Fanfic: Smile of the Rani
Jun. 27th, 2009 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmatonakTitle: Smile of the Rani
Characters: Donna Noble, the Rani
Spoilers: Mild through JE
Rating: PG-13 (cursing)
Summary: The Rani needs a consultant.
Cursing her hangover and whomever it was at the door that had the extremely poor taste to be knocking, Donna Noble wobbled up to her peephole and surveyed her front walk.
She was surprised to see a brunette woman, tall, with an air of self-possession and serenity so nearly tangible as to be apparent even in Donna's quick, fish-eyed glimpse. The woman's suit was impeccably stylish, verging as close into severity as possible without actually crossing the line. This woman was plainly a representative of authority; that being the case, Donna gave some brief thought to pretending not to be in, but ultimately concluded that doing so would merely postpone the inevitable, and, moreover, leave her less time to deal with the unpleasant consequences of coming to someone's official notice before whatever deadline was involved (a deadline being compulsory in this situation) had come and gone.
Donna opened the door and smiled blearily at her visitor. "May I help you?," she said, leaving the addition of ...your majesty? unspoken via heroic effort.
A mobile in the woman's hand began to beep. Without looking down at it, she answered Donna:
"Yes, it seems that you may."
Then she threw a leech at Donna's forehead.
The sensation of being gently restrained was apparent before Donna opened her eyes, but she felt so relaxed and content she could not bring herself to care. The smell of disinfectant and the hum of machinery provided context for both the restraint and the fuzzy, pleasant feelings, and Donna was surprised not to see an IV bag when she opened her eyes.
She was strapped to a well-padded gurney in a small room, well-lit from no visible source. Her imperious visitor was frowning intently and studying a computer monitor with no attached computer, positioned in such a way that Donna herself could not see what might be on it.
Donna cleared her throat. "You threw a leech at me."
"Technically not a leech, but substantially similar."
"Uh huh." Donna furrowed her brow. "I should be really fucking furious at you. But I'm not. Whatever you've got me on is top shelf."
"It ought to be. I custom designed it for your metabolism. You're in my ship. I grafted some additional structures into your brain, but according to this you haven't accessed them yet."
"You did what?"
"Augmented your brain. Apparently, you've lost access to some memories. I need them. So we'll begin with some of the most likely associations." Before Donna could marshal anything else in response, the woman began to intone words, as if reading them off a list, without pausing: "Doctor, TARDIS, Time Lord, telepathy, alien, regeneration..."
Donna spasmed against her straps, taken by a vivid memory of light, light pouring out from my eyes and my hands, burning me away... After a moment, the sensation faded, along with her previous feelings of well-being.
"There's the memory cascade," the regal woman said.
As she came back to herself, surfing through oceans of knowledge she had forgotten she knew, Donna realized who the other woman must be.
"Rani."
"Yes." And the smile of the Rani was triumphant.
Donna thought, hard, for several minutes. The Rani waited, composed, and let her do it. Eventually, she spoke:
"You're after the Doctor."
"Merely his technical expertise. Fortunately for you, he outdoes me in temporal mechanics, and I know enough biology and telepathic science to compensate for his ham-handed butchery. Do you understand what he did to you?"
"...no."
"Then he probably doesn't understand it himself. Typical, really. You went through a partial fusion with him-"
"-I told him, I wasn't having that sort of thing! There's to be no fusing with me, I said! I may not have used those exact words, mind you, but the implication was clear!" Donna heard a noise from the Rani that might have been a muffled chuckle, and exulted. Keep her laughing, that's the trick. Stay amusing, stay alive.
"A telepathic fusion, nothing biological. That was the problem. The Doctor's knowledge and life experience- which, I must admit, are both considerable- were pressed upon you, and you were given no time or training to deal with them. Time Lords vary enormously with regeneration, and your brain wasn't equipped for ten extra personalities."
"Especially ten of those. I never wanted to raise a thousand-year-old hyperactive child, much less be one." A brief giddy memory, Daleks spinning through the air at her hand, while she beamed with manic glee...
"Quite so. Your persona was buckling under the strain. It appears the Doctor waded in and, with his usual disdain for an elegant solution when a quick one is available, forcibly repressed the relevant memories."
"Did he." Donna's voice was flat.
"As best I can tell from surveying the neurological wreckage. What I have done is recover the technical memories- the impersonal data, the operating knowledge retained by a so-called 'amnesiac', along with the minimal personal memories that must unavoidably come along. I have done this-"
"-because you needed to." Donna finished. And the smile of the Rani was not friendly.
Donna examined the Rani's scarred control room with a critical eye. The once-pristine hexagonal control surfaces bore almost no relation to her- the Doctor's, rather- TARDIS, with its encrustation of random, baroque, patched-together controls. On the other hand, the walls were visibly warped, and parts of the consoles and time rotor were blackened. She whistled softly to herself.
"How did all this happen?" Facing no reply beyond dour silence, she continued: "I can try to repair the damage in ignorance, but working internally with no shipyard and no block transfer algorithms- well, you'll have regenerated and I'll be dust long before the job's done."
