by Clive May (clive@cj4386.demon.co.uk)

A story of the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric.

The copy right of all things pertaining to the concept and characters of Dr
Who is the property of the BBC.  This Story is a work of fan fiction; it has
been written simply for the pleasure it gave me in writing it; and no money
has or will change hands with respect to the story.

The story and original characters are copyright Clive May 2001.


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Chaos Hunt.

Thirteen.


Loyalty?  Yes, Loyalty, love  and obedience - those three noble sentiments
had been his undoing.  He saw this now, looking around at the ruins of the
control room.  The air was full of drifting mist and dust, obscuring the
father corners; but at least the terrible shuddering had stopped; and the
growling of the abused rocks had quieted.

Into that silence came the desperate shouting of a man.  Lobo took a firmer
grip on his sword, and peered into the thick air.  Cautiously, the guard
captain began to advance on the girl crouching over the rupture in the floor.
Then he paused, watching the doomed struggles of the man dangling in the
trough, indecision eating at his certainties once more.  His mind whirled in
a welter of emotions, torturing his abused soul.

Loyalty?  Love?  Obedience?

He simply did not know any more.

His heart hammered in a staccato counterpoint to the yammering confusion in
his mind.  He had to act!  But what should he do?  There must be reparation
for those crimes he had committed in the gulf between loyalty, love and
obedience?

He longed for the old certainties, for things to be the way they had been
when his love for the Sister-Selves did not stand in excruciating opposition
to his loyalty to the Hunt Master.  But wishes were as dust in a gale -
things without power.  Lobo's wishes had not mattered for a long time now -
not since the coming of the sea spawned Selkie woman to join the Lord
Kendron.

This unholy alliance had cloven asunder his heart felt love for the Brood,
and his deeply ingrained loyalty to the Hunt Master.  For generations
unnumbered, Lobo's ancestors had served the Brood with a passionate devotion
bordering on worship, matched only by the blind obedience they had given to
the Hunt Master.  These two things had been as a single strand of duty,
intertwined, a perfect whole, just like the Sister-Selves and their anchor in
reality, the Hunt Master.

Now, as he stood at the brink of the cleft, Lobo's mind raced round and round
the dilemma the Lord Kendron had made for the servants of the Brood when he
took the Selkie to share his bed, and mad ambitions.

He should have acted then, taken all his courage and gone to the Incarnators.
Surely, they were not as bad as Kendron would have him believe?  The Brood
held a great animosity for the Time Lords; but they also had an accepting
attitude to their fate as the fleshly fashionings of the Incarnators.  There
was deep resentment in the Sister-Selves, but no will to rebellion, like that
which had consumed the heart of their Brother.

Instead, he had gone to Madelayne, and spoken of his fears.  She had only
laid a hand on his arm, looked deep into his troubled soul, and said quietly:
"We know of the monstrosity in the tunnels.  You are a good man, Lobo.  Ever
are we touched by the depth of your devotion to the Brood; but what is, is.
Your obedience is owed to Kendron.  Fulfil that duty faithfully.It is all
that you can do - all that any of us can do."

So in deference to the love he held for the Sister-Selves, he had kept his
own counsel.  It was the single act he regretted in a life of service to the
Brood.  That omission was beyond mending; but as he recalled Madelayne's
words, he knew the time had come for him to choose.

Lobo leapt the closing gap in the floor, sword held ready.  He landed lightly
beside the struggling girl.  Hefting the sword, he lashed it down at the Time
Lord.  The keen blade sliced easily through the Doctor's jacket, freeing him.
Lobo flung the sword aside, reached down to get a firm grip on the arms, and
hauled him bodily from the hole.

There was no time for expressions of gratitude.  The Doctor sprang to the
console, and slammed the lever back into the position he had previously
selected.

On the small screen, the face of Rain contorted as though the woman had been
electrocuted.  Green and black shadows jerked across her features; her lips
pressed together; and a tiny groan of pain escaped the Selkie, as she once
more took the weight of the water.  By sheer force of will, Rain held it in
place, refusing to release it into the newly opened gate.  Intolerable
pressure once more came to bear on the fabric of Orion's crust.  Again, a
thunderous roar shook the foundations of the world.  More plaster and
stonework rained down.  A massive, glittering chandelier disintegrated in a
shower of tinkling silver lights.  The ornate silver support dropped out of
sight through the crack in the floor, the crash of its fall entirely
swallowed up in the bedlam.  The battered walls swayed; and more gaps opened,
letting in shafts of the wan sunlight to set the dust clouds a-flame with a
lambent golden glow.

