Rita and Martha shivered sitting in the rowing boat as it headed towards the beach. It had been a year since Rita had seen the Doctor, A year since she had spoken to him, been with him and it hurt her hearts. They jumped out the boat as it left running to a man on the beach signalling for them to come over.
"What's your name, then?" Martha asked.
He replied. "Tom Milligan. No need to ask who you are. The famous Martha Jones with the Stone. How long since you were last in Britain?" Tom asked.
"Three hundred and sixty-five days." She sighed.
"It's been a long year," Rita muttered.
"So what's the plan?"
"This Professor Docherty," Martha explained before Rita cut in. "We need to see her. Can you get us there?"
"She works in a repair shed, Nuclear Plant Seven. I can get you both inside. What's all this for? What's so important about her?"
"Sorry, the more you know, the more you're at risk," Martha replied as they follow Tom to a car.
"There's a lot of people depending on you both." He said then looked at the brunette. "You're a bit of a legend."
"And this legend?" Rita raised a brow. "What does it say then?"
"That you sailed the Atlantic, walked across America. That you were the only two that got out of Japan alive." He replied. "The Stone and Martha Jones, they say, their going to save the world. Bit late for that."
"Oh, I tend to not give up hope," Rita muttered as they walked closer to the car.
"How come you can drive?" Martha asked. "Don't you get stopped?"
"Medical staff. Used to be in paediatrics back in the old days. But that gives me a licence to travel so I can help out other the labour camps."
"Great," Martha muttered. "I'm travelling with a doctor."
"Story of my life." Rita chuckled lightly.
They started to drive in silence before Tom started a conversation with Martha. "Story goes that you're the only person on Earth who can kill him. That you, and you alone, can kill the Master stone dead."
Martha glanced back at Rita remembering what she said at the airport a year ago coldly muttering. "Let's just drive."
They continued to drive in silence until reaching the quarry, they ditched the car and continued through on foot. Rita groaned seeing a carving of the Master in stone. "All over the Earth, those things. He's even carved himself into Mount Rushmore."
"I think he just did that to try and remind me of who's in charge." She shivered slightly. "Or just to mock me because he knows how much he annoyed me as a child." Tom looked at her raising his brows in confusion. "He's my cousin, "
Tom nodded his head as they looked over the quarry seeing the millions of rockets. "Best to keep down. Here we go. The entire south coast of England converted into shipyards. They bring in slave labour every morning. Break up cars, houses, anything, just for the metal. Building a fleet out of scrap."
"You should see Russia. That's Shipyard Number One. All the way from the Black Sea to the Bering Strait, there's a hundred thousand rockets getting ready for war." Martha told him.
"War? With who?"
"The rest of the universe, my home planet was out there." the Stone looked up at the sky sighing a little.
"And I've been out there, Tom, in space, before all this happened, and there's a thousand different civilisations all around us with no idea of what's happening here." She explained. "The Master can build weapons big enough to devastate them all."
"You've been in space?" Tom asked shocked not even mentioning Rita being from another planet.
"Problem with that?" She asked.
"No. No, just er, wow." He looked at her then Rita. "Anything else I should know?"
"I've met Shakespeare." Martha said before two of the spheres flew in from behind the statue. Martha and Rita froze looking out towards the rockets.
"Identify, little man." One of the spheres mocked him.
"I've got a licence." He shakily brought it out. "Thomas Milligan, Peripatetic Medical Squad. I'm allowed to travel. I was just checking for-"
"Soon the rockets will fly, and everyone will need medicine." It cut him off. "You'll be so busy." They both laughed flying off. Rita and Martha sighed in relief.
Tom then looked at them both frowning. "But they didn't see you."
"How do you think we travelled the world?" Martha asked showing the TARDIS key.
"I helped make it," Rita mumbled in thought before shaking her head. "Anyways, the Master set up the Archangel mobile network made up of fifteen satellites around the planet, but in reality it was all just cover for him to be able to transmit a low-level psychic field so I wouldn't sense him on Earth as well as a way for him to 'trick' everyone into thinking that he was just a man named Harold Saxon." She finished explaining following Tom.
"Feels like years ago." He shook his head.
"But the key's tuned into the same frequency." She added. "That makes us not invisible-"
"just unnoticeable." Martha cut in.
"Well, I can see you." Tom protested.
"That's because you wanted to".
"Yeah, I suppose I did." He shrugged.
"Is there a Mrs Milligan?" Martha then asked.
"No. No. What about you?"
"No." She shook her head sadly looking at Rita knowing what she was thinking about.
"Stone?" Tom looked at her.
"There was... is someone." She corrected herself. "Anyway Andiamo." She forced a grin.
"We'll have to wait until the next work shift." Tom said. "What time is it now?"
Martha looked at her watch then replied. "It's nearly three o'clock."
