13 The Fire of the Daleks: Part 7 (9th Doctor)

Asica got on his knees and begged the Dalek not to shoot.

"Please, I'll do"

Before he could even finish the Dalek screamed "EXTERMINATE" and tried to fire. It proved to be a mistake however as the ships securty system paralysed the Dalek and the ray it had fired in mid air. The Dalek hadn't even thought about the security system. In its arrogance it didn't think that the Heglozians had any weapons that could threaten it. The ship however represented the absolute pinnacle of the Heglozians technology. The Dalek tried to break free from the field but it was no use and whilst it was helpless Asica pulled the gun from the Daleks socket and shot it dead.

The former king then made his way to the control room where he fired several rays at the Daleks in the cave, destroying them all and saving the Doctor, Dana, Zoella and the others.

"You're quite safe now" He said confidently through the speaker. "Doctor, Dana, Zoella and her boy. You can all come into the ship. The rest of you can stay here with your new allies."

All of the rebels except the leader started to beg the King to take them with him.

"How pathetic. You all spent so long trying to kill me, now you expect me to show mercy? You fools helped to doom our world." Asica said with disgust,

"He's right." The Leader of the rebels said much to the others shock.

"Not about us dooming Heglozia. He did that. He's right that you shouldn't beg this monster for any clemency. This is a man who sent thousands of men, women and children to their deaths for just trying to survive? Who was going to abandon his own people like a coward? We'll find a way to survive this without him."

"You won't." The Doctor said bluntly.

"None of you will if you don't stick together. I have a plan, but you're going to all have to help me. I'm not saying it will work, but it's our best bet." The Time Lord continued.

"You don't know anything about us" The leader said to the Doctor. "We survived against his troops and thugs for years, we can evade the Daleks until our forces rebuild."

"You won't" The Doctor replied. "I know the Daleks. Unless they see some value in you as a slave labour force, they'll make sure nothing, even the smallest microbe survives on a planet they've invaded. Clearly they don't think there is any value in the Heglozians. If they did we would have seen them gather more of you up into groups of slave labor, or as test subjects." Dana winced at the last part, having remembered some of the gruesome sights she'd seen in a Dalek lab on a previous adventure with the Doctor.

"They've just slaughtered every member of your kind they've seen. The Daleks will unleash a weapon, very soon that will ignite the atmosphere of this planet. The air itself will burn. I've seen planets the Daleks used this weapon on. Afterwards they're nothing but barren rocks, with poison air. If you took one breath, even thousands of years later your insides would still cook. So many of the worlds in their empire were once teeming with life just like this one, but you'd have never known."

"You're lying" The Leader said. "No one would destroy for no reason. Also why wouldn't they unleash this weapon already?"

"They do have a reason. Whilst they may not see you as having any value, I'd wager they want your world as a weapons factory. By poisoning the air they'll make sure that no one can infiltrate their weapons factory. The only reason they haven't let the weapon loose already is because they enjoy crushing other races. It's all a Dalek lives for. In between battles they don't feel anything."

Zoella's son hugged her in fear at the Doctors words. Zoella didn't even try and lie to the boy that everything would be okay.

"Once they've had their fun killing you in droves down here, they'll retreat to their mother ship to fire their weapon. As soon as we see the monsters leave then it's all over…. Now do you see who your real enemy is?" The Doctor said.

There was a pause for a minute whilst all the rebels looked at their enemies, before their leader asked. "What can we do?"

"Use this ship to pick up as many civilians as we can and get as far away from here as soon as possible" Asica said through the communicator.

"Your ship wouldn't make it to the atmosphere. Even if it did, every inch of this galaxy is crawling with Dalek warships that can outshoot and outrun you." The Doctor replied.

"We have one chance." The Doctor continued. "If we can fly your ship into the Dalek mothership we might be able to destroy it. There will still be Dalek war ships all over the galaxy, but bringing down their mothership will destroy their weapon and might make the monsters think about their next attack. It could give us the time we need to get the last survivors out of here in my TARDIS." The Doctor said.

"Your what?" The Leader asked.

"It's a ship that can travel through time and space. I don't have time to try and convince you, trust me it's real and it's your only chance to escape the Daleks." The Doctor explained.

"How are we supposed to fly this vessel into the Dalek mothership? We'd be shot down before we had a chance?" The Leader asked.

"Maybe not. The mother ship is the only Dalek vessel on this planet. It'll be hovering in the sky. The monsters love to show any survivors after their invasion the weapon that will destroy their world going off. The rest of the Dalek forces here are just soldiers. They think so little of you that they didn't feel the need to waste any ships except for the grande finale. We might just be able to blast our way to it." The Doctor explained.

