Lawsuit of a Time Lord - Part 4

The following morning we were all brought to the trial chamber and showed to the defense table. We were joined by the Voyager and, across the main floor, sat the Doctor.

Unlike the last time we'd encountered him (and Sabrae had...ENCOUNTERED him), he was now a rather bookish-looking, scarecrow type in a tweed jacket and, of all things, a bow tie.  The sight of him, in his new, somewhat..."dorky" (to use Terran parlance)  caused a bit of a gag to issue forth from Sabrae. He sat at his table, eying us with some barely masked enmity.

Voy explained the basis of civil proceeding within system of New Gallifrey, which was fairly similar to old Gallifrey in that evidence could be presented a-chronologically. This meant that evidence of actions we hadn't even taken yet could be presented by either side of the case.

Lord President Sen began the proceedings and the Doctor was asked to present his case.

Initially, of course, the Doctor wished to show the past actions of the Alliance. This required our individual minds to be probed and read by the Matrix.

For those of you who are unaware, the matrix is the central repository of all knowledge on New Gallifrey and is not entirely unlike the Matrix on Gallifrey. It is capable of probing the mind of a Time Lord and projecting the information on to a number of monitor screens.

The process of having one's mind probed by the matrix can best be described this way:

Imagine being slowly brought to the most intense possible orgasm an sentient life form has or will ever achieve.

 Being mind probed by the Matrix is exactly the opposite of that.

During the probe of my own mind, certain things came to light.

New Gallifrey was, in fact, in a different universe than Gallifrey. It existed in a universal plane referred to as SL-Space, where as Gallifrey was in N-Space. Sabrae and myself, originating from Gallifrey, were from N-Space, where as Lestor and sapphire were from SL-Space. Tristan, as it turns out, was from neither, originating in a seperate universe entire known as the Groove-Zone.

Since I had pulled my TARDIS from yet ANOTHER universe, she had the rare ability to hop different universal planes, HOWEVER, since she was completely psychotic, neither she, nor anyone else new when this was happening.

A probe of Sabrae's mind revealed only two multiversal truths: Coffee was a necessity of life in the multiverse and duct tape could fix anything.

The most damning (or exculpatory, depending on one's view) evidence came during a probe of the relative future of Tristan.

At some point in the future of his personal time line, his TARDIS would collide with a blob of mayonnaise which had become lost within the time vortex, forcing an emergency landing on an unknown world in Mutter's Spiral. He sent an emergency hyper cube to Bruce for any of us who may be able to assist him. Sabrae responded.

Where as most Time Lords and Ladies who pilot TTCs general keep a repair tool kit within their Capsules, Sabrae, having learned the previously mentioned multiversal truth, did not. Instead, her Time Travel Capsule had 2342 rooms dedicated EXCLUSIVELY to the storage of rolls of duct tape.

During the repairs to Tristan's TARDIS, the pair were approached by a local tribe of primitive, proto-humanoids. This tribe was clearly hostile, however, they were also extremely curious of the technology being used, since they were still at a level of only being able to use tools on the level of a rock, a stick, or a thigh-master.

As repairs were nearly complete, Sabrae took to distracting the clear chief of this tribe by playing some kind of game (I assume it was a mundane type of game, though it may have simply been a gamble to attempt to immobilize him) where she wrapped him head-to-toe in duct tape, giving him a somewhat silver-grey look.

After the repairs were complete, the pair left in their respective TARDISes, Sabrae having left a few rolls of duct tape as a kind fo good will gesture.

It turns out, however, this world was a pre-bronze age Mondas. Sabrae's influence caused the natives to find that being metallic was preferable to being flesh, hence, giving birth to the Cybermen.

This seemed to be the final piece of evidence the Doctor was to present. The following day would be our turn.

Lawsuit of a Time Lord - Part 3

We all sat quietly in the room on Zenobia Station, trying to shake off the colossal after effects of our time in the pub while simultaneously trying to suss out exactly WHY we were on Zenobia.

Of course, we'd been told and through the fog in our minds, we had heard, and even partially understood our purpose here, but even still, we were thoroughly confused. It was during this time of muddled introspection that we were joined by a new Time Lord.