-------------
Tom led the two through the fields. he cut a gap through the shipyard's chain link fence allowing them both through before following behind, they ran into a building where a woman was thumping a TV in anger.
Tom spoke up stepping forward in front of them both. "Professor Docherty?"
"Busy." She groaned not looking up from what she was doing.
"They, er, they sent word ahead. I'm Tom Milligan. This is the Stone and Martha Jones."
"She can be a ruby and the other can be the Queen of Sheba for all I care. I'm still busy."
"Televisions don't work anymore." Martha snapped.
"Oh God, I miss Countdown. Never been the same since Des took over. Both Deses. What's the plural for Des? Desi? Deseen?" Tom and Martha glanced at each other as Rita smiled seeing a small hint of herself in the woman. "But we've been told there's going to be a transmission from the man himself." Rita discreetly reached into her pocket smirking and then soniced the TV which then fizzed before showing a black and white image. She didn't use her sonic often since the spheres were almost always around and that it reminded her of the Doctor, but when she did she didn't want to show it off, her and Martha lerned that people will do whatever to survive, they learned that the hard way.
"There!" Docherty beamed.
The screen stopped slightly becoming static to show a cleanish black and white image of the Master. "My people. Salutations on this, the eve of war. Lovely woman. But I know there's all sorts of whispers down there. Stories of a child and a Stone, walking the Earth, giving you hope. But I ask you how much hope has this man got?" He pushed a wheeled chair over clearly showing the Doctor. "Say hello, Gandalf. Except he's not that old, but he's an alien with a much greater lifespan than you stunted little apes." the Master spat as Rita's hearts leapt seeing that the Doctor wasn't as bad as she thought. "But what if it showed?" He laughed causing Rita's eyes to widen slightly and her hands to tighten into fists wanting to punch the TV or just scream our of anger. "What if I suspend your capacity to regenerate? All nine hundred years of your life, Doctor. What if we could see them?" The Master stepped out of view and returned his screwdriver then zapped the Doctor causing him to cry out. "Older and older and older." He murmured. "Down you go, Doctor. Down, down, down the years." Suddenly the convulsion ended and the Doctor was no longer in his chair. The Master looked down at the ground where the pile of his clothes were. "Doctor." He watched as a head with what looked like soft and hurt brown eyes peered out. Rita's hearts ached but she knew he was going to be okay in the end and that pushed her on. The Master then walked back to the camera. "Received and understood, Stone, Miss Jones?"
"I'm sorry." Tom looked at them both. Rita and Martha started smiling before hugging each other. "He's okay." Rita breathed.
"The Doctor's still alive." Martha laughed.
Docherty moved over to pick out some files, she read a couple of papers with information she had on the spheres then handed them to Tom as well as Rita and Martha.
"This is brilliant." Rita breathed looking around the workshop. "The Doctor would love this." She said sadly.
"We'll see him soon Stone."
"I know." She nodded before walking back over to them.
"Obviously the Archangel Network would seem to be the Master's greatest weakness," Docherty explained. "Fifteen satellites all around the Earth, still transmitting. That's why there's so little resistance. It's broadcasting a telepathic signal that keeps people scared."
"We could just take them out," Tom suggested.
"We could. Fifteen ground to air missiles. You got any on you? Besides, any military action, the Toclafane descend."
"They're not called Toclafane." Rita said. "The Master made that up. Stories we were told as children, something you told your younger siblings and friends, like when you would go around telling people ghost stories." Rita explained thinking back to a time when the Doctor practically made her hide under her bed for a week from stories he told her.
Docherty frowned. "Then what are they, then?"
"That's why we came to find you. Know your enemy. We've got this." Martha pulled out a CD from her bag.
"No one's been able to look at a sphere close up. They can't even be damaged, except once. The lightning strike in South Africa brought one of them down, just by chance. We've got the readings on this." She handed the disc to Docherty who inserted it into her computor and hit to as it struggled to read the data. "Oh, whoever thought we'd miss Bill Gates." She muttered hitting it again.
"So is that why you travelled the world? To find a disc?" Tom asked them.
"No. Just got lucky."
"I heard stories that you walked the Earth to find a way to build a weapon." Docherty muttered then beamed as the screen lit up showing the data. "There! A current of fifty eight point five kiloamperes transferred charge of five hundred and ten megajoules precisely."
"Can you recreate that?"
"Yes." Rita automatically answered. "The question is can you Professor Docherty?" She raised a brow at the woman.
She nodded. "I think so." Then paused. "Easily. Yes."
"Right then, Doctor Milligan, we're going to get us a sphere."
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Now I must say, Professor Docherty," Rita said connecting wires. "I wouldn't normally agree with this, but given the current situation I don't have much choice in the matter."
"He's coming!" Martha shouted turning the corner and sprinting towards them. "Are you two ready?!"