"We have to get Misaca somewhere safe." Zoella said. "I'm not having him in the middle of a fight with the Daleks."

"We don't have time." Misaca interrupted. "Those creatures could burn this planet at any second. You can't put me above everyone else."

"The boys right". The Doctor said. "Besides the safest place is with us. In the time it takes to get to the TARDIS, the Daleks could have already set the bomb off. There's no where else he can hide." "I promise I won't let them harm him." The Doctor said more gently to Zoella. She still wasn't happy about bringing Misaca along, but the former soldier knew she had no choice.

As the rebels entered the craft the Doctor tried to tend to Zoella's wounds. The Time Lord was amazed she was still standing. Her nose, her arm, and several ribs were all broken. Her body was covered in bruises and nasty cuts too, one eye was completely black, whilst her lips were cut and swollen and many of her teeth had been knocked out from the rebels torture. Still Zoella shoved the Doctor away.

"We don't have time remember?" She snapped.

"Yes but if you keel over dead in a few moments you won't be much use to us either. We need all the help we can get." The Doctor said back.

"I'll be fine. Trust me I wouldn't miss the end of the Daleks for anything." Zoella said before turning to the rebels leader.

"Once this is over, I'm going to kill you." She spat in his face. The leader tried to look unscared, but he was clearly quite shaken.

One of the other rebels meanwhile laughed at Zoella's taunts which caused her to punch him in the face, knocking out several of his teeth and sending him crashing to the floor.

The rebel got up and tried to fight back, but the Doctor and Dana restrained both the rebel and Zoella. " You fools. Even now you can't work together?" The Doctor said. "If you don't you'll die."

GIVE YOUR REPORT!" The Dalek supreme barked at its subordinates.

"THE FINAL CITY HAS FALLEN! THE FEW SURVIVORS HAVE SCATTERED!"

"EXCELLENT! THE FINAL CLEANSING OF THE PLANET WILL BEGIN! ORDER ALL DALEKS TO RETURN TO THE MOTHERSHIP."

"ACCORDING TO REPORTS FROM THE ORIGINAL DALEK SCOUT, THERE WERE SIGHTINGS OF A BLUE BOX ON ONE OF THE SCOUT SHIPS!"

The Dalek Supreme knew exactly what that meant. Unlike all of the other Daleks here, it had actually encountered the Doctor before in a war with another race of creatures known as the Askirons.

The Askirons had been a race of war mongering conquerors in their own right. When the Daleks attacked, no other race in their galaxy was willing to help them. The Doctor however did eventually convince the other races to unite against the Daleks and even supplied them with weaponry. Though the Doctors forces won in the end, the Askirons were wiped from the face of the galaxy whilst the casualties among the other races were in the billions. Many of the planets never recovered, and due to the loss of life and resources descended into barbarism. What had once been a proud alliance of several thriving, advanced civilisations became a scattering of desperate, dying worlds.

The Doctor and the Supreme Dalek regarded the war as being one of their darkest days, albeit for very different reasons. This marked the first and only time the Dalek supreme had lost a war. When it heard that the Doctor was here it felt, for just an instant an emotion that it was not used to. Fear!

"IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE". The Dalek Supreme said to its subordinates. "THERE IS NOTHING THAT EVEN THE DOCTOR CAN DO NOW! ORDER ALL DALEKS TO RETURN TO MOTHERSHIP! HEGLOZIA WILL BE CLEANSED!"

In the Heglozian city named Resteria below, which had been reduced to mostly rubble the Daleks began to fly from the slaughter. Many of them didn't want to leave until they had exterminated all of the civilians, but the monsters dared not to disobey orders. Due to Resteria's massive population there were a few more survivors from the attack, though it was still only a couple of hundred out of a city of millions.

The men, women and children below crawled out of the flaming ruins, staring up at the Dalek mothership which deliberately came into view among the last surviving Heglozians on the planet.

None of them had any idea what the Daleks were planning, but whatever it was they all knew that there was no one and nothing that could stop them. This was the end for Heglozia. They were witnessing the death of their civilisation, of their entire race.

Suddenly out of the blackness of the sky came a strange vessel, unlike anything any of the Heglozian survivors had ever seen before.

"What is that?" One of the young survivors shouted?

"Whoever it is if they're smart they'll turn around and flee." One of the older men from the back said.

"We've reached the mothership Doctor. It's just like you said. They'd be near the largest city to get a good audience." Asica who was in the pilot seat said to the Doctor, who along with Dana was on the lower deck mucking around with the engine.

