"Wait!" shouts the Doctor, desperation in his voice. "I've only met you twice before. If I've foiled you more times than that, then I haven't done it yet! You know as much about the laws of Time Travel as the Time Lords do, so -- "

 A pregnant, sinister pause, then the Gord answers simply, "Yes." Something disturbing flickers behind her eyes, something fierce. "I do indeed. That's why the noosphere is in place, to keep you out of *my* domain, and yet you consistently *break* *the* *treaty*!"

 And then the fierce something leaves, replaced by the sweetest smile next to the Kandy Man's. "But if you've only met me twice, then killing you now would set up a rather large and possibly universe destroying paradox, correct?"

 Cautiously, the Doctor nods, not at all happy with where he sees the conversation going.

 "Oh, goody!" purrs the Gord, casually shooting the Doctor through the chest.

 The world goes white...

 The Doctor's anguished cry seems to hang in the air for an obscenely long time, but at least it leads Wil to the Doctor's room. Cricket bat -- the one he'd appropriated from the dreadfully overgrown pavilion the day before -- resolutely in hand, the young man kicks open the door with a gusto that some small part of him is sure would make even Jadi proud; it's a small part quickly and brutally jumped on.

 "I've been shot!" the Doctor exclaims in a rather wounded tone as Wil lunges into the softly illuminated room, bat above his head ready to smite any and all foes. Pristine white sheet held tightly to his slim almost hairless chest with one slender hand as though pressing against an injury to stop it bleeding, a naked leg emerging from the covers to drape over the edge of the bed, he looks at his would-be rescuer accusingly. "You hit me."

 "No I didn't!" Wil protests, lowering the bat a little guiltily. "Are you all right?"

 "Of course I'm not all right," the Time Lord snaps tetchily, yanking away the bed sheet. "See?"

 "Um," Wil says, blinking a little. "Is that a hickey?"

 "Oh my," he's answered as a look of first surprise then immense relief crosses the Doctor's face. "Um, Wil, what exactly *are* you doing in my room in your pyjamas with a cricket bat?"

 "Apart from discovering what a Time Lord doesn't wear you mean?" Wil answers a tad awkwardly, a subtle hint the Doctor doesn't quite appear to notice. "I actually thought I might be saving your life. I had this awful nightmare about some museum and this awful old woman and then I woke up and heard your scream -- "

 "The Gord," the Doctor interrupts. "The old woman was called the Gord."

 "But how...? Don't tell me, an old Time Lord mind trick?"

 "No," the Doctor sniffs a little disdainfully, sliding out of bed. "Different nightmare, same villain." He bites his thumb thoughtfully. "Dreams and portents, Wil. Dreams and portents. I think we're in very very serious trouble. You'd better go get the others; I have a feeling they may very well have experienced something similar."

 A back-water star flares brightly, tendrils of super heated plasma shooting into space like whips, seeking something to grasp and burn and vent its ancient power upon. If it were able to, it would lash the eight children clustered around it, let them feel its deadly touch, but they are all too far away. In a few millennia from now, when the star has grown bloated and devoured itself, there will be time enough to caress and destroy.

 For now, it contents itself with aggressive and awe-inspiring displays of light and fire and solar winds.

 Orbiting their parent, the eight planets that are its offspring circle warily, and are in turn surrounded by their own children, taking what succor they can from the thrashing star. Three are rocky and solid, molten cores writhing in their spheroid shells, the other five are luminous gas giants -- three of them ringed, one almost large enough to follow in its parent's footsteps and ignite the thermonuclear furnace of starhood. Only two of them have fostered life: the would-be star and the rocky little globe third from the star, and only the gas giant's is indigenous, blissfully ignorant that there are worlds beyond their own.

 Something harsh and unlovely emerges from a fold in space and time, aiming for the rocky little globe with its twin moons. Huge and utilitarian, a star burning at its heart, it slides like a knife into the system, as unaware of the life forms thriving in the gas giant it passes as they are of it. A hulking mountain of metal and composites and ceramics, it looks more repaired than manufactured, old before its time, mean and aggressive and bristling with weaponry. Nine hundred and forty metres long, massive engines at the rear, long spear-like sensor pylons jutting from its blunt bow, super-structures emerging from all sides, it had been state of the art forty years ago. Constant upgrades between trips ensure it stays in something like that way.

 There is the bright flash of engines igniting as something drops away from the ship's belly. Dark, delta shaped, it knifes into the planet's seething multi-coloured cloud cover, its pilot avoid the lightning bolts -- scores of kilometres long -- that arc through the sky around it. When it does run afoul of one of the titanic energy strikes, a shimmering gossamer web of energy coruscates around it.

 Emerging severely shaken but otherwise unharmed from the bottom of the storm, the dropship spirals ever downwards towards a complex of buildings composed of uniformly grey, uniformly unaesthetic, preformed slabs. It's a style of building common to most military forces the cosmos over, the sort that can be shipped in and assembled in an afternoon, designed utterly for utility. But there are those who appreciate the sad irony of it all: ugly buildings for an ugly way of life.

