Their ride down in a different lift was not nearly as eventful, nor as long. The Time Lord and the Trakenite soon found themselves on Level -2. The lift came to a stop and the doors opened to reveal a darkened cargo hold.
"The life support is only going to be set to forty percent down here." Nyssa mentioned. "The cargo bays are generally on low power unless they're having equipment taken in or out."
"Well, this floor did not get that memo." The Doctor said, looking at the panel in the lift. "Someone's cranked it up to maximum." The two stepped out, the Doctor lifting his sonic and bringing up some of the lights. "There we go, much better."
"Let's hope it sheds a little more light on things." Nyssa said.
"Nice pun." The Doctor chuckled, putting his sonic away.
"Happy accident." Nyssa replied with a smile, the two moving out from the area around the lift, checking the cargo crates stacked around. After a few moments, Nyssa spoke up. "I see medical stock, some food rations, even some maintenance supplies, but nothing out of the ordinary."
"Maybe..." The Doctor said, passing by some of the crates and then suddenly stopping. "Oh, maybe, someone has left a door open..."
"How do you mean?" Nyssa asked, stepping over to where the Doctor stood, seemingly waving his hand before a bare wall.
"Feel right here." The Doctor said, wiggling his fingers before the wall in an almost whimsical way. Nyssa approached, lifting her hand and feeling a light breeze hitting it.
"A secret door? Down here?" Nyssa asked.
"Not unheard of. I know a lot of the A-5713's were used for smuggling. Or they will be. Never could keep it in the right order." The Doctor said, scanning the wall with his sonic screwdriver. The whirring sound eventually became more high-pitched around one specific part of the wall, which is where he stopped scanning and started to feel around on the wall. "There's got to be some kind of hidden button or a latch or release or..." His hand pressed a particular part of the wall, and it receded into it with an audible click. "Fantastic!" The wall began to shift, revealing an opening behind it, leading into a much better lit area. Rather than the cargo crates that were scattered around the area, this room was far more open.
"What... is that?" Nyssa asked.
"It can't be-"
"Oh, but I am afraid that it is." A serpentine form with a humanoid torso and arms but none else, slithered across the floor toward the two, the path taking the creature under a massive sphere divided by segments with energy separating the segments. "Hello, Administrator... Doctor."
"Doctor Trizaxa?" Nyssa asked. "What is... this? What is the meaning of this?"
"I thought you, of all people, would be able to recognize a Restoration Lattice." Trizaxa hissed at the pair of them. "After all, it was your pioneering work in cross-species medicine that made this even possible."
"A what?" Nyssa said, her eyes widening. She had no idea what it was, but the Doctor's reaction to it told her it was a serious matter indeed.
"A Restoration Lattice. Supposed to be only theoretical." The Doctor said. "Basically entrapping a supernova and a black hole in the same instance, feeding them off of each other forever and ever in a gigantic loop, generating enough energy to be funneled into... well, restoration."
"I don't understand, why is that bad?" Nyssa asked.
"The theory goes that a Restoration Lattice can overwrite the DNA of every living creature within a star system, if it were ever used." The Doctor said.
"Indeed! The elimination of all disease," Trizaxa's pointed teeth were arranged in an unsettling grin, "a true and complete cure for every ill in the cosmos!"
"Or a way to completely rewrite the DNA of entire worlds." The Doctor said.
"Oh, how you wound me, Doctor!" The serpentine scientist hissed at him. "I would not use this power for such destruction! The achievement in and-HRRK!" A pair of plasma bursts burned through the air by the Doctor and Nyssa, slamming right into Trizaxa's scaly chest. "I... it...unnnnh..." The reptilian alien's eyes widened a bit before he crumbled over to the floor in a heap and was still. The Doctor and Nyssa turned, seeing a figure emerging from the shadows and holding a blaster pistol in hand.
"I would, Doctor Trizaxa... I would."
"Jarac?!" Nyssa exclaimed.
"That's right, Administrator." Jarac, her assistant, was the man who emerged from the shadows holding the gun. "I'm afraid that Dr. Trizaxa had outlived his usefulness."
"So, what? You're the mastermind behind all of this?" The Doctor asked.
"The Administrator's assistant? Who has access to everywhere? Yes." Jarac said, keeping his pistol readily to hand. "Trizaxa was a great man, but so very easy to manipulate. A way to heal on a mass scale? What sort of doctor wouldn't jump at the chance?"
"But I don't understand. Why even do it?" The Doctor asked.
"Tell me, Doctor. Have you ever heard of the Brotherhood of Logicians?" Jarac asked.
"You mean a bunch of loons who were all chuffed about the Cybermen," The Doctor said, "I thought they went out of style a millennia ago."