The Doctor was keenly aware that this state of affairs could not be allowed
to persist. The structure of the planet would not take much more of this
punishment, before the whole planet broke apart.  Something had to be done,
and quickly!

The Doctor opened a communication channel to the pressure sphere around the
PK amplifier.  "Rain?" he called.  "Listen to me!  You must release the
water!  If you don't release it now, the pressure will split this planet into
pieces."

"Where is Kendron?" Rain cried.  "I want Kendron!"

"He's not here.  Rain, you must listen to-"

"I want him!" the Selkie screamed.    "Where is he?"

"He's gone, Rain!  He's not here.  Please, Rain, you must let go of
the water, before it's too late!"

"Nooooo!" Rain wailed in distress.   "I want Kendron!"

"Please, Rain, you must listen to me.  Let go!  Holding the water in stasis
is unbalancing the orbit of the planet.  The stresses will tear the world
apart - please, Rain, release the water!"

Rain stared, unseeing, back at him.  Her eyes encompassed a savage war
between despair and determination, all hedged about with a bright, bright
insanity.  The Doctor, studying her face, felt a terrible sinking feeling in
his hearts.  Her intent was writ plain in the sudden awful serenity of
despair which had settled on her features - she was not going to let go.

"I choose not to," she said at last in a voice so calm it touched the soul
with terror.

The Doctor's jaw set grim.  He had always known that it would come to this;
but how could he kill the despairing Selkie in cold blood?  Could he do it?
The decision ought to have been easy. The existence of the planet was at
stake, after that, the planet of his people.  Finally, perhaps the whole
universe stood in mortal peril.

"The choice is not yours," he said at last, his quiet voice laden with
sadness for every woman who has given their love unconditionally, only to
find themselves betrayed.

The world groaned; the floor shuddered; and a geyser of scalding water
erupted through the rift in the floor.  The murk in the room thickened with
steam.

"Do something, Doctor!" Lobo yelled.  "The whole planet is breaking up!"

The Doctor was not listening.  He was staring hard at the face of Rain, his
own expression a mask of concentration.  He had little latent telepathic
abilities, and no PK aptitude whatsoever, with which to effect his improvised
plan.  However, with Rain kicking the amplifier, even a lump of rock had
enough will to work the magic.  The object of his concentration, being a
personal possession, would add to the effect he could achieve.  The power was
not the problem, directing it with sufficient delicacy was.  He had no time
to experiment, or to learn by trial and error.  If he made a mistake, it
might be the last mistake ever made in this particular universe.

The Doctor, aware that he was procrastinating, gave up a tiny prayer to
whatever God might be listening, and acted.

"Now," he breathed, and exerted his will.

A small red sphere erupted through the platform inside the globe.

It flashed up to strike Rain a glancing blow on the temple, before deflecting
to the spike of green crystal.  The spike exploded into glittering shards.
The ball glanced from the side of the support arm, and hit the inner wall of
the sphere with a terrific impact.  It rebounded away from the curving wall
of glass, which starred with cracks.  A moment later, the sphere imploded
under the pressure of tons of water.

The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut, and said another little prayer, this time
for the safety of the Selkie.

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The stolen water came back to Du Lac.

With a thunderous roar, a dome of water exploded from the ruined Brood
Station.  Faster than the speed of sound, it expanded outwards and upwards.
Friction with the air flashed the surface into steam, which the sun touched
with a million colours.  Roaring a paean of joy at its return, the water
thrust outwards and upwards, reaching into the stratosphere.  At last,
gravity restrained its mighty bound; and it began to settle and spread.  At
its lower edge, a mile high tidal wave unrolled right around the planet.

Out across the arid plains it surged, racing up the sides of hills, to leap a
dozen miles in a single bound, before crashing back to ground.  The lesser
hills it barely acknowledged at all.  Running in riotous confusion over the
plains, the wave became a boiling brown bore with mud and boulders milling
and jostling in the van.  Riding the back of this rolling madness, the
mountains it had torn out by the roots in its wild charge around the globe,
bobbed and plunged like corks.

At last, the roaring monster met itself coming the other way.  Like two
amorphous giants, the walls of water used the mountains they had torn free as
clubs to batter each other into submission.