 Another flare of light as the retro thrusters fire, and the dropship settles down onto a fusion-formed tarmac with something loosely describable as a sigh. A gangplank lowers itself, disgorging the passengers into the wet and the cold. Without preamble, they scurry into the nearest building.

 "Colonel Mon, sir," Edek salutes briskly as the group enter the room where he has been waiting. "Glad you made it through."

 "We nearly didn't," Mon returns the salute. "Those damn Merabalans somehow managed to get through the outpost's defense perimeters and blew it to bits. If we'd not left early, we would have died along with everyone else."

 "A traitor?"

 "By the Doctor I hope not," Mon sighs, rubbing his eyes. "That Gord bitch is hammering us enough without help from our own side."

 "Ahem," one of the others clears their throat. Mon waves a hand in their direction, and for the first time notices just how tired his commanding officer is, how trying to stay one step ahead of their inscrutable foe has wearied him. Even the normally immaculately pressed suit has started to develop creases.

 "Major, this is our team, such as it is. Professor Von Wer," and here he points to a tall befreckled red-head -- her hair rather more aflame than his -- in her 30s and a dark skinned blonde man in his late 40s, both dressed rather bizarrely even by academic standards, "and her associate Professor Henderson are experts in the archaeology and the mythology of the Doctor." Another flick of the fingers to a tall, excited looking man with even worse dress sense. "This is Professor Tern, our xeno-technology expert."

 "I hope this was worth the trip," Von Wer remarks with a forced smile. She, as do the other scientists, haves the look of people who have survived their first hostile encounter with the enemy and don't know quite how they did it when so many others have died.

 "I think you'll find it will be," Edek offers. "We found this site half a high-month ago by accident. When we discovered the ruins, we sent a team in with the hope we might find something of tactical or strategic value." He ignores Henderson's snort. "That's when we sent for you. It's this way."

 The five of them stop by the canteen before walking down a rather bleak corridor connecting the control tower where Edek had met Mon's team to the dome above the ruins. Brilliant ghajen lamps placed around the dome's central rim illuminate what was once quite obviously a bunker entrance of some variety. The material from which it had been constructed, countless millennia ago, still appeared to be relatively solid. Apart from the gaping wound in one wall were something had exploded outwards at one point with enough force to dropship settles down onto a fusion-formed tarmac with something loosely describable as a sigh. A gangplank lowers itself, disgorging the passengers into the wet and the cold. Without preamble, they

 "That's what you're here to tell us," Mon answers him.

 Making their way through the hole, the group descends.

 "You've read the preliminary results the Major's team was able to gather, of course," Mon says to Von Wer. "Do they match anything that you two have come across before?"

 "Hard to say, dear fellow," Henderson answers, tapping his upper lip thoughtfully with his umbrella. "We've never come across anything of this magnitude before. Won't it be exciting to find out?"

 Edek hears Mon sigh. His commander has never appreciated scientists at the best of times.

 Five minutes pass before they reach the end of the corridor, made from the same material as the bunker itself and illuminated by lumas his people have strung along the wall every ten metres. Of course there are other rooms and corridors branching off the main one, but it's what lies at the end that, for now, holds the greatest importance.

 "Oh my," Von Wer says in a small voice, her sentiments echoed by the other three who, like her, are seeing this for the first time. "It's...it's beautiful."

 "That and the other artifacts we've uncovered here could mean the end of the war," Edek says with something approaching glee.

 Tern just shakes his head in disbelief. "To think, I've actually managed to live to see the Temple of TARDIS."

 "We've been asleep for five days," Angela confirms. "My internal chronometer agrees with the TARDIS, and it's not like a time ship would be wrong about time."

 "Quite," the Doctor agrees, emerging into the console room carrying an antique silver tea service laden with good things to eat, the sort of things that make Angela's mouth water quite readily. Not surprising, really.

 "Five days, and we all had variations on the same really really bad dream," Wil qualifies before stuffing his mouth with the biggest scone on the plate, smearing cream and jam on his lips, then licking them clean with loud gusto.

 Jadi jerks his thumb towards one corner of the room violently. "It's got to be that thing," he declares, selecting a sausage only slightly smaller than what Angela was used to. "I told you we shouldn't have brought it onboard."

 Near the clocks sits an ominous-looking gray box, scored and pitted with age and decay, faded red lettering covering each side. She and the Doctor are probably the only ones who can see the faint mist put out by the cryogenerator and hear the energy signature.

 "He's right, Doctor," she agrees. "Remember how we all suddenly got so tired after we materialised around it, how we decided to catch a nap before dumping it in this system's star?" She claims four of the freshly baked apple muffins.

 "And that box was in those crukking dreams," her love puts in for good measure.

 "Hey guys," Wil interjects before the Doctor can answer. "I think we've got company."

 To Be Continued.