"You do your job, I'll do mine!" She shouted. Tom then ran past the clearing and shouted at them. Rita flicked a switch and the electrical field appeared. the sphere flew straight into it getting electrocuted before falling to the floor.
"That's only half the job," Docherty said walking up to the sphere. "Let's find out what's inside." They brought the sphere back to the workshop and watched as Docherty attempted to open it up. "There's some sort of magnetic clamp. Hold on, I'll just trip the-" She stopped as the four quarters of the top of the sphere opened.
"Oh my God!" Docherty gasped staring at what looked like a withered head. The head had wires going into it and a device where a mouth would be. Rita looked at it intently before jumping back as the sphere's heads eyes snapped open.
"It's alive." Docherty breathed.
The sphere looked around before noticing Martha. "Martha. Martha Jones."
"It knows you." Tom stared at Martha.
"And the Stone." the sphere looked at Rita. "Sweet, kind Martha Jones. You helped us to fly."
"What do you mean?" She asked.
"You led us to salvation." It replied.
"Who exactly are you?" Rita asked slightly stepping forward
"The skies are made of diamonds." It whispered Rita frowned until shifting her eyes to Martha as she gasped.
"No. You can't be him."
"We share each other's memories. You sent him to Utopia."
"No." Rita gasped realising what they were.
"Oh, my God."
"What's it talking about?" Tom asked pointing a gun at it. "What's it mean?"
"What are they?" Docherty asked.
"Martha." He looked at her. "Stone, Martha, tell us. What are they?"
"They're human." Rita told them. "They're the human race billions of years into the future."
Martha then began to explain. "I'd sort of worked it out with the paradox machine, because the Doctor said, on the day before the Master came to power, he said 'When he was stealing the TARDIS, the only thing we could do was fuse the coordinates. The Stone and I locked them permanently. He can only travel between the year one hundred trillion and the last place the TARDIS landed.'"
"Which was Earth last year," Rita added. "The Master had the TARDIS, the Doctor's brilliant time machine. We fused the coordinates so he could only go to the end of the universe..."
"So he found Utopia. The Utopia Project was the last hope. Trying to find a way to escape the end of everything." Martha finished explaining.
"There was no solution, no diamonds. Just the dark and the cold, but then the Master came with his wonderful time machine to bring us back home."
"The Master stole the TARDIS which is the time machine." Rita snapped.
"But that's a paradox." Docherty brought the conversation back. "If you're the future of the human race, and you've come back to murder your ancestors, you should cancel yourselves out. You shouldn't exist."
"And that's what the Master did, destroyed the TARDIS and made her a paradox machine."
"But what about us?" Tom asked. "We're the same species. Why do you kill so many of us?"
The sphere began to laugh. "Because it's fun!" Tom pointed the gun at it. Rita shouted for him not to but it was too late, the bang rang out in their ears as the head in the sphere was instantly killed.
Rita groaned out of anger, she sat down on the edge of a bed Martha following, resting her head in her hands she angrily stared at nothingness.
"I think it's time we had the truth, Miss Jones," Docherty said sitting down not bothering to talk to Rita seeing how angry she was. "The legend says you've travelled the world to find a way of killing the Master. Tell us, is it true?" Martha looked at Rita who nodded in approval then began to explain to them while the Time Lady grabbed the bag.
"Just before we escaped, the Doctor told me something." Rita placed the bag down bringing out a box and handing it to Martha. "The Doctor, the Stone and the Master, they've been coming to Earth for years and they've been watched. There's UNIT and Torchwood, all studying Time Lords in secret."
"Something I disagree on, I'm no lab rat," Rita said in thought.
Martha then opened the box revealing a device looking a lot like a gun with a squeeze trigger and four small cylinders along the top as well as three vials of coloured liquid. "And they made this, the ultimate defence."
"All you need to do is get close," Tom informed. "I can shoot the Master dead with this."
"Actually, you can put that down now, thank you very much." Docherty interrupted.
"I second that. But you can't just kill a Time Lord that easily, we can regenerate, sort of a trick if you think about it cheating death if you wish, it can be a blessing or a curse."
"Ah, the Master's immortal. Wonderful." Docherty sarcastically groaned.
"Except for this." Martha held the device up. "Four chemicals, slotted into the gun. Inject him. Kills a Time Lord permanently."
"Four chemicals?" Tom asked. "You've only got three."
"Still need the last one, because the components of this gun were kept safe, scattered across the world, and we found them. San Diego, Beijing, Budapest and London." Martha placed the device back in the box.
"Then where is it?"
"There's an old UNIT base, north London. The Stone found the access codes. Tom, you've got to get us there."
"We can't get across London in the dark." He protested as Rita and Martha packed up their things. "It's full of wild dogs. We'll get eaten alive. We can wait till the morning, then go with the medical convoy."
"You can spend the night here, if you like." Docherty suggested.