The Rani sighed. Two chairs rose out of the floor and each of them sat in one. Donna was bemused to discover a cup of tea at her elbow, and she sipped it as the Rani began.
"In the early stages of the War, I was on Miasimia Goria. I have an ongoing project there, you will recall. After an entire generation of my breeding stock was wiped out by a change in history, I used my original time capsule to insulate the planet from further damage, as best I was able. I was able to breed a variety of vortex manta that- never mind, the Doctor couldn't follow this and neither can you. I was only vaguely aware of the War's details, and that was more involved than I cared to be.
"The Time Lords came to me after their latest sortie against the Daleks went down in flames. They proposed I create a biological weapon against the Daleks. I warned them that such a thing would be ineffective. That cow of a President promised me Miasimia Goria as a- research colony, I suppose. I was promised my work would be allowed to proceed without further interference from Gallifrey.
"The weapon I developed infiltrated Dalek casings and liquefied the operators. Quite simple, really, although the Council insisted on being horrified when I gave them exactly what they asked for. No one else was willing to handle it, so I was given a ship and told to deploy the weapon myself. When I demurred, I was told my shields around Miasimia Goria would be deactivated, salvaged for the 'war effort.' So I went on their fool's errand.
"I introduced the weapon to ten thousand Dalek ships, skipped ahead while it spread in a dormant state, and then activated it. That entire Dalek subfleet was devastated- less than point oh one percent survivors." Another smile, a tight grin, self-satisfied. "I was told to prepare for a wider deployment of my weapon. I didn't bother."
"The Daleks reacted as I predicted- as the Council, with their typical Time Lord disdain for any neurology but their own, could not accept." It was Donna's turn to smile, but only to herself. They knew, she thought. They were willing to trade one renegade Time Lady for a bucket of Daleks, that's all.
"The Daleks wiped that subfleet from Time itself. It was as though it had never been. And they followed the traces of my infiltration, and tried to do the same for me. With my TARDIS afire and falling apart around me, all I could do was head for a place and time where they could not follow- a time rift. I barely made it, and it cost me a regeneration. I was disgusted to learn where that rift was- and disappointed to realize what must have happened to Gallifrey. How would I return to my research?
"But if I was on the Doctor's pet planet, I could find the Doctor. Find him, and make him repair my ship. So I scanned for him. Instead, I found you- you, marked with his grubby mental fingerprints."
"Oi! It may be true, but you could have a little more tact about it." Yeah, that's it. It's all about repairing your ship, and not about finding an old friend because your entire planet went up in a ball of flames, with even its past burned up. You may be icy, missus, but you're not frozen solid. But, of course, to make the Rani admit her feelings was to taunt a cobra. I wonder if she's given herself little pointy teeth, with venom sacs? With effort, Donna kept her face straight. Cool and professional, that's the way.
"I can repair your ship," I think, Donna said, "but I'll need to make a sonic screwdriver. Unless you'd like me to pop down to the shops, pick up a number ten spanner, and bang away."
"I'm not about to let you run amok with that-"
"I need the tools to build the tools to do the job. Be happy I'm not asking for the robot dog."
Was that a grin? But the Rani said merely, "Very well."
Some time passed. The black patches on the console, and the gaping wounds to the ship they represented, became smaller. Sometimes the Rani watched Donna work, impassively. On one such occasion, she said, without preamble:
"You haven't tried to escape."
"You said you'd been in my skull, tinkering. I'm not fool enough to run after that. An ankle bracelet was bad enough. Although I suppose the Metropolitan Police aren't above an electrode or two in the brain, if only they were allowed." Didn't think I was listening, did you? Well, you wouldn't be the first.
The Rani thought for a while, then went away. And Donna returned to her work.
The next time, the Rani said: "You're not afraid of what I'll do to you, when you're finished. You know you'll be superfluous, but you keep working. Why?"
Donna considered and discarded the option of telling the truth- you'll never admit how attached you get to your pets, will you?- and instead, merely said, "You'll kill me, or you won't. Meanwhile, this passes the time. It's a bit of a nice puzzle, actually."
Again the Rani went away, and again Donna returned to work. But this time, a visible smile played about the Time Lady's lips as she went.
Donna took a moment to compose herself, then entered the control room. "It's done", she said. "I've fixed what I can." Try as she might, she couldn't keep from trembling, a little. To calm herself she inspected the walls, finding no trace of damage. Damn, I'm good.
The Rani looked up, silent. Finally she spoke.
"You've been in my ship. Tinkering."
"I have," Donna said. Please let me be right, and please God let her find a way to admit it without coming off her high horse-
"You made repairs I couldn't. That was the whole point. I couldn't possibly follow everything you've done. You could build in traps I would never spot. I need a hostage, I think."
Donna crossed her fingers. Come on. Time Lords vary enormously with regeneration...
"And there is the question of the stability of the repairs, and your neural augmentation. You lack the wit to appreciate what an achievement that was. I have accomplished what my Prydonian professors insisted was impossible," the Rani continued.
