The Time of Change

The General

The General paces back and forth in the Citadel, his hand rubbing his dimpled chin. Androgar stands nearby at a table with a bluish holographic projection beaming off it. The electric silence is broken as he declares, "Another one.

The General's sharp gaze snaps his way, and he groans. "Are you sure the message is from him?" he asks, though he already knows the answer.

Androgar nods solemnly, surely. "Oh, yes."

Two words flash out of the holograph, rotating slowly.

GALLIFREY STANDS

"What's the mad fool talking about now?" the General demands under his breath. No sooner than he says this do three holo-monitors appear, floating above the table with three men's and one woman's face. Their age seems to decrease from left to right, and the youngest-looking of the three is who stands beside the woman. The face in the far-left monitor appears to be an old man; he is the Doctor with whom the General is accustomed to dealing. The other two he does not know, but the one with the woman beside him pipes up first.

"Hello," he greets, chipper. "Hello, Gallifrey High Command, this is the Doctor speaking."

"Hello!" the other man says as he waves a hand. "Also the Doctor. Can you hear me?"

"Also the Doctor," the Warrior adds. "Standing ready."

The General runs a hand through his near-nonexistent hair. "Dear God... Three of them!" he grumbles in shock. "All my worst nightmares at once."

The man in the middle, whose age similarly seems to be the median for the three, makes a firm statement. "General, we have a plan."

The youngest says in an honest voice, "We should point out at this moment that it is a fairly terrible plan."

"And almost certainly won't work," chimes the man in the center.

The oldest rolls his eyes, sighing. "I was happy with 'fairly terrible,'" he quips, annoyed.

His partner replies, "Sorry, just thinking out loud."

The woman, appearing remarkably out of place among this odd crowd, looks down with an amused smile curving her lips. Still, the longer Androgar and the General look at her, the more familiar she seems. They exchange a second-long glance to confirm this. She glances up at the Doctor beside her as he says, "We're flying our three TARDISes into your atmosphere."

"We're positioned at equidistant intervals around the globe," adds on the second-youngest. As soon as he speaks, his eyebrows rise in something like surprise. "Equidistant," he echoes himself. "So grown up."

The woman smiles again.

"We're just about ready to do it," the Warrior decrees.

The General feels himself tense. "Ready to do what?"

"We are going to freeze Gallifrey."

He shakes his head as if he does not understand them. "I'm sorry, what?" he inquires sharply.

"Using our TARDISes," the middle Doctor explains patiently, "we're going to freeze Gallifrey in a single moment of time."

The Warrior Doctor nods. "You know, like those stasis cubes?" he interjects. "A single moment in time, held in a parallel pocket universe."

"Except," the woman inputs at last, her voice sweetly high-pitched and gentle, "we're going to do it to the whole planet."

"And all the people on it," the middle man agrees.

"What?" demands the General. "Even if it were possible, which it isn't, why would you do such a thing?"

The Doctor with the woman does not hesitate in the slightest. "Because the alternative is burning," he shoots back.

"And I've seen that," the middle man says.

The man who spoke first finishes, "And I never want to see it again."

Panic arises in the General's chest, and he shakily stares at Androgar, whose eyes are just as wide and frightened. "We'd be lost in another universe, frozen in one moment. We'd have nothing."

Half a beat later, as he watches the woman look at him thoughtfully, Androgar is suddenly struck with a tidal wave of shock, and he reels back as if he has been physically pushed. Her name barrages through his brain like canon fire even though it makes no sense. It should not even be possible.

"Teacher," he whispers, unheard by anyone but himself.