Tom declined. "No, we can get halfway, stay at the slave quarters in Bexley. Professor, thank you." He hugged the woman.
"And you. Good luck." She smiled as Martha kissed her cheek.
"Thanks."
"Good luck Professor." Rita nodded shaking her hand before leaving with Martha.
"Martha, could you do it? Could you actually kill him?"
"We've got no choice." Martha sadly replied as Rita swallowed hard.
"You might be many things, but you don't look like a killer to me," Docherty remarked. The Martha nodded then turned to follow Tom and Rita.
---------------------------------------------------------
Travelling on foot they reached the street where the slave quarters were in Bexley, Tom cautiously led them up the street to the house and knocked on the door. He quietly muttered through the door letting them know on the inside that it was him. The door then opened and Tom let the Stone enter first followed by Martha then himself. Upon walking inside the house was full of people crammed around on the floor, the stairs, everywhere.
"Did you bring food?" A woman pleaded.
Tom sadly shook his head leading the two further in. "Couldn't get any, and I'm starving."
"All we've got is water."
"I'm sorry," Martha muttered looking around at the people.
Tom nodded sadly then informed them. "It's cheaper than building barracks. Pack them in, a hundred in each house, ferry them off to the shipyards every morning."
"Are you the Stone and Martha Jones?" A young boy spoke up from the stairs looking through the bannister.
"Yeah, that's us." Martha nodded.
"Can you do it? Can you kill him?" He asked looking at Martha. "They said you can kill the Master, can you?" Rita looked at him worryingly. She knew they weren't going to; these people wanted him dead. "Tell us you can do it. Please, tell us you can do it."
"Who is the Master?" A woman spoke up before groups of people started to question the two.
"Come on, just leave them alone," Tom spoke over the top of the questioning people. "They're exhausted."
Rita looked over at Martha who nodded, this is what they came around the world to do being tired wasn't going to stop them.
"No, it's okay," Rita spoke up. "We can talk."
"We travelled across the world, from the ruins of New York to the fusion mills of China, right across the radiation pits of Europe. And everywhere we went, we saw people just like you, living as slaves." Martha said sitting down on the stairs.
"But if the Stone and Martha Jones became a legend, then that's wrong, because our names aren't important. There's someone else. The man who sent me out there with her." She nodded at Rita. "The man who told me to walk the Earth. And his name is the Doctor. He has saved your lives so many times, and you never even knew he was there, him and the Stone." Martha smiled at Rita. "He never stops. He never stays. He never asks to be thanked. But I've seen him. I know him. And I know what he can do."
"And he's brilliant." Rita smiled. "I love him so much. It hurts my hearts to not be beside him seeing the silly grin on his face when something amazing happens." She started to ramble on faintly blushing after she noticed she was talking about the Doctor.
A woman then burst in. "It's him! It's him!" She cried out. "Oh my God, it's him! It's the Master. He's here."
"But he never comes to Earth. He never walks upon the ground." The boy from before cried out. Rita glanced at Martha and pulled her into a hug.
"Hide them!" The woman shouted. Tom then threw an old sack in their direction covering them with it.
"He walks among us, our lord and master." The boy muttered.
"Martha. Martha Jones." The Master sung loudly from the street. "Oh, my dearest cousin, Stone. I can see you!" He laughed. "Out you come, little girl." He cooed. "And you older cousin. You come out as well. Come and meet your master." He hummed then paused waiting. "Anybody? Nobody? No? Nothing? Positions." He shouted. "I'll give the order unless you both surrender. Ask yourself, Martha Jones. What would the Doctor do?" Martha and Rita look at each other knowing it was time. They took off their TARDIS keys and walked outside.
"Oh, yes." He laughed clapping. "Oh, very well done. Good girls. He trained you well." The Master looked at Martha. "As for you, my cousin, you just couldn't see these lot die." He then looked at the bag slung on Martha's shoulder. "Bag. Give me the bag." She went to move forward but he held his hand with his laser screwdriver out. "No, stay there. Just throw it."
Martha then threw the bag to the ground, the Master sets it to flames with his screwdriver before looking at Rita. "And your sonic." Reaching into her pocket she pulled out her sonic and tossed it in at the Master who caught it in the air. "Very nice." He nodded slightly impressed, looking at it before grinning at her. "I'll be keeping this." He placed it in his pocket then turned to Martha. "And now, good companion, your work is done." Rita went to move forward however turned back hearing the door open and seeing Tom screaming holding his gun. The Master pointed his laser at him and killed him dead then looked back to Martha while laughing. "But you, when you die, the Doctor should be witness, hmm?" He hummed. "The Stone can watch with him then she can helplessly watch as a new Gallifrey is born!" He spun around beaming to himself as they stood there glaring at him. "Almost dawn, Stone, Martha, and planet Earth marches to war."