Donna quirked her lip. "Yeah, I've been called that before." She paused, then continued- give her the excuse-, "To get a real idea of how I'm holding up, well, it's best not to place me under a lot of stress, right? No butchering of species in front of the nice Earthling, she'll pop another stitch. But you'll need to test me- and your TARDIS- in all kinds of different environments, won't you? All kinds of different places. Besides, you're obviously badly in need of a holiday. And a proper haircut."
The Rani pondered. Donna's heart was in her throat.
"Perhaps I am." Then the Rani added: "You're far more devious than you look."
Yes!
After a deep breath and slow exhalation, Donna said, "I'm as clever as I need to be. I'm adaptable."
And the smile of the Rani was openly pleased.
-end-
Characters: Donna Noble, the Rani
Spoilers: Mild through JE
Rating: PG-13 (cursing)
Summary: The Rani needs a consultant.
Cursing her hangover and whomever it was at the door that had the extremely poor taste to be knocking, Donna Noble wobbled up to her peephole and surveyed her front walk.
She was surprised to see a brunette woman, tall, with an air of self-possession and serenity so nearly tangible as to be apparent even in Donna's quick, fish-eyed glimpse. The woman's suit was impeccably stylish, verging as close into severity as possible without actually crossing the line. This woman was plainly a representative of authority; that being the case, Donna gave some brief thought to pretending not to be in, but ultimately concluded that doing so would merely postpone the inevitable, and, moreover, leave her less time to deal with the unpleasant consequences of coming to someone's official notice before whatever deadline was involved (a deadline being compulsory in this situation) had come and gone.
Donna opened the door and smiled blearily at her visitor. "May I help you?," she said, leaving the addition of ...your majesty? unspoken via heroic effort.
A mobile in the woman's hand began to beep. Without looking down at it, she answered Donna:
"Yes, it seems that you may."
Then she threw a leech at Donna's forehead.
The sensation of being gently restrained was apparent before Donna opened her eyes, but she felt so relaxed and content she could not bring herself to care. The smell of disinfectant and the hum of machinery provided context for both the restraint and the fuzzy, pleasant feelings, and Donna was surprised not to see an IV bag when she opened her eyes.
She was strapped to a well-padded gurney in a small room, well-lit from no visible source. Her imperious visitor was frowning intently and studying a computer monitor with no attached computer, positioned in such a way that Donna herself could not see what might be on it.
Donna cleared her throat. "You threw a leech at me."
"Technically not a leech, but substantially similar."
"Uh huh." Donna furrowed her brow. "I should be really fucking furious at you. But I'm not. Whatever you've got me on is top shelf."
"It ought to be. I custom designed it for your metabolism. You're in my ship. I grafted some additional structures into your brain, but according to this you haven't accessed them yet."
"You did what?"
"Augmented your brain. Apparently, you've lost access to some memories. I need them. So we'll begin with some of the most likely associations." Before Donna could marshal anything else in response, the woman began to intone words, as if reading them off a list, without pausing: "Doctor, TARDIS, Time Lord, telepathy, alien, regeneration..."
Donna spasmed against her straps, taken by a vivid memory of light, light pouring out from my eyes and my hands, burning me away... After a moment, the sensation faded, along with her previous feelings of well-being.
"There's the memory cascade," the regal woman said.
As she came back to herself, surfing through oceans of knowledge she had forgotten she knew, Donna realized who the other woman must be.
"Rani."
"Yes." And the smile of the Rani was triumphant.
Donna thought, hard, for several minutes. The Rani waited, composed, and let her do it. Eventually, she spoke:
"You're after the Doctor."
"Merely his technical expertise. Fortunately for you, he outdoes me in temporal mechanics, and I know enough biology and telepathic science to compensate for his ham-handed butchery. Do you understand what he did to you?"
"...no."
"Then he probably doesn't understand it himself. Typical, really. You went through a partial fusion with him-"
"-I told him, I wasn't having that sort of thing! There's to be no fusing with me, I said! I may not have used those exact words, mind you, but the implication was clear!" Donna heard a noise from the Rani that might have been a muffled chuckle, and exulted. Keep her laughing, that's the trick. Stay amusing, stay alive.
"A telepathic fusion, nothing biological. That was the problem. The Doctor's knowledge and life experience- which, I must admit, are both considerable- were pressed upon you, and you were given no time or training to deal with them. Time Lords vary enormously with regeneration, and your brain wasn't equipped for ten extra personalities."
"Especially ten of those. I never wanted to raise a thousand-year-old hyperactive child, much less be one." A brief giddy memory, Daleks spinning through the air at her hand, while she beamed with manic glee...
"Quite so. Your persona was buckling under the strain. It appears the Doctor waded in and, with his usual disdain for an elegant solution when a quick one is available, forcibly repressed the relevant memories."
"Did he." Donna's voice was flat.
"As best I can tell from surveying the neurological wreckage. What I have done is recover the technical memories- the impersonal data, the operating knowledge retained by a so-called 'amnesiac', along with the minimal personal memories that must unavoidably come along. I have done this-"
"-because you needed to." Donna finished. And the smile of the Rani was not friendly.
Donna examined the Rani's scarred control room with a critical eye. The once-pristine hexagonal