The planet staggered under that titanic impact, causing the orbit to waver
uncertainly.  Then the world, now wreathed in cloud, resumed its stately
parade about the primary.  By the time it had returned to the same point in
its orbit, the water had drained from the highest ground, leaving in its wake
a burgeoning green carpet.

Thus did the sweet water of life come once more to the arid plains of Du Lac.

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Born to the water were the Selkie; it was their mother, their father, their
eternal joy. It could not harm them; and should they tire of the sundering
sea, there was always the promise of the land, but a simple transformation
away.

But ever the sea had called them back to its fathomless love.

It called to Rain now as she drifted, lazy in the flooded construct,
revelling in re-birth to her true element.  She rolled onto her back and
watched the play of light rippling in reflections of the water on the
ceiling.  Her long hair floated about her slender form.  She smiled a long
lazy smile as the memories of the sundering surf surged in her water
enthralled mind, drowning momentarily the sorrow that lingered there.  With
wonder and awe, she stroked slender hands down the length of her nakedness.
Yes.  She would put on her Selkie Skin and return to the simple joy of the
sea.  The Selkie closed her liquid eyes and touched the deepest level of her
being.  Almost, almost she managed the transformation; but it was not to be.

Tears do not show under water; but Rain cried then, cried a whole sea of
sorrow for a world so well lost.

The Selkie skin was still lost to her, stolen away by the love for Kendron
that parched her soul.  All the while that love endured, the simple solace
 of the sea was lost to her wanting soul.  To know again the loving
embrace of Mother Ocean, she had but to put aside the passion she held for
Kendron.

And that she could not do.

So Be It then!

She rolled in the water, and slanted down to the wreckage of the sphere,
where she plucked up the silken gown.  Balling up the robe, she gripped it
between her thighs; then turning a lazy somersault in the water, she drove
towards the Orion Gate.  Drifting in the water before the Gate, she fingered
her Focus and called.  This gate was not closed to her, as the one on Du Lac
had been.  It opened at her command to permit egress to the flooded Gate
Chamber.  She looped through the arch into the passage, and a moment later,
beached on the steps leading up into darkness.

For a long time, Rain lay in the shallows, reluctant to leave the water
behind.  She might have lain there forever, had not the receding of the
tide withdrawn its cool caress from her body.  The going of the waters was as
the final withdrawing of a lover, a rejection, a spurning, the end of
everything.

And it was not to be borne!

In sudden panicky desperation, Rain called for the change; but it would not
come.  In utter despair she hauled herself out onto the steps, paused a
moment to pull on her sodden silks and, bereft of hope, went in search of her
destiny.

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The Doctor rose from his inspection of Ariana's corpse and crossed to
where Nyssa knelt at the side of Agalayne.  He went to his knees beside the
grieving girl.  She was gently smoothing the fur on the head and ears with a
tender hand.  The huge green eyes were open. They stared sightlessly across
the room at a dark corner, where a shadow, unseen by the crying girl, was
manifesting itself.  Though the room was flooded with sunlight, it
would have no truck with that fey figure.

The Doctor put a comforting arm about Nyssa's shoulders.  Gently, he cradled
the girl against himself,  rocking her soothingly back and forth.

"It's no good, Nyssa," he told the grieving girl softly.  Agalayne's dead -
there's nothing more we can do for him now."

"We can bury him.  I would like to do that, Doctor. Out there in the garden.
Shall we bury him?"

"There isn't time, Nyssa," the Doctor answered the girl with genuine regret.
"There'll be Chancellery Guard all over this place in a moment.  As soon as
they work out how to screen out the Limitation, they'll be laying down a
security blanket over this whole sector of Space-Time." He laid a hand over
Nyssa's hand resting on the triangular head.  "It would not be wise for any
of us to be caught inside that cordon.  We must go."

Nyssa nodded.  "I know, Doctor," she said through her sobs.  "But I just
can't leave him here like this.  He was so alone when Madelayne was
murdered, So alone."

The Doctor took the girl's chin and lifted her gaze to a corner nearby the
fireplace. "Agalayne's not alone now," he assured her.  "Look!  He'll never
be alone ever again."

In the corner, the top-hatted shadow swept off his hat and executed a small
half bow.  He reached behind him and ushered another shade forward to stand
at his side.  This one had the appearance of a tall willowy woman in black
silk, with long black hair falling down her back.  As the two kneeling at the
body watched, this new shadow stretched out arms in their direction.

