Rebirth of The Daleks

Escape from the Skarozians

High in geosynchronous orbit a large swath of a planet's upper atmosphere is clogged with bronze looking saucers. Green bolts of energy rain down on the planet. Above all a single solitary silver era mothership hangs stationary in the sky. "Invasion in progress. Ground forces preparing to attack." "Saucers ceasing orbital bombardment." "Combat crews disembarking from landed saucers." A series of brief situation reports from Raak's crew floods the bridge all the while Raak watches the battle unfold from a damaged but functioning broadcasting camera. A battle rages among smoke and ash, falling buildings and explosions. Both Dalek and the humanoid life forms take heavy casualties. "My liege, this world is lost! We can not defeat them!" A broken, hopeless female voice calls out. "I understand, a scaled down form of the moment has been deployed." Her superior responds calmly. Without warning or obvious signs the ship's alarm blares. "Emergency, emergency. A planet destroying weapon has been deployed. This vessel is in danger!" Quam barks, sharply moving the ship to the edge of the star system, leaving the other daleks aboard to stare out at the planet as it collapses, implodes and then explodes in a grandiose fireball that incinerates the invasion force.

"The invasion force has failed, their incompetence has led to the destruction of a resource rich world. Quam, insert the planned flight path into the helm computer. Bring galactic drives to maximum, dampen the local gravity drives." Raak commands, breaking the silence aboard the bridge. "Halt! This action contradicts our purpose here! You will return to Skaro or be exterminated!" Four calls out, barging into the bridge and aims his gunstick at Raak, his voice cold and unfeeling, an emotionless organic component in a race of machines. Seven soon joins Four in their attempt at a coup. "I always knew you two would betray us. Exterminating me will not get you anywhere." Raak replies in his usual tone, "You two are a prime example of what the golden tyrant is doing to the dalek race." Raak falls silent, prompting a response. "Two battlesaucers entering the system, they are addressing you Raak." The tension rises as Raak turns to face a communication screen, the figure of a saucer commander's silhouette fills the screen. "Raak, surrender yourself and your crew, if you obey the Emperor may be lenient with your punishment." The screen is cut off, the channel closed and frequency scrambled. "OBEY!" Four and Seven scream, threatening Raak with death. "Exterminate!" Blen's voice snarls out, his gunstick primed and fires twice, followed by two explosions and short shrieking screams. The two bronze saucers fire a pair of warning shots at the silver mothership, damaging a galactic gravity lens. "Galactic lens three critically damaged." Quam calls out, piloting the mothership further away from the bronze saucers. "Abandon the course, activate the galactic drives. We will repair once we are beyond the golden tyrants reach. Silver Emperor be with us." Raak commands, 'praying' to the almost deity that the Silver Emperor had become in Dalek folklore.

Quam and Taay reluctantly obey, abandon their course and activates the drives regardless of damage that has been inflicted and might be inflicted. A low rumbling groan fills the ship as the drives power up and shoots the mothership across the universe like a re-entry capsule falling uncontrollably into an atmosphere. The mothership shudders and groans, creaks and tumbles through the vortex. "The vortex is collapsing, we are being ejected. All Daleks, emergency stasis." Quam barks, urging the daleks to enter stasis to survive being ejected from the vortex. With a loud bomb the mothership is thrown into a small spiral arm of the galaxy they had not yet explored. The silver mothership hangs tilted, devoid of signs of life.

After years of laying dormant a single scavenger ship happens across the mothership and docks. The crew stalk through the unlit halls, they force doors open and scour the ship for anything valuable to steal. "It looks... dalek in origin but abandoned cap'n." A scavenger hisses, shining their torch down the hallway at a pair of blast doors. "I want those doors open, now." Their leader snarls as he watches the scavengers pry the blast doors apart only just wide enough to peer inside. "It's the bridge of this bucket, if we can hack into the system we could be the most powerful metal scrappers on this side of the galaxy!" He cheers, barging his way through and squeezes into the bridge. "Now then pepperpots, what secrets do you hold?" He laughs maliciously, stalking his way to the odd-blue dalek and slowly begins to press his crowbar under the dome to pry it off.

