Chapter Text
Luna scanned the burnt orange sky, hearts leaping when she spotted a black speck. Her palms grew damp with sweat as she locked onto the object, zooming in on the touch screen to see...two birds, wings outstretched, riding the air currents. She sagged with relief.
“False alarm?” asked Merrick from the other scanner.
She nodded. "Birds again."
He leaned back to stretch and yawned. “Good. That means there probably aren’t any war ships nearby.”
She scrubbed a hand down her face and drew a deliberately deep breath. “Don’t jinx it.”
“Come on, Luna, we’re in the—”
“Safest place on Gallifrey, I know.” She looked up from the view screen, scanning the sky, rows upon rows of sky trenches hovering above. “I just...I’ve been having nightmares. Well, more specific nightmares, different from the usual ones.”
Merrick eyed her carefully. “Premonitions?”
"Maybe.” She ran her fingers along the cracked screen of the vortex manipulator on her wrist, the one her sister had been wearing when she— when— her dead eyes stared at the sky, lightless, no hint of regeneration. She must have been killed before she had the chance to — Luna shook her head. “I don’t know, maybe the war is getting to me.” She met his eyes. “Do you even remember how long we’ve been stationed here?”
He frowned. “Four months? No...two. I think.”
“See? I don’t know if I’m seeing the future, or just having memories bleed through from an alternate timeline.”
“Memories of what?”
She hesitated, turning her gaze back to the sky. “The end.”
“Of the war?” He asked cautiously.
She swallowed. “Of everything. The Daleks, us, the Universe...everything.”
Merrick said nothing.
Luna looked over to see him staring through his viewing screen. “Sorry, didn’t mean to bring you down, I just—”
“I’ve seen it, too.”
A chill ran down her spine.
“But what can we do, eh?” He looked up with a wry smile. “Time can be rewritten, and premonitions don’t always come true. All we can do is keep a lookout for danger and hope for the best.”
Luna did her best to return the smile. “Where do you get all that optimism?”
He chuckled. “Well, I regenerated when I thought I wouldn’t get the chance, so you could say I was born lucky.” He cocked an eyebrow towards her. “I also get to spend my days next to a lovely time lady.”
She rolled her eyes in fond exasperation as her cheeks grew warm. “Careful. You might find yourself on watch with Rendal if the captain thinks you’re...distracted.”
Merrick groaned. “Anyone but him. I’ve heard enough about ghosts to last the rest of my lives.”
She shrugged. “I thought the theory that they’re just beings in other realities was interesting.”
"That’s one thing, but dead people choosing to hang around in some kind of twisted afterlife? Completely irrational.”
“Yeah. Besides, if they were real there would probably be Dalek ghosts.”
He snorted. “Dalek ghosts?”
She held an arm out in front of her nose and shuffled towards him. “Wooooo, exterminaaaaaate.” She bumped his shoulder with her fist and he batted it away, laughing.
“Lunamaralindura!” barked a gruff voice. “Back to your post.”
Luna stiffened and turned around with a smart salute. “Yes, sir.”
The captain watched disapprovingly as she marched back to her viewing screen. “We’re here to protect the most strategically important city on Gallifrey, not fraternize . Is that clear?”
“Understood, sir.”
"Good. Carry on.” He marched away
Luna waited until he was out of earshot and breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, he hasn’t re-assigned us yet. At least we get to finish out the day before you’re subjected to another irrational diatribe.”
Merrick was silent. She looked at him and his brows were scrunched in concentration as he manipulated his view screen.
“Merrick? What's—”
His eyes widened. He looked up at the sky and turned white as a sheet.
She followed his gaze and her hearts dropped to her stomach.
The sky darkened with hundreds—no, millions— of black dots. She could faintly hear their mechanical voices screaming for death. For extermination.
“Man the turrets!” Merrick shouted, leaping into the seat of the nearest one.
Luna ran towards the other turret, hearts pounding in rhythm with her feet, visions of falling to her death then regenerating and dying again flickering through her mind. Alarms blared as the rest of her squad poured out of the barracks, staser rifles aimed at the cloud of death. She leaped into the seat, pulled down the eyepiece on her helmet connected to the targeting system and locked onto the nearest group of daleks. The gun shook with each blast but with every dalek downed, more kept coming. Staser blasts and the screams of her falling comrades filled the air, the ground shook as fire and debris rained from the crumbling trenches above. Acrid smoke clogged her nostrils.
A wave of heat washed over her skin, followed by a boom. She glanced to her right.
Merrick’s turret was gone, a smoking hole in its place. He lay behind it, glowing gold.
A dalek’s blast snuffed out the light of his regeneration.
Time seemed to freeze as he went limp and the life left his eyes. Luna turned back to the daleks, screaming as tears streamed down her face and her chest filled with boiling rage.
The turret exploded and threw Luna back onto the ground. She looked down. Her stomach lurched at the amount of blood and torn flesh on her legs and torso. Her head rolled to the side, gaze catching on her sister’s vortex manipulator. She’d never used it, she didn’t even know if it still worked.
She groaned and curled up as a wave of agony wracked her nerves. Blood pooled around her, and she knew there was no surviving this. Her skin began to glow.
Three daleks loomed above her.
She squinted, saw the threads of time weave and fray and snap before her eyes, but there was one that kept going, wrapped around her wrist.
The daleks aimed. “Exterminate!”
With the last of her strength, she flipped the cover off the vortex manipulator, slapped the activation button, and disappeared into the Time Vortex.