He was youngish looking, perhaps mid-twenties by human standards, probably in the eight hundreds by Gallifreyan (though, owing to the nature of regeneration this estimate is completely meaningless, as a Time Lord in his late teens, if he had undergone regeneration, could appear to be a frail old man, and vice versa.). He wore clothing that was clearly of Terrestrial origin: a black, silk shirt, his collar open at the top button, a black leather jacket and black trousers. He wore black sunglasses, not very dissimilar to my own red ones. His face was... not precisely stoic, but not terribly expressive, either. He walked in, quite casually, and sat down in a chair in the center of the room.

"You all have, it seems, been a bit naughty," the new Time Lord said, not really giving any indication of what his purpose was, "Well, you're in luck. The Lord President has appointed me as your solicitor. I'm The Voyager. You can call me Voy."

"I'm The Mad..." I began.

"Excuse me...Voy... but why is the Doctor suing us?" sapphire asked, clearly distressed by the situation at hand.

"Well...sapphire, is it?" she nodded, "It seems your group has been interfering in the Doctor's life and travels. including..." The Voyager produced a notepad from a pocket in his jacket, "Multiple accounts of damage to his TT Capsule, such as damage to the chameleon circuit, some kind of...stain...in the primary console room...theft of said TT Capsule..."

"Yes, but why is is suing US?" sapphire asked again.

"I...just went over that."

"Yes, but I didn't do any of that. That was this lot. I'm not involved at all."

"Yes, well, that's as maybe, but he's named the crew of three different TARDISes, and you are among them. Now, we were only able to locate the one TARDIS, which is the one you were brought here in. That's going to be a part of your case. I've got one of New Gallifrey's finest TARDIS psy-readers communicating with it now."

With this, Voy proceeded to reach into his jacket and pull out an old, Terran "ball and cup" game, idlly playing with it, almost losing track of where he was.

For several minutes, I sat and watched him, the clack-clack-clack of the wooden ball trying and failing to get into the cup driving rail-spikes deep into my frontal lobes. Finally, being unable to take anymore, I took aim with my ultra-plasmic awl and set it on fire. Oddly, The Voyager, merely blew it out and put it back in his pocket, pulled out a small egg-whisk and looked at it, as though reading something from it, then placed it back in his pocket before speaking again.

"That would be Rowan."

At that, there was a knock on the door.

In walked the Time Lady I assumed (and, to save time, I'll say I assumed correctly) was Rowan. She was dark haired and dressed in what appeared to be a Victorian-era blouse and leather work trousers. She wore a tool belt, which would have seemed incongruous to her attire, had her attire not already been completely incongruous with itself.

"Well," she began, "I've started an initial dialogue with your TTC, Madman. It may assist some with your case. She's really quite a fascinating TARDIS. Brilliant and perhaps even more devoted than most I've encountered. There is something that could be a bit of a problem, though."

"Hmmm?" I replied, "What's that then?"

"Well...." Rowan began, "In addition to the devotion, she's completely psychotic. Delusional. Convinced at different times that she's a TARDIS, an aardvark, a cherry sundae, six pygmies, and a dancer from Las Vegas (I believe that's somewhere in New York. I never had much patience for Earth) named 'Lottie'."

"And... You're telling me she's not?"

Lawsuit of a Timelord - Part 2

"Guards, lower your weapons," a female voice said from just out of visual range. It was a voice with a bit of command to its tone.

"These people are not criminals."

A Time Lady stepped into range, wearing the heliotrope robes of a Patrexe with the head dress and collar indicating her station.

"My apologies. I am Castellan Solis. You are on Zenobia Station. As I said, you're not criminals, but there is a very serious matter to which we must attend. I'm afraid we need to impound your TT Capsule until the matter is resolved."

Castellan Solis produced a small mechanism from her robes and clicked a switch on it. Immediately, I hear all functions of my TARDIS stop and a temporal tether surrounded it, keeping it completely stationary, both physically and trans-temporally.

"We've had a very difficult time locating you lot," Solis continued, "This TT Capsule doesn't appear in any of our records and we can't locate yours," she indicated Sabrae.