Something more understood, than sensed or seen, fluttered darkly in the air.
The disturbance on the light floated to the shadows in the corner, settling
on the shoulders of the woman.

The Gatherer held out his arms in a gesture of welcome.  Two more feminine
shades troubled the sunlight in the room.  In a swirl of dark robes, and
midnight hair, they went to the waiting welcome of the outstretched hands,
while, with the merest suggestion of a TARDIS taking flight, the bodies of
the fallen Brood sisters thinned away.

The group in the corner turned away, passed between the sun beams, and
was simply not there.

The Doctor rose, drawing Nyssa up with him.  "He is whole again.  Come!  We
must go now."

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Harmony sat slumped on the broken stone floor of the passage.  She was weary
to the point of exhaustion and wet through.  Her knees were drawn up, elbows
resting on them.  Blankly, Harmony stared at her pale hands as they
interlaced fingers at her ankles.

Footfalls, quick and light, brought her head up.  Duo Danella came gliding
down the dark passage in a swirl of silks.  She paused by Harmony, and laid a
slender hand on her shoulder.

"My Lady, we must not tarry here.  The Doctor says the Incarnators will
arrive soon.  You must come now!"

Harmony shook her head.  "No," she said firmly.

"But my Lady..."

"NO!" Harmony repeated, raising her voice.  "I'm too tired, and too ill to go
anywhere.  My people will know best how to help me."

Tegan ran up.  "C-mon!  What's the hold up?" she cried.  "The Doctor says
we've got to get out of here before the cavalry arrives!"

"The Lady will not come."

"What?  What's up with her.  We've got to go."

Duo Danella just stared at Tegan and shook her head.  "She will not come."

Tegan pursed her lips, came further down the passage and knelt before the
grey faced woman.  "Harmony?  Is it the Klitas?" Tegan asked, biting down
hard on her agitation.  They did not have time for this.  There were going to
be Chancellery Guard all over this place in short order.

Harmony nodded a weary head.  "Yes, that's part of it.  It's still there,
seeking a way back inside my soul.  It has ungodly patience; and it will find
a way in, eventually."  Harmony shuddered.

"But the Doctor can drive it out," Tegan assured the weary woman.  "Once we
get you back to Earth and into his TARDIS -"

Harmony shook her head again, more forcefully.  "I'd never survive the
crossing of the Vortex without the protection of a TARDIS.  I'd be wide open
to the mind-spelling power there.  It's better that I stay here where the
Doctor's TARDIS can give me some protection while I wait for my people to
come.  They will know best how to rid me of the monster."

"And they might just stuff you into that Vapourisation Chamber you've been on
about."

Harmony shrugged.  "I'll take my chances with that," she answered.  "Besides,
it's a better option than the Klitas. And anyway, someone has to stay to try
and smooth this over.  The High Council are going to be panicky as a mouse in
a cattery over this.  Chances are, they'll lash out in their fear and panic.
Someone's got to try and calm them down.  I can speak for the Brood before
the Council." She looked up at the Brood sister.  "Someone has to begin the
atonement for what my people did."

"But why should it be you?" cried Tegan.  They really didn't have time for
this.

Harmony raised her chin to meet Tegan's gaze. "Because I am cursed with
honour."

Duo Danella announced in a quiet voice.  "They have raised a temporal screen.
The Incarnators will come now.  We must go."

"Go!" Harmony commanded the Brood Sister.  "GO!  Tell the Sister-Selves to
loose themselves for a while and give me a chance to plead your case before
the High Council.  I cannot say that I will be successful.  But I can at
least try.  Now GO!  Both of you.  Get out of here while you can!"

The two women hesitated a long moment looking at each other.

"Go!" Harmony urged the irresolute women.  "Scatter to the void.  Lose
yourselves among the stars."

"But we need the Gateway.  We cannot live without it."

"Please.  Go!" Harmony pleaded. "You can survive by hunting Chaos
Beasts."

"For a while,' Duo Danella admitted.  "But eventually -"

"Just give me a few weeks.  That's all I'll need.  If I have not talked them
down from their terror by then, I'll most likely be dead; and it won't matter
anyway.  If that happens, then do what your heart bids you - only give me
this time to try and make some amends for what we did to you."

Duo Danella's expression faded to blank for a second while the Brood formed
the unitary consciousness.  Then she nodded.  "We will hold out as long as we
can - the Brood thanks you from the bottom of its soul." The Sister broke off
a moment, then announced: "The Incarnators are here! We're too late!"





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