"The Daleks are all retreating back to the ship. We don't have much time." The rebel leader explained over the intercom.

"Damn we have less time than I thought. Don't do anything until I say understand." The Doctor said.

The Time Lord was tinkering with the engine of the ship to use it as a weapon. The Doctor hoped that if he could create an energy overload when the ship hit the Dalek vessel, the combination of the power in the Dalek engine (which he was very familiar with due to experience) and the explosion of Asica's vessel would vaporise the Dalek ship completely, taking out their weapon and all of the Daleks who had returned to the ship.

Doing so would be extremely difficult however as not only would they have to reach the ship, but they'd only have a few minutes to flee in the escape pods. Normally the Doctor would be happy to sacrifice himself to stop the Daleks, as would Dana. Here however there would be no point if the Doctor died. He was the only one who could use the TARDIS to take the survivors away to safety. If he didn't another Dalek mothership would be there within a day and burn the world.

"Doctor, the Dalek mothership is moving towards us." Zoella said in panic.

"Well it's not perfect, but it'll just have to do now." The Doctor said with regret.

"I hope this works Dana. It has too."

Asica flew the ship straight at the Dalek mothership. The monsters were completely taken aback at first that the Heglozians weren't just fleeing.

"IT IS THE DOCTOR! ONLY HE WOULD CHALLENGE US! DESTROY THE SHIP! DESTROY IT!" The Dalek Supreme barked..

Asica's ship managed to swerve past some of the Dalek rays whilst landing a few hits itself. Ultimately however they didn't even dent the motherships hull. The Daleks meanwhile managed to land a few hits on Asica's ship which sent it hurling back through the air.

"We'll never make it". Dana said as the Doctor started to adjust the engine.

"I need to try just one thing." The Doctor said in desperation.

"Asica, Asica! Come in."

"It's okay we're still here Doctor. Got thrown around badly though. One more hit and the hull will be pierced."

"I know. I hoped we might be able to catch them off guard by charging at them. I've deposited some of the energy from the engine into the canons. It should give them more power, but only for three shots. We'll also have even less time to escape now. Finally I also can't guarantee that we won't blow up when you fire, but it seems we don't have a choice….. Good luck" The Doctor said whilst adjusting the engine.

The Daleks fired at the vessel again, with Asica only barely managing to avoid the blast. This time however Asica fired at the mother ships main weapon. Not only did it destroy it, but the explosion shook the entire Dalek mothership and knocked it backwards.

Asica wasted no time and got two more blasts in, causing massive explosions.

"Careful if it crashes the bomb could go off." The Doctor shouted.

"ALERT, ALERT, VESSEL COMPROMISED, WEAPONS SYSTEM DAMAGED." One of the Dalek subordinates shouted.

"THE HEGLOZIAN VESSEL IS HEADING TOWARDS US." Another declared.

"ALL DALEK FORCES LEAVE MOTHERSHIP AT ONCE! ATTACK THE HEGLOZIAN VESSE! DESTROY IT!" The Dalek Supreme ordered.

Hordes of Daleks began to emerge from the mothership, but this time Asica's vessel had the advantage. Its fire power was far more powerful, and the Daleks rays were only able to produce minor damage. Asica's vessel was the most powerful the Heglozian race had ever built; so many resources had gone towards building it, it would have drained their world completely to build just two! Whilst it still wouldn't stand a chance against the Dalek fleet, against this one mothership it might just win.

The crowd of Heglozian survivors below started cheering and shouting. Most of them knew it was too early to claim victory, but they couldn't help but cheer at the sight the seemingly invincible Daleks being blown out of the sky.

Asica blasted dozens and dozens of Daleks who hurled themselves at the ship. Below the Doctor and Dana who watched from a monitor even started cheering.

In that moment the rebels, Zoella and Asica forgot all of their differences as the former King blasted his way through the army of monsters to the now vulnerable Dalek mothership. They all huddled together, feeling confident that the King of all people would be able to finish their hated enemies. Zoella in particular after having spent so long fighting against the Daleks on the front lines relished in their deaths. Not all of the Motherships weapons had been knocked out, but Asica's vessel was easily able to avoid the blasts from its other, lesser canons now.

Just as victory seemed to be within reach however, one Dalek emerged from a blast that had knocked dozens more out of the sky. A Special Weapons Dalek.

"Asica, Asica, don't try to fight it" The Doctor said in terror at the sight of the Special Weapons Dalek that he knew only too well.

"What is that creature?" One of the rebels said.

"It's a Special Weapons Dalek. I didn't think they'd developed that model at this point in their history. Please be careful, its blast is comparable to 100 normal Daleks and its armor is practically indestructable. Just fly past it."