"While could find Tristan's, " she paused for a moment to see if we would acknowledge the oddity that she would know Tristan by name. We, still being rather heavily intoxicated, did not, "This one changes Capsules too often to track."

Solis seemed pleasant enough, but did appear to have a sense of duty about her at the moment.

"I will be perfectly honest, we're not entirely certain who most of you are, but we will determine that in time. Do you know why you are here?"

At this point, I answered in the only way I could.

I vomited.

And then passed out.

I have no idea what happened in the interim, however, I awoke after some time with the rest of the Killing Time Alliance present in a well apportioned room and a supernova exploding through my brain.

Even through my galactic hangover, I could feel someone poking about in my mind.

Telepaths always amused me.

While all Gallifreyans possess some level of telepathic ability, and some even some telekinetic, there were a very few who were skilled enough to probe an unwilling mind. Clearly I was dealing with one of them. Not wanting to appear resistant, since I had no idea what was happening, I didn't try to block the probe out.

Instead, I concentrated on a Terran delicacy I'd encountered at one point called haggis.

"Yes, I felt it, too," Sabrae said from across the room, "Had a lovely conversation, but there is still no damn coffee here, regardless of which..." She trailed off.

For a moment, all of us (save Sabrae) struggled to regain an kind of coherent thought (an especially difficult task for me, owning to my normal mental state of having no coherent thoughts), and then the door opened.

In walked a Time Lord wearing the Sash of Rassilon and carrying the Rod of Rassilon. He was followed by Castellan Solis and two Chancellery Guards.

He looked at us, in our state of...well...in our state, and seemed clearly amused.

"Hello. I am Lord President Sen..." He began.

"Senny! Nice to see you again!" I jumped up and offered my hand in the most friendly manner possible. The Guards stepped in and the Lord President stepped back in surprise.

"I'm sorry, have we met?" Sen said, clearly perplexed.

"Ah. No," I answered, "Not by my reckoning, anyway. But, you know, time travellers. One can never be certain."

The Lord President smiled a bit at this.

"Regardless. As I was saying, I am Lord President Sen of the High Council of New Gallifrey."

"Wait. There's a NEW Gallifrey? Weren't happy with the old model?"

Sen arched an eyebrow, but continued.

"We don't have any record of any of you, but you've been brought here because of a civil complaint."

"Ah. I'm The Madman," I said, again, offering my hand.

"Oh, good ANOTHER one who uses a title instead of a name," the Lord President said with a sigh, "Very well. What's your ACTUAL name?"

"Ah. That's where it gets sticky," I pointed to Sabrae, "See, she's the only one who knows, and she refuses to tell me. Or, anyone, for that matter. I think its because she's my sister."

Sen nodded toward Solis and she looked at Sabrae. Sabrae, in turn grinned a bit of a evil grin. For a moment, the room was silent, then Solis spoke.

"My Lord President, I can't read anything from her, but... Is there anything called 'coffee' on the station?"

Lord President Sen seemed confused for a moment, but decided to continue his explanation.

"You have been brought here on a civil matter. You had been contacted earlier and told to keep away from the Doctor. You failed to do so and he has come to me to resolve a civil matter. You're not prisoners, but we must insist you remain on Zenobia until the matter is resolved. The Doctor has asked me to have you all restricted to New Gallifrey and to deny your travel off world. I need to hear both sides of this matter before I decide.

"You will be provided a solicitor in this matter. We will begin the hearings tomorrow"

And so it was that we discovered the Killing Time Alliance was being sued.

Lawsuit of a Time Lord - Part 1

Once their mission on Logopolis was complete, Lestor, Quandhee and Sabrae (newly regenerated, barely recognizable and, happily, caffeinated) returned to Bruce to regroup with the rest of us. We all decided it was time for a bit of down time and, thus, we all went to the bowels of my TARDIS for a few strings of bowling followed by a game of hockey in the ice rink.

That was the plan, anyway.

Roughly halfway through the second string, two things became readily apparent.