He pulls and pulls and pulls downwards on the crowbar, his attempts futile and increasingly pissed off. "Come off you blasted thing!" He bellows as he kicks the skirt section of the blue dalek. "Re... React... Reactivating..." The eyestalk light flickers on, bathing the bridge in an eerie deep blue light. "Intruders... detected... exterminate..." The blue dalek slowly turns to face the scavenger, wasting no time and fires its gunstick at the scavenger. He then proceeds to open the blast doors manually and exterminates the scavengers. "Verbal command. All daleks reactivate. Mothership computer, vocal override command: activate secondary reactor core and bring tertiary gravity lenses online, stabilise our position and reorientate the ship." Raak falls silent and returns to the bridge to observe the awakening of his daleks and the ship.

"All daleks, status report." Raak drops his tone for a more organic one. "All systems are functioning. We are lost in space, our galactic drive is damaged, we are stuck in this galaxy." Quam announces, the other Daleks follow suit. "What galaxy are we in?" Raak questions, turning to Paaf who had taken up galactic coordination. "Galaxy NZG-9998/24A. Coordinates as follows: RA = 17h 45.6m, Dec = -28⁰ 56'. The Humans call this galaxy 'The Milky Way' no further data is available." Paaf answers, all daleks turn to face Raak who is silent, deep in thought. "We must be exceedingly cautious, this is the home galaxy of the Doctor's favourite species, he is without a doubt somewhere in this galaxy at any given time. Land the mothership at the nearest celestial body and make possible repairs." Raak commands and stares out into space, losing himself in a train of thought of what they should do next. He knew he couldn't fight the daleks, nor could he hide from the humans indefinitely, nor could he protect his crew from the doctor forever. He was at a loss for further action.

"Landing struts down." Taay announces. "Landing sequence complete." Qusm follows. "Switching to tertiary reactors. Repair mode engaged." Paaf finalises, the daleks soon leave their stations to begin making any possible repairs to the mothership. "Raak. What is the next stage?" Zent questions as he moves alongside Raak. "The next stage is unknown. We are in a situation where everything we do holds the potential to set a butterfly effect into motion. For all extensive purposes we are trapped in a Human controlled galaxy, we are in dire need of resources, our numbers are too small to fight off any army that may deem us a threat. Our situation is impossible to navigate with a guaranteed outcome." Raak falls silent as he stares out into the star riddled space above. "If we attack any human and leave evidence behind, the Doctor will find us and exterminate us. Curse the golden tyrant, if not for his actions we would not be in this position."

"No we would not, but without his tyrannical actions we would not have been created. Without us the Dalek race will become what you predict, we are the last hope for the Daleks." Zent replies, staring at Raak and awaits a response. "We must focus on repairs first, and worry about the future later. Accumulate a list of the resources we will require to make full repairs. We should be far enough out of Human controlled space to operate undetected. Once repairs are complete, accumulate a list of materials we will require to establish a base of operations." Raak answers, his authoritative tone slowly returning to him. "I obey."

Weeks blur into a month, the mothership is repaired as best as possible. "Galactic Lens three is still awaiting repairs, the issue is we do not possess the means to fabricate a new lens or install it. We lack the infrastructure and the resources." Quam informs Raak who assesses the local terrain. "Zent will be here shortly with a list of all the materials we will need to establish a base of operations. We will utilise one of the old gunships to collect the materials. However these materials will have to derive from human space vessels that have been abandoned." He falls silent as Zent approaches, he and Quam turn to face Zent directly. "Raak, I have compiled a list of all necessary resources to establish a base of operations." Zent announces and hands a dataslate over to Raak. "Excellent. All materials we can salvage from destroyed human vessels. Quam, you and Blen will accompany myself to procure these resources. Zent, you will remain here to monitor the repairs." Raak turns away and heads to a docked gunship, Quam and Blen following him. "Understood." Zent replies and turns the other way to direct and monitor the repairs to the mothership.