The King tried to oblige, but the Dalek was too fast. In a matter of seconds it was completely out of sight.

"Where'd it go?" The King said, scared out of his mind.

"It doesn't matter just move." Before the Doctor could even finish the ship was rocked by an explosion that threw the Time Lord and Dana across the room.

"Doctor? Doctor?" Asica said in panic. "You need to rig up more power from the engine to the gun like before."

"I can't it's too unstable. The ship will blow up if I do it." Suddenly the ship was struck again, only this time the engine began to explode. The Doctor and Dana were forced to flee the room, as the ship went whirling through the air. More and more parts of the hull either exploded or went flying off.

"Destruct in 3 minutes." The security system said.

"We'll never make it to the Dalek mothership now." The leader of the rebels said grimly."

"Yes we will" Asica replied as he desperately tried to get the ship back into focus. Several more Dalek scouts began to gather around the ship and fired on it. The ship's shields had been damaged and it was now vulnerable to even ordinary Dalek fire power.

The Doctor and Dana quickly rushed to the upper level.

"We need to get out of here. This ship will never fly now." The Doctor said.

"No! I'm not leaving now" Asica shouted. Suddenly the control panel exploded which sent Asica and two of the rebels flying across the room. One of the rebels was killed right away whilst another was helped up by two of his comrades. Asica was severely burned and though the Doctor tried to help him, it was obvious there was nothing he could do for the former king.

"Please" he said whilst struggling not to choke on his own blood. "Just go. I don't want to live to see my planet die. I'm sorry, I hoped in the end it would, would all be." He collapsed before he could finish. A further explosion came from the back of the room. "We need to go now!" The Doctor said as he hurried the rebels, Dana and Zoella down the corridor. There were more explosions however and the two rebels at the back carrying their wounded comrade were consumed by the flames. More explosions further down the corridor knocked the Doctor and the others off of their feet. Zoella briefly became separated from her son as the ship shook and she fell off her feet. Misaca tried to run to help his mother, but a further explosion rocked the ship and knocked the boy on his back.

Just as the boy tried to pull himself up, several large pieces or rubble fell from the ceiling and crushed him to death. Zoella quickly ran to her son and tried to pull the rubble off of Misaca's corpse, burning her hand in the process.

Dana tried to pull Zoella away, but the former soldier didn't want to be saved when she saw her sons lifeless, broken face under the rubble. "LEAVE ME" She shouted. "I'm not leaving him!"

The Doctor intervened and used a Venusian Karate neck pinch to knock Zoella out. "I'm sorry but we don't have time to argue." The Doctor then picked Zoella up over his shoulders and ran down the flaming corridor with the others. They reached the escape pods, but more rubble started to fall from the ceiling. Dana pushed the Doctor out of the way of a shard, but others were not lucky. Three more rebels were crushed, leaving only their leader and two more.

The Doctor opened one of the doors with his sonic screwdriver before the flames completely engulfed the room. Inside the pod was very small and they could all barely fit in, but the Doctor managed to eject the pod in time.

Unfortunately as soon as the pod left the crashing ship it was set upon by three Dalek scouts. The Doctor tried to evade them, but the Daleks managed one lucky shot that sent the ship spiraling out of control. The Doctor however was able to make the pod smash into one of the Daleks, knocking it out of the sky and scattering the other two monsters. The Doctor then piloted the ship to the TARDIS, with the two Daleks in pursuit

Asica's ship meanwhile went hurtling into the ruins of the city and consumed it completely in flames. The last sight the few hundred surviving Heglozians of the city saw was the flaming wreckage of the vessel they had hoped would be their salvation.

"EXCELLENT" The Dalek Supreme said. "THE HEGLOZIAN CRAFT HAS BEEN DEFEATED."

"DALEK UNITS REPORT ONE POD HAS ESCAPED! TWO DALEKS ARE IN PURSUIT"

"IT MUST NOT ESCAPE! ORDER ALL OTHER DALEK UNITS TO RETURN TO MOTHERSHIP! THE WEAPON WILL BE DETONATED AT ONCE!

The two Daleks continued in their pursuit of the pod. The mothership would protect all of the other Daleks from the bomb. It didn't even need to leave the atmosphere its hull was so strong. The two Dalek scouts however would not survive the blast, but they didn't care. The monsters could take no risks in letting the Doctor get away. The Doctor flew the pod as fast as he could, but the Daleks managed to get several more shots in. The pod crashed just as it came into view of the ship the TARDIS was contained in. Fortunately it was only twenty or so feet from the ground, but the monsters soon swarmed the wreckage and started to fire at it.