First, sapphire had a remarkable skill in bowling, able to play well enough to score a normally impossible 647, though that may have been due to the fact that my Time Travel Capsule being rather fond of her, perhaps to the point of infatuation. I've often caught the engines purring to her when it thought I wasn't listening.

Second, the engines had fired up and we were in transit, somewhere.

And so, we all headed to the primary console room to check the trans-temporal coordinates, which were less then useful, as they indicated only that we were, in fact, not heading to someplace it referred to as "Steve's house". This, apparently, was enough to worry Skippy, as he immediately, without a word, hopped on a passing huon and vanished.

And so, we waited.

It is interesting to note that time, while, essentially non-existent within a TARDIS, still SEEMS to pass. This can seem like a very boring prospect. It is one of the reasons many Time Lords and Ladies keep some diversions within their TTCs. In my case, my TARDIS contained the previously mentioned bowling alley, and ice rink, but also a lovely garden, cinema, pool, and fully stocked library.

None of which mattered an emu liver at the moment, as the best way to pass time when one's TARDIS is being controlled by some external force is not bowling, swimming, skating or reading.

Hence, we all adjourned to the pub and began drinking copiously.

During our travels, we had discovered the actual recipe for a drink previously spoken of only in legend: The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

It was the only information I kept in the database of the food machine in the pub.

For sixteen virtual hours, we all waited and drank in the pub until the engines stopped. By this time, however, I had become convinced I had once again joined the vortex, itself and Lestor and Tristan had exchanged livers. Cannnnnndy and sapphire had long ago given up on drinking and had abandoned consciousness altogether.

Sabrae, oddly, seemed completely unaffected.

I stumbled, along with the other sentient (and now, more numerous, semi-sentient) passengers, to the primary console room to try to work out, through what can only be described as a mental oblivion, where we had finally materialized.

The scanners were still less than helpful, as they merely read "Now not at Steve's House". Ad so, I had to open the main doors.

And we were greeted by a detachment of Chancellery Guard, pointing staser pistols at us.

I Will Not BEGIN To Take The Blame For This One

Eventually, after fleeing Tennoobia, Sabrae, Lestor and Ckan-Dee managed to find the remains of Logopolis, hoping to have them, through their abilities to alter reality through higher mathematics, create a new, custom-made TARDIS for Lestor. This was something he'd always wanted to try, and, seeing as we were, in fact, renegades at this point, it was impossible for him to return to Gallifrey in order to procure a new Time Travel Capsule. Unfortunately, Logopolis was rendered a dead world in 1981. Fortunately, a Gallifreyan TTC doesn't view this as much of an obstacle, and so, Sabrae's pyramid re-materialized in 1979.

And so, Lestor went to seek the Logopolitans with Kahn-Dih and enlist them to calculate a Block Transfer Computation to create his new TTC.

Sabrae, on the other hand, wanted coffee.

It is a well known fact among higher species that Logopolitans are capable of completely altering the nature of reality via the use of Block Transfer Computation, seeing the Whole Kind of General Mish-Mash as nothing more than a series of complex mathematical equations, and, therefore, gaining the ability to re-calculate reality. This is a very impressive societal ability, even to us Time Lords, and we have often made use of their skills. This is regardless of the inadvertent actions of the Logopolitan known as Bobo Narwako.

Bobo Narwako had been, in his day, a well respected mathematician on Logopolis and had, in fact, been the originator of the idea of creating the Charged Vacuum Emboitments to hold back the entropy which had already begun absorbing the Universe. This was widely considered an excellent idea.

Where it all fell apart, however, is when Bobo had inadvertently had too much to drink the night prior and, when he began the Block Transfer Computation, vomited in the middle of it, creating, instead of the planned CVE, the Terran rapper known as Eminem.

What is lesser known about Logopolis, however, is that on the entire surface of the planet, there is not a single drop of any kind of caffeinated beverage.

As it so happens, at this same time, another Time Lord (from whose solicitor we had recently heard) had also materialized on Logopolis, for his second attempt at having them repair his malfunctioning chameleon circuit (as it turns out, he still hadn't looked in his broom cupboard, as, if he had, he'd have noticed the second TTC and realized ITS chameleon circuit was interfering with his).

