smile.
TARDIS:
The Tardis began the humming of materialization. Tegan and Nyssa stood by the door activator. The Doctor waved his hand, "Remember no going out until we've checked it out first via the monitor."
"But this is Adric," Tegan moved to the double doors, "He's out there alive."
"Ahh, Tegan, we don't know that for sure," The Doctor said, "We haven't even landed yet..."
The TARDIS began to appear. "D..doc..tor!" Tegan gasped.
As the TARDIS materialized and settled down, something materialized inside the console room. A big red Dalek, "DO NOT MOVE! DO NOT MOVE OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!!!!!"
The Doctor's face grew filled with horror! Nyssa moved back and Tegan backed up to the doors. The Dalek faced its gun at The Doctor from across the console, "YOU ARE THE DOCTOR! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!
to be continued...