//------------------------------// // 6. Daleks Have No Concept of Apologies // Story: "Daleks Have No Concept of Friendship!" // by RainbowDoubleDash //------------------------------// A small part of Soldier was devoted to reading, consuming information as fast as Spike’s actions would allow. Eventually, as she learned more, her intellect allowed her to start making leaps of logic, rational deductions, figuring out the fundamental laws of this reality and how they strung together. As she understood more, she got better at understanding everything. The whole time, the greater part of her mind had been assembling the device in her head, starting with how she knew to assemble it in her own reality. As she took in more information, she made adjustments here and there, to account not only for the changed laws of reality and the available materials that she could see in the basement, but also her new form. Once she had enough information, she stood and started listing out the required materials. Taking his small stature and newness to this level of science into account, Spike was highly efficient at gathering materials, as well as following Soldier’s directions. She adjusted her lexicon to use simplified terms, referring to materials and tools by their most basic physical descriptions rather than their intended purpose. The result was surprising speed given the circumstances, producing in an hour and a half what would have taken Soldier in her Mark-III travel machine around half an hour. They also had to take apart some of Twilight Sparkle’s machinery to find the raw materials for the device, but Spike had made the call and assured Soldier that Twilight would not mind. The device had also needed one other component – a crystal of sufficiently robust structure to withstand the rigors of spatial vibration that the device would place on it, to focus it. Spike produced a number of gemstones – apparently the dragon ate them for sustenance – but Soldier was, on inspecting them, unimpressed by the samples that Spike brought her, deeming them inefficient and liable to break quickly… …but not her optical crystal. Not the gemstone that had once formed a part of Soldier’s optical lens on her Mark-III travel machine. On inspecting it closely under a microscope, Soldier found that the crystalline structure of the optical lens was perfect for her needs. So she adjusted the design of the device somewhat to accommodate the larger-than-expected crystal…and hesitated. “What?” Spike asked at length. He had reached out for the crystal to integrate it into the design, but Soldier had stopped him, placing a hoof over the crystal. Soldier looked at her own hoof, somewhat confused herself. “I…do not know,” she said. “The crystal is…Daleks travel in Mark-III travel machines. That crystal was the optical lens of mine. The process that would have destroyed me and did destroy my machine, instead transformed the lens into this.” “Whoa,” Spike said. Soldier had moved her hoof away, and Spike tentatively reached out and took the lens into his hands, holding it up and looking through it. “So the thing you used to look through to see the world in your reality, made it over here with you. But to make it, it had to change, so now when you look through it, you see something different. That’s…deep.” Soldier frowned at the expression. “Explain.” “It’s something that makes you think.” Soldier thought, but despite the genius intellect of a Dalek veteran of the Time War, nothing came to her. She looked back to Spike. “Explain further – ” There was a sound from upstairs, the door to the library opening. “Oh, that must be Twilight,” Spike said, standing up and hopping down from the table, heading towards the stairs that would take him to the library’s main level. Soldier’s ears twitched, listening to the sound of hooves. Her mind raced at the sounds she heard. “I do not discern more than one pony’s hoofsteps. I hear no voices – Twilight had left to gather her comrades, and I have ascertained that she is talkative.” “Well, whoever it is, I’ll have to tell them to come back, then,” Spike said as he went up the stairs, a somewhat laborious task for his short legs. She watched him go through the door and out of sight. “Hey!” he said to the pony that Soldier hadn’t seen yet. “Thanks for dropping by, but the library’s closed. Official Princess stuff, Ponyville town emergency, you know the drill.” “Oh, I know all about emergencies.” All the fur on Soldier’s body stood on end at the voice. It was him. The Doctor was here. And Spike didn’t realize it. Soldier looked down to her crystal, and the device she had assembled. Her hooves scrabbled to grasp the main body of the object even as she grabbed her optical lens with her mouth, then began struggling to hold the former upright and force the latter into place. “I’m here on a bit of an emergency myself,” Soldier heard the Doctor say. She felt cold sweat break out across her body as he spoke. “There’s a very dangerous creature somewhere in town. Ran through it about two hours ago. Looks like a pony but it’s not. Ponies I asked said it came this way, into the library, would you know anything about it?” Soldier dropped the crystal. She suppressed a cry of frustration as she picked it up again, trying to hold the device steady and slide it into place. But she couldn’t brace it properly, and forcing