The Doctor opened the hatch, but the rebels leader and his two subordinates foolishly ran out ahead of him only to be instantly gunned down by the Daleks. The Doctor meanwhile used his sonic screwdriver to destabilise the engine of the pod, which would cause it to explode. The Doctor carrying Zoella, and Dana evaded their enemies blasts before the two Daleks were caught in the exploding pod.

"Doctor we failed" Dana said. "We." Suddenly she noticed the Doctor was distracted by something in the distance.

Dana looked up and saw, over the horizon a wall of fire sweeping across the entire land. The Daleks had detonated their bomb! The Doctor, (carrying Zoella) and Dana ran towards the Tardis which was still in the wreckage of the ship they had originally crashed in. The bodies of the soldiers the first Dalek had killed had been simply left there to rot.

The Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to try and locate the trap the original Dalek had placed around the TARDIS door. Now in less pain and with more focus, he could disable it properly. It still took him almost a minute, which felt like hours for Dana as she stared at the flaming wall consuming everything in its path. The flaming mass came within a mere 40 or so feet of Dana, just before the Doctor pulled her into the TARDIS and shut the doors.

Inside the TARDIS Dana took Zoella down to the medibay, whilst the Doctor began to work the controls. The Time Lord took one last look at Heglozia on the scanner before taking off and saw nothing but fire. The planet had literally been turned into hell. In less than an hour the Daleks fire would spread across every single square inch of Heglozia. There was no chance any life forms on could survive that.

"THE WEAPON HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED!" The Dalek Supreme said. "CONTACT DALEK CONTROL THAT WITHIN A FEW HOURS THE PLANET WILL BE READY FOR CONVERSION INTO A WEAPONS FACTORY."

"WHAT NEWS IS THERE OF THE DOCTOR!" The Dalek Supreme said to its subordinates.

"WE LOST CONTACT WITH THE DALEK UNITS JUST BEFORE THE BOMB EXPLODED. IT DOES NOT SEEM LIKELY THAT HE WAS ABLE TO REACH HIS SHIP!"

"IT IS OF NO IMPORTANCE" The Dalek Supreme said, not sure if it meant it. "THE TIME LORD FAILED! HEGLOZIA IS OURS! WE ARE VICTORIOUS!"

The Doctor simply sat in the console room for the first few hours after the ship had taken off. The Doctor had known about the ultimate fate of Heglozia for a while after they had arrived. He finally remembered where he had visited the Mysorika Galaxy before, many hundreds of years later in its timeline.

At that stage the Daleks had converted every single world of the galaxy into factories, where they created more weapons that enabled them to destroy hundreds more worlds like Heglozia. The Doctor had been sent on a mission to sabotage a super weapon they had been building on one of the planets in his past. For all he knew it could have been Heglozia itself. There was no difference between any of the planets when the Doctor visited the galaxy.

The Doctor had hoped to save some of the Heglozians by taking them to another world. He had failed them just as he had failed to save millions of other planets. How many billions of worlds where there like Heglozia with their own histories and cultures that were obliterated in an instant by the Daleks and lost forever that he knew nothing about? How many of the worlds that he had visited over the years and never returned to again had the Daleks found?

In spite of all his victories against them over the centuries, the Doctor would always carry a sense of guilt when dealing with the Daleks as he given up possibly the only opportunity to destroy them at the time of their birth. Tonight was a gruesome reminder of the consequences of his decision all those years ago.

Dana meanwhile had taken Zoella down to the medibay herself where the bays AI took care of her. Zoella was sedated with drugs whilst the system set about repairing her injuries and resetting her broken bones. Dana was just worried about what would happen when Zoella woke up. For her sake more than anything else. As horrible as it sounded, Dana wondered if perhaps it would have been better to let her die on Heglozia. How can someone expect to live on after their world was gone? How could Zoella forget the sight of her sons corpse buried under the rubble?

What Dana had seen herself would stay with her for many years to come. Every time Dana closed her eyes she not only saw the man the Daleks had made her kill all those years ago, but the flaming inferno Heglozia had become. She had seen many things on her journey's with the Doctor, but never such senseless cruelty and destruction.

When Zoella awoke several hours later, she was completely silent at first, before she collapsing into Dana's arms sobbing. Zoella was a broken woman, and whilst she never truly recovered from what the Daleks had taken from her. The former soldier nevertheless would continue to travel with the Doctor and Dana. She channelled her grief and rage into helping them save other worlds and eras, not just from the Daleks, but other evils across the universe too. Those however are stories for another time.