"Yet, we have survived, Doctor. We have thrived." Jarac said, his weapon still pointed in their direction. "And now, we shall use the Restoration Lattice to complete our great work!"
"Right then. Nice to know that you lot are still completely mental." The Doctor said, a cheerful tone dripping with sarcasm to spare. Suddenly, he squinted and looked over Jarac's shoulder. "Say, is Trizaxa moving?" Jarac looked over and as soon as he was distracted, the Doctor balled up his fist and decked the man in the jaw, knocking him down with that one swift strike.
"Nyssa! Run!" The Doctor cried out, bolting with her back toward the lift. As they arrived, they found the door to the lift shut.
"Doctor, he's-"
"I know! I know!" The Doctor said, taking his sonic and pressing it to the panel, activating it. The lift could be heard descending with surprising speed. When it finally stopped on their level, the doors opened... and the towering figures of several Cybermen were seen within. The Doctor and Nyssa quickly backed away as the cyborgs emerged.
"You belong to us! You will become like us!"
The Doctor and Nyssa were backing away from the Cybermen only to find themselves with Jarac at their backs, with a blackened eye and looking very cross indeed.
"Did I mention I had some friends?" He asked.
"Might have come up, yeah." The Doctor answered.
The pair soon found themselves ushered toward the lift, the pistol in the hand of Jarac and the cyberguns in the hands of the Cybermen keeping them from doing anything other than just what they were told. The lift shot up, up, up through the levels and soon enough they revealed Level 15 - the Command Tower. The doors opened and the two were ushered out into a Command Center that was overflowing with Cybermen. At the heart of it all, however, was their Leader.
"Doctor... we meet again."
"I'm surprised you survived that last gambit of yours." The Doctor said.
"The Cybermen always survive, Doctor. We are the superior species. It is why we will win." The Cyber-Leader replied.
"That's not what I've heard." The Doctor said. "Cyber-Wars not going so well?"
"Our campaign against the humans is proceeding at an appropriate pace. With our control of the Restoration Lattice, we shall accelerate our plans of conquest."
"A universe completely cold and emotionless? Fantastic." The Doctor said, voice dripping with biting sarcasm.
"Jarac..."
"Yes, my friend?" Jarac asked, stepping up to the Cyber-Leader.
"I am given to understand that Dr. Trizaxa has been terminated, correct?"
"Yes, I-HURRK!" Jarac found himself being lifted up by his neck, the Cyber-Leader's metal hand closing around his throat. "I...gnnnh! I got you the Lattice!"
"And now, we shall have to learn Dr. Trizaxa's formulae to operate it, causing us further delay!" The Cyber-Leader replied. "You are reckless... and inefficient."
"I... I know... his formulae! I can operate the Lattice!" Jarac choked.
"You can operate the Lattice?" The Cyber-Leader asked.
"Y-Yes! Yes! I can show you how!" Jarac was very clearly fighting to stay not only conscious, but alive. He was dropped down to the floor once again, holding his neck and breathing haggardly.
"You will adjourn to Level -2 and begin preparations to activate the Lattice." The Cyber-Leader intoned. Then he gestured at two other Cybermen. "Take him, and kill the aliens." The Cybermen began to advance on the Doctor and Nyssa.
"Wait! Wait!" Jarac exclaimed, coughing as he rushed to stand. "They are both scientists! They can help me!"
"The Doctor is a sworn enemy of the Cybermen. We do not entreat with aliens."
"The woman isn't! She's of no use to you dead." Jarac insisted.
"She is of no use to us alive." The Cyber-Leader replied in his electronic near-monotone. He gestured again to the other Cybermen. "Destroy them!"
"Wait!" Jarac cried out again, getting the attention. "I'll need them to access the mainframe. Without Nyssa's credentials, I cannot access it!" There was a tense silence.
"You are lying!"
"I'm not!" Jarac insisted. "Administrator, tell them!" All eyes were now on Nyssa.
"He's... he's right." Nyssa said, getting her voice back into a more even tone. "Without Doctor Trizaxa, I'm the only one on the station who can access the mainframe." The Cyber-Leader stared at her, his motionless eyes showing no indication of the thing that had once been a human being underneath.
"Take them to Level -2. Put them under guard at all times."
"Leader." A Cyberman came up, grabbing Nyssa by the arm and pulling her away from the Doctor.
"As for you, Doctor... we have much to discuss..."
"Doctor, you can't-!" Nyssa exclaimed.
"It's alright." The Doctor cut her off. He had an eerie calm about him, one that Nyssa did not like in the least. He looked to her, those blue eyes showing her something she had known when she'd seen it on the face of her Doctor: he was terrified. Even so, his voice kept that same, even tone. "It's alright, go." Nyssa and Jarac were pulled away, taken back to the lift. "So, what's the plan, then? Trick the stupid apes, get your magic sphere, and start converting entire star systems?"