the crystal against the device only caused it to rotate in her hooves. “Well, sort of. That’s what Twilight is getting her friends for. It…came here, but then left. Twilight scared it away. I didn’t see what happened.” Soldier froze a rel, glancing up at the basement door. She couldn’t see Spike…but she also knew that the dragon had fabricated that event. He had lied. Which mean that he had heard the description Soldier had given to Twilight, had recognized the Doctor, and was buying time for Soldier to attempt to complete the device on her own. Soldier’s estimation of Spike rose considerably. She returned to her efforts, adjusting her grip on the device and pushing. The crystal slid into place with a slight click. “Look, Spike, isn’t it? I need to know where the creature is. You don’t know what it is, you don’t know what it’s capable of. I need to stop it.” “Well…why are you asking me? I don’t know where she went.” Soldier winced at the error, knowing the Doctor would catch it as well. She began folding the protective frontal casing around the crystal with her mouth, then closed the casing’s mouth-grip access port as well. She took the whole device, about fifteen centimeters in length, into her mouth and squeezed on the activation button with her teeth. An internal light came on, glowing out through the blue crystal at the front, and quiet whirr came from within the device. The sonic probe was ready. “She?” The Doctor echoed. “I said it looked like a pony. Never said it’s gender.” “Oh! Uh…I saw her.” “You said you didn’t see what happened.” “Well, yeah…but, um…surprise attack!” There was a sound like a blowtorch, and a startled cry from the Doctor, followed by a war-bellow from Spike. Soldier stood straight, inspecting the sonic probe, making sure it worked, before she started charging for the basement’s exit. Such was her haste that she misjudged the placement of one hoof, missing a stair she had been going for. She stumbled, pitching forward and only barely able to throw out her other hoof and stop herself from impacting the next stair up with her head, which would probably cause her to bite down too hard on the sonic probe and either break it or injure herself. Stairs. Daleks did not like anything, but they especially did not like stairs. Soldier heard Spike cry out, and redoubled her efforts, taking the stairs carefully lest she slip again but still proceeding up with all possible haste. She came out into the library’s main chamber and found herself looking at the Doctor, the oncoming storm…with a small dragon grabbing onto one his front legs, which he was waving around rapidly, trying to get Spike off. Soldier noticed a device held at the edge of his own mouth, a metal wand with a purple crystal at its end – a sonic probe of his own. “Spike, I’m being serious – ” the Doctor began, then spotted Soldier. His eyes quickly took her in, standing there, the sonic probe she had clutched in her own mouth that looked similar to a Dalek eye stalk. “Hello, Dalek,” the Doctor said – the menace of his words somewhat undercut by the fact that he was still trying to get Spike off of him. Finally he sat back and used another hoof to push the dragon off, sending him tumbling away through the air to land amidst the library’s sitting cushions. “Fancy meeting you here, of all places. What are you doing here? What are you doing to these people, to Spike, to Twilight? How did you even get here? What did you tell them – what did you do to them? Conversion, turn them into puppets? No, if you had the technology to do that then you wouldn’t look like a pony, wouldn’t need a sonic screwdriver then, would you? Must have been all you could knock together on short notice. I like the design, by the way, very classic – ” “EXTERMINATE!” Soldier exclaimed, swinging her sonic probe forward and biting down on its activator. The Doctor’s eyes widened as he dove out of the way, the sonic blast sailing through where he had been and hitting the opposite wall harmlessly – it was made of wood, after all. If the Doctor had only stood still… The Doctor had ducked behind a table, while Spike ran over and next to Soldier. “Oi!” The Doctor exclaimed. “You didn’t let me finish!” “Correct!” Soldier exclaimed, glancing at the table and its immediate surroundings. Several books, sitting cushions, next to a wall with an electric light – yes. She chewed on the sonic probe, adjusting its settings slightly with her teeth and tongue, then pointed it at the light as she started charging forward, calling out “exterminate!” as she went. At the sonic impact, the light sparked and shattered, scattering glass. The Doctor let out a cry of surprise, distracting him as Soldier leaped over the table…or tried to. Her forelegs made it over, but her hind legs clipped the edge of the table, and she pitched forward onto it, knocking the air from her lungs – and the sonic probe from her mouth. She was also face-to-face with the Doctor, her muzzle only centimeters from his own. The Doctor scampered backwards even as Soldier scrabbled to get her hooves under her, glancing around for her fallen sonic probe. She saw the Doctor closing in on it, raising a hoof to stomp on it – but then a line of green flame cut between him and the probe. He stumbled back just as Spike slid on by, grabbing the probe and running back over to Soldier. “Don’t worry, I got your