My sister has many advanced talents as a Time Lady. Not the least of them is her heightened sense of smell, with which, she could pinpoint a source of caffeine from half a world away...

Or from outside a TARDIS.

She knocked on the door of the anomalous police box and was greeted by a Time Lord with long, sandy, curly hair in a dark frock coat and cravat, sipping a cup of tea. He looked at her, initially curious about her pale complexion and, of course, wings, but quickly regained his composure and proffered a small white bag.

"Would you like a jelly baby?" He asked, clearly very curious about the winged Time Lady.

"You MUST have coffee in there. I can hear it calling to me," was my sister's response.

He invited her in.

Now, I don't know exactly what went on in the Doctor's TARDIS. And, seeing as she IS my sister, I refuse to speculate. I only know this much...

It took the Logopolitans a full two weeks to complete Lestor's new TARDIS. He waited an additional four days for Sabrae.

At the end of that time, instead of the long curly haired Time Lord, a Time Lord with a short-cropped hair cut wearing a purple jumper and black leather jacket emerged, followed by Sabrae.

Sabrae was no longer pale with wings in a black dress.

The wings were gone, now, and her skin had grown quite tan. Her eyes were still dark, as was her hair, though she had grown a few inches and her hair was more dark auburn than black.

And they were both covered in sweat, with very goofy grins.

Buddy, Can You Spare a TARDIS?

Seeing as we didn't want to cross paths with a Gallifreyan solicitor (an entity much like the concept of a Terran piranha that can fly, holds a grudge and wields nuclear weapons), we decided to carry on about our business. Tristan and Skippy were still nursing planet-sized hang-overs from their time in San Fransisco and I was still making some repairs to my own TARDIS, so it was by default that Lestor and Kayndi, having abandoned Lestor's previous Time Travel Capsule (and Lestor, refusing to re-use one of his older ones) needed a ride from Sabrae in order to procure a new one for him.

TARDISes, of course, are attuned to their individual Time Lords. It is for this reason, Lestor SHOULD have let Sabrae pilot, however, as I discussed before (or if I haven't I will discuss in the future) Lestor coveted Sabrae's TTC.

It, however, was not quite as fond of him.

Rather than materializing on Gallifrey, or even one of her affiliated planets where one could easily procure a TARDIS, the trio, instead, materialized on a heretofore unknown world in a pocket dimension. It was a world inhabited by seven billion identical life forms.

Each one appeared almost Gallifreyan (or human, if you are so inclined), but they were shaped a bit...wrong. Their skin was a waxy yellow-pink and their hair (always brown) was coiffed into something akin to a pompadour, but not quite. Each one of them wore identical brown, pinstriped suites with trainers on their feet.

They moved in a very jerky motion. They appeared in swarms and seemed always very curious.

The planet, it turns out, was called "Tennoobia"

Upon exiting Sabrae's TTC, the trio was swarmed by the natives (known as Tennoobs) and could barely close the pyramid in time. Wave upon wave of Tennoobs surrounded them. Most seemed especially fascinated with Sabrae's TARDIS, as they immediately, and ceaselessly began knocking on its door.

Lestor, to his credit, tried to communicate with the hoards of brown-suited...things.

"Excuse me," he said, "I need to get a TARDIS. Can you help me? I need a TARDIS. Can you help me find a TARDIS? Hello? I bet this doesn't happen to 'The Doctor'...Can you get me a TARDIS, please?"

Interesting sociological fact about the natives of Tennoobia: they are incapable of natural societal growth. They, instead, take to mimicking the behaviour of life forms they encounter, having no personality of their own.

Immediately, thousands upon thousands of the Tennoobs began speaking in a cacophonous murmur.

"Hello? I'm...The Doctor...Can you get me a TARDIS?"

To her credit, Sabrae was already fumbling with the door trying to get into her TARDIS while simultaneously fighting off the hoards of Tennoobs trying to get in. Even though they worked quickly, the trio found themselves unable to enter and close the doors before thirty or  so Tennoobs had forced their way in and began dispersing throughout the interior.

For nigh on six hours, Lestor, Sabrae and Chandee chased them throughout in a futile effort to round them up and eject them.