"Our plans are far grander, Doctor! The scope of our plans is far greater. Plans that you will help us with!" The Cyber-Leader proclaimed.
"Fat chance." The Doctor replied. At that moment, he felt a pair of hands clasp him, one at each shoulder.
"Your consent is not relevant. You will serve our designs!" The Doctor attempted to pull free, but the hands only grew tighter on him. "Put him into the mind analyzer."
"You are insane!" Nyssa snapped at Jarac once they had been returned to Level -2.
"I did what I had to do! I had no choice!" Jarac protested.
"You chose to side with the Cybermen, some of the coldest and most unfeeling of creatures that exist in the universe!" Nyssa shot back. "You could have made any choice and it would have been better than that!"
"It was the only way to ensure your safety!" Jarac yelled over her.
"...what?" Nyssa asked.
"Cease this conversation. You will prepare the Restoration Lattice!" One of the Cybermen standing guard over them spoke up.
"Nyssa, I lo-" Jarac started.
"You will obey!" The other Cyberman spoke up, raising his cyber-gun toward the pair of them. "Commence the preparations or you will be destroyed!" Jarac looked at the Cybermen with a glare, then looked back to Nyssa with a far more somber expression.
"We... we should get to work..." He said, moving over to one of the work stations surrounding the massive, glowing orb. Nyssa looked confused at him, but with the Cybermen watching she decided not to pursue it for the moment and instead moved to join Jarac, all the while her mind racing as she tried to think of a way out of here and to rescue the Doctor.
"Leader, the mind analyzer is ready."
"Excellent!" The Cyber-Leader watched as the Doctor struggled in vain against his restraints. "You would do well to conserve your energies, Doctor. Our mind analyzer will destroy your mental defenses."
"You are underestimating your technologies."
"You are overestimating my interest in your irrelevant words." The Cyber-Leader gestured toward his soldiers. "Begin the analysis!" The Doctor still struggled, beginning to pant and grit his teeth as a blue laser struck a metallic node that had been attached to his forehead.
"The Time Lord's mental defenses are considerable."
"Set the device to Power Level 8."
"Leader, no organic has survived higher than Power Level 7."
"Set the device to Power Level 8! Set it at once!" A dial was turned and the laser widened a bit. The Doctor's panting and gritting of teeth became an outright cry of pain.
"We are receiving images from the Doctor's mind."
"Project them." The viewscreen that was primarily used for the scanners was now displaying images taken from the mind of the Doctor. The first was of the individual they saw before them, the current incarnation of the Time Lord.
"A previous incarnation, Leader."
"Continue." The Leader said, the image shifting yet again.
The images continued to shift, showing the faces of their great enemy. A young man with lengthy hair...
...to the shorter humanoid who had foiled the Cyberaid plan in the Earth year 1988...
...to the fair-haired face in the multi-chromatic coat, the face to ruin their plans in 1985...
...to the one with a strange notion of morality as well as vegetable matter...
...to the incarnation who had foiled their attempts to destroy the planet Vogon...
...to the incarnation most recorded as being on Earth in the late 20th Century, though even the Cyberiad was unclear as to the exact chronological dating of his time there...
...to the incarnation who had confounded a great deal more of their plans that any other, by far the cause of the greatest amount of damage to the Cybermen...
...to, at last, the earliest known incarnation to them, the one who had aided in their defeat and the destruction of their world Mondas in the Earth year 1986.
"Leader, he is attempting to hide something."
"This is obvious." The Cyber-Leader replied. "Increase the output to Level 9."
"Leader." Again, the dial was turned, the Doctor yelling out as the power increased. The faces of the Doctor's lives faded away and another image appeared. A bright, burnt orange sphere that the Cyberaid has identified as a single sphere within the constellation of Kasterborous, coordinates of 10 - 0 - 11 - 00 : 02.
A planet known to the inhabitants as "Gallifrey".
...and it was burning. Destroyed by a weapon of great and terrible power, from its ashes flying the debris of both Time Lord and... Dalek craft?
"The Time Lords and the Daleks... are destroyed?" The Cyber-Leader's tone, were it not heavily electronic and synthesized, might have given some indication of one of the emotions that the Cybermen had long since purged from their being: surprise. Followed, as a metallic hand closed around itself, balling into a fist by the ghost of another: joy. "Excellent!"
"With the destruction of the Time Lords and the Daleks, we can move through all of time and space with impunity!"
"Precisely." The Cyber-Leader said. "We must adjust our paradigm to incorporate this new information. Deactivate the analyzer." The dial was turned back and the Doctor, panting and grunting and looking as though he'd been pushed to high limits of his body's endurance, remained living. "The Doctor has provided us with more than we could have ever hoped for. Destroy him swiftly!"
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