back!” He said, tossing it up to her. She tried to grab it with her hooves, fumbled a few times, had it drop to the table beneath her, then quickly picked it back up with her mouth. “Alright, no, I really need to know what you told them, Dalek,” the Doctor said. “For that matter how are you even still alive? Doesn’t being a pony just eat away at you? How have you not ended it all already?” Soldier was getting down from the table; the Doctor’s words made her start, stumble, and fall to the ground. She kept her grip on the probe this time, at least. “Hey!” Spike called out, turning to the Doctor. He jabbed a finger at him. “You don’t know how much being a Dalek meant to Soldier! Show a little sympathy!” “For a Dalek?” the Doctor demanded, pointing his sonic probe up and setting off purple light. Soldier heard a metallic snap, and glancing up she saw a chandelier falling towards her. Time seemed to slow. Her body froze at the sight of her impending doom, but a sudden impact on her side sent her stumbling away. She saw it was Spike, he had charged at her and flung himself at her with all the force his small body could muster; her own clumsiness on her hooves greatly aiding his attempt and making up for the considerable difference in mass between them. But now Spike was beneath the chandelier – would be crushed by it. Soldier’s eyes were wide in the slow-motion she perceived from the world. She willed Spike to move, to get out of the way, to not be hurt…and she felt a thrum, a new and odd sensation from around her horn and saw a flash of blue light, as a cobalt-colored aura wrapped around Spike’s form and dragged him through the air and into Soldier’s chest. Time resumed its normal pace. Soldier wrapped her forelegs around Spike and held him tightly as she tumbled to the ground and slid away from the chandelier, across the floor and behind a table. As Soldier set Spike down, his eyes were wide. “You saved me,” he noted. “You…saved me first,” Soldier countered, glancing up from behind the table. The Doctor held his sonic probe in his hooves, was making adjustments to it, though without knowing its configuration Soldier couldn’t guess at what he was attempting. “You are an ally – ” “You used magic to do it,” Spike added, pointing up at Soldier’s horn. Soldier glanced up at her horn, squinting and concentrating as hard as she could. Nothing happened. “A momentary aberration,” she concluded. Pity – it would have been quite helpful right now. “Heh,” Spike said, crossing his arms. “In the heat of the moment, you saw I was in danger and used magic for the first time to help me. You like me. You really are my friend!” “Daleks do not like anything!” “Uh-huh.” He hopped up, grabbing the edge of the table and pulling his head over so he could look to the Doctor, then ducked back down. “What do we do? I think he’s better at this than we are.” “Either of our sonic probes could disable the other if a wave from them were to hit.” “They’re kind of a small target, though…” “Yes. My strategy is to stall until the return of Twilight and her comrades.” She glanced around the main chamber of the library. “We must relocate. Sonic probes cannot interact with wood – ” “Yours can’t!” The Doctor called out. His sonic probe began to whirr again, and Soldier felt the table Spike and she were hiding behind begin to rattle. Without needing any more indication than that, she and Spike bolted from their hiding place just as the table shattered, the Doctor diving through the pieces to where the two of them had been. He was grinning around his own probe. “Took me a few thousand years, but I finally figured it out!” Soldier skidded to a halt, aiming with her own sonic probe. “Exterminate!” She called as she bit down on its firing mechanism. The Doctor neatly side-stepped the sonic wave, but the distraction allowed Spike and Soldier to make it to the stairs and start running up it, from the library’s main floor and up to Twilight Sparkle’s domicile. Soldier only slipped and fell a few times on the way up. “You’re really not good with stairs,” Spike observed. “Let me guess, Daleks have no concept of them?” “Daleks have a concept of stairs. We hate them.” Soldier was looking around the room she was in, taking it all in. The domicile region of the tree was in some ways a miniature version of the library’s main floor, but with more personalized touches in its smaller area, as well as more side-rooms – including the bathroom and the open loft that led to Twilight’s sleeping area. The bathroom. Soldier dashed towards it – sliding a little on a rug that dominated the center of the otherwise wooden floor, but she kept her balance – and closed the door to it behind her as soon as Spike was also inside. “Okay, now what?” Spike asked. Soldier was already examining the piping in the room for the shower, which had a detachable head with hose for the purpose of allowing better cleaning than simply falling water from above would allow. She took down the shower head, turned it on, and pointed it at the door. Water sprayed out an hit the door at a steady but hardly damaging rate as she dialed her sonic screwdriver. “You’re going to get him wet?” Spike asked, stepping back from the spreading water. “Yes,” Soldier answered as she heard hoof-steps coming up to the door and a familiar whirr from beyond it. She bit down on her own sonic probe just as