Fortunately, they all found Charlie, making cleanup a bit simpler.

No More Mr. Magic Space Man

Upon materialization (and finishing the...activity...in which they were involved) Lestor and Quandhee opened the doors to his TARDIS (still in its "TITS" form, of course) and walked out into the corridors of the unknown TTC they found themselves in, the extremely long "frustration scarf" around the blonde Terran's neck, shoulders, waist and left leg. Irwin, of course, had been left behind.

Their first order of business, of course, was to fin the main doors to this Time Travel Capsule, as that would allow them to either leave if it was materialized somewhere, or pilot it to a known location, This was important, as Lestor's CURRENT TARDIS was, in his view, not "minty" enough, and he needed to replace it.

The layout of this new TTC was somewhat more labyrinthine than most he was used to, owing to its lengths of identical, white hallways leading to identical white rooms. In fact, traveling in what they believed was a straight line caused them to come across Lestor's own TARDIS 46 times in under an hour. It was at this time they decided to walk in a circle.

Eventually, they located the console room and were greeted by the silver-haired Time Lord and his granddaughter as they were entering from a scrap yard outside. Their perplexed looks indicated that Lestor had to do some quick thinking.

"Ummm.... Yes... Hello. I'm...ummm...John....uhhh...Smith. And this is....Madam Nostradamus." He stammered, reaching into his pocket, not realizing he dropped his sonic lance on the floor.

"Yes. I'm Madam Nosferatu, like he said," Quandee continued, "I made this for you." The blonde Terran began extricating herself from the masses that were her "frustration scarf".

A few minor pleasantries were exchanged with the befuddled Time Lord and Lady before Lestor and his companion managed to convince the former to let them out of their TARDIS.

It was London in 1963 and now the two of them were without a means of getting back.The advantage, however, was that they had left Irwin in the TARDIS they had abandoned in the broom cupboard.

It was fortunate that, a block further on, the were greeted by a materializing, black-bird-emblazoned pyramid, piloted by my sister.

This may all seem like some tangent, but it serves to explain why, twenty minutes after Killing Time was reunited on Bruce, there was a knock on my TARDIS door and I opened it to find a Gallifreyan "message hypercube" containing a Cease and Desist command from a Gallifreyan solicitor telling us to "Leave the Doctor the Belgium alone!"

By Rassilon, That Thing Is HUGE!

I will not bore you with the details of his mission, but suffice to say, Lestor, Irwin and Ckandee were successful in carrying it out.

It should be noted,  however, that Terran females have an aversion to expressing sexual intimacy with children in the general vicinity, which lead to a great deal of frustration within Lestor's TARDIS, being as he had grown rather fond of demonstrating to his female companion the various biological systems which Gallifreyans possessed a pair of.

To be fair, Kah'n'dhi also dealt with frustration in her inability to explore the biological differences of "Mr. Magic Space Man" because of the interference of what can best be described as a 10 year old, bilogical Terran chastity belt.

It is for this reason, coupled with a minor glitch in plotting trans-temporal coordinates sending their Time Travel Capsule into the vortex for 426 years (though not aging anyone a single moment) caused Candiye to take up knitting. It was sheer boredom, however, that caused her to knit a single item, a scarf, for the entire 426 years.

It was towards the end of the 426 years in the time vortex that the frustration finally got the best of everyone.

During a moment of extreme passion, it was discovered that a Terran female's posterior, when...enthusiastically introduced to a certain combination of controls on the console of a type 60 TTC, causes it to divert from its present course (the TTC, that is, not the posterior) and seek out the nearest TTC (or comparable time ship) and collide with it before materializing inside of it, often in most convenient broom cupboard.

In this case, it was a recently, illegally, recommissioned type 40, crewed only by a you, silver-haired Tiem Lord and his granddaughter, on their way to a small, unremarkable world in the western arm of Mutter's Spiral.

Okay, that was, admittedly, my ham-handed attempt at being coy.

He crashed into the TARDIS of our old...well, there's no word for it, but someone we'd interfered with a few times before...the Doctor and his granddaughter on their way to Earth.