the bathroom door began to rattle, and braced herself. With a loud whine, the sonic probe set the water of the shower hose streaming out at far greater speed. In spite of herself, Soldier was hurled backwards and against the far wall – but the door to the bathroom was blasted off its hinges by the opposite-direction force, sending it flying into the Doctor and then both him and the door tumbling away. Spike stared at the shower hose, still going off as Soldier steadied herself against the far wall and kept the pressure on the Doctor, or at least the door that he had fallen under, now near to the hated stairs. Spike looked back to Soldier. “How does that have anything to do with sonics?!” He demanded. “How do you sonic water into…into doing that?” The shower hose began trembling in Soldier’s grasp; she dropped it and stopped sending sonic pulses through it before it exploded. Naturally, just as she did, the door started picking itself up as the Doctor started crawling from beneath it, looking wet and angry but not particularly hurt. “I will explain later,” she said. “Run!” The two dashed from the bathroom and up yet more stairs – Soldier managed to clip a hoof and stumble only once – and reach the top of the Twilight Sparkle’s domicile. Soldier saw a window, a light, a bed…nothing useful, at least not for her sonic device. And no way out. But as well, no other way up. The Doctor could only advance by coming up the stairs. Up. Daleks had a concept of high ground, knew how to utilize it. Traveling up towards an enemy was dangerous…and the Doctor would know that to. So Soldier pressed Spike and herself against the far wall and lay down low so that they couldn’t be seen from below, staring down the narrow hall that led up to the bed tier. Only by advancing up the stairs could the Doctor reach them…and expose himself to attack. The Doctor did not advance. He’d deduced the same thing. Now all the two had to do was wait… “Spike!” The Doctor called. “What do you know about Daleks?” The words produced a new sensation for Soldier, like all the blood in her body had turned to ice. “I’m not listening to you!” Spike called back down, unfazed. Soldier glanced at him, and he blinked just one eye at her while holding the thumb on one of his hands up. She didn’t know why, but the gesture seemed significant to him. “Why should I listen to anything you say? Soldier told me that Time Lords tried to wipe out the Daleks before they could even exist! And you were the one sent to do it!” “And did you ask why?” Spike had his mouth open to retort, but closed it after a rel. The Doctor jumped in to the silence. “You won’t listen to me? Fine. I wouldn’t either, I’m a madman with a box, you shouldn’t listen to madmen with boxes. But you’re a smart dragon, Spike. You’ve got to know you should always ask questions. So ask the Dalek a question, Spike. Ask it just one question. Ask it what the Dalek primary order is.” Soldier was silent, her grip on her sonic probe tightening in her mouth. Her eyes darted to Spike, then back to the stairs, as Spike stared at Soldier. “Okay…” he said slowly. “Soldier…what is that?” Soldier focused on the stairs. “The prime directive of the Dalek race. What we do in the absence of any other order or command. What drives us, gives us meaning and purpose. The order passed down by the creator Davros.” “Very tautological!” The Doctor called up. “So many words to avoid giving out any information at all. Classic misdirection, I do it myself all the time. But go on then, Dalek. Tell him the truth. It’ll all come out sooner or later anyway, now or whenever you finally get back to it. He’d probably be the first to learn anyway if you have your way. Him and then every pony, everywhere.” Spike’s eyes were locked on to Soldier; she could feel them even if she couldn’t see them. “Soldier?” he asked. “Tell me what it is.” Soldier remained quiet, wincing at what she already knew Spike’s next words were going to be. “Soldier, I’m ordering you.” “To conquer and destroy.” Spike stepped away from her. Soldier’s eyes broke contact with the stairs as she looked to Spike. She was new to emotions herself, but Daleks knew how to read them. She saw shock and betrayal. “Oh, no, you’re not doing it right, Dalek!” The Doctor called up. “You used to have a little song and everything. How did it go…align and advance! Advance and attack! Attack and destroy! Destroy and rejoice!” Spike hasn’t broken Soldier’s eye contact. “Is...Soldier, is that...?” “Yes.” “And did you...?” “I am a soldier. I was bred to receive orders. To follow them. To never question or disobey.” Spike’s eyes somehow grew wider. He backed up several paces. “Wait...wait, when you first told me what you did, when we first met, when I asked what you used to do...” Soldier held the dragon’s gaze a rel more, before looking down, at the floor. She couldn’t meet his eyes, it was...somehow, it was difficult. “Exterminate. Annihilate. Destroy.” Spike backed up again; he was now pressed against Twilight’s bed. “You lied to me,” he said. “You lied to Twilight! After all we were doing to help you! You lied!” She allowed inaccurate assumptions to continue. Did not correct mistakes. Withheld information she knew that the inferior species of this world would take offense to and retaliate against her for. Did not volunteer information without being asked. She was new. She needed to learn, to find her place in the pony hierarchy, and could not afford distractions. “Yes,” Soldier said. She had lied. That was the more efficient way to express what she had done. “Oh, be honest, Dalek, you enjoyed it, didn’t you?” The Doctor called up. “As much as a Dalek enjoys anything. Still, at least he knows how you were using him, tricking him and Twilight and every pony on this world, biding your time until you could get back to form. It’s the Dalek way. Conquer something. Use it up. Destroy it. Move on to the next target. Conquer it, use it, destroy it. Repeat, over and over and over again. Conquer, use, destroy, repeat. Conquer, use, destroy, repeat. Conquer, use…” There was a whirr from behind Soldier, and she let out a cry as the sonic probe in her mouth suddenly sparked, then exploded just as she spat it out. She flinched away as the metal shattered, the fore of the device falling to the ground. Soldier’s optical crystal fell from it, bounced once as it struck the floor, then landed at Spike’s feet. Soldier turned, and found herself staring at the Doctor a few steps up the stairway, his own sonic probe pointed directly at her. “Destroy,” he said, advancing quickly up the remaining steps, standing over the still hunkered-down, now defenseless Soldier. He didn’t break eye contact with her, but he did wave a hoof at Spike. “Hello Spike. Stay there, I don’t want to hurt you, but I’ve been here too many times with too many monsters so please do not work yourself up into having a change of heart that you’ll regret later.” Spike was silent. The Doctor’s eyes darted to him, as did Soldier’s, and both saw a terrified dragon. The Doctor’s eyes returned to Soldier first. “See that? See what you’ve done? This is a kind world, Dalek, a soft world. It never would have occurred to Spike, to any of them, to think you’ve done what you’ve done. The worst monster this world’s ever produced – and it has produced them, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine all the time – but they still wouldn’t hold a candle to a Dalek. The people here have their fights, their scuffles, their little tête-à-têtes, but everything works out in the end. It always does. I won’t let you ruin that, not here, not this world, not this time.” Soldier stared up at the Oncoming Storm, calculating her odds of doing something, anything, against him in this position without Spike’s assistance. The resultant number was low. She could dive at him, attempt to shove him off the bed-tier to the level below, but she would fall with him and both would be injured, and without allies it was not worth the risk. She could try to run, but the Doctor could keep chase easily, and without any kind of weapon of her own she was outmatched. The Doctor had clearly been in this reality for some time, was used to his pony body – an earth pony, she recalled, stronger and tougher and with greater endurance than the unicorn pony that Soldier was. “Nothing to say, Dalek?” The Doctor asked as Soldier’s silence began to stretch. He waved his sonic probe at Soldier, indicating her body. “Oh, right, you’re not really a Dalek anymore, are you? What should I call you? Ponek?” “Soldier,” she said. “My name is Soldier, I was named Soldier.” “Daleks don’t have names.” “I was named by Princess Celestia.” The Doctor shifted at that. “Oh, I am going to have a word with her about that,” he said. “So that’s how you got here then, eh? One of those lost souls that occasionally show up here, and Princess Celestia being kind because she didn’t know any better. The moment she told me about it I knew I was going to have to deal with something sooner or later, that’s just my life. You or a Cyberman or Sutekh or something. The Rani, haven’t seen her in ages. Million-to-one odds, but that’s nine times in ten here. “Get up, Dalek. You’re leaving.” Even as Soldier did, the Doctor bit down on his sonic probe, sending out a new whirr to accompany its purple light. After several rels, a new sound cut through the library-tree - a sound that Daleks feared just as much as they feared the sound of the Doctor’s voice, a long, laborious, high-pitched drone as a tall blue box gradually appeared at the base of the stairs below. “Down you go, inside,” the Doctor commanded, waving his sonic probe at his TARDIS. Soldier complied, descending the steps carefully. The TARDIS’ door swung inward, revealing a far larger chamber inside than was outside, the TARDIS’ main control room. In there was as close to Hell as Dalek thought allowed to exist, just as the Doctor was very nearly their equivalent for the Devil himself. Soldier paused at the precipice, looking back. Spike was still at the top of the stairs, staring down at her in disbelief and betrayal. And the Doctor, right behind her, his earth pony face showing only anger and hatred that looked somehow wrong on an equine face. “I...” she started, then glanced away, struggling to get her mouth to form a series of words to express a concept that was completely alien to a vast mind that had become alien to itself. She’d made the sounds before, under orders, but this time… Soldier looked back up when her mind and some other part of her finally contorted and twisted enough to convey not just the sounds, but the meaning behind them. “I am sorry,” she told Spike. With that, she turned around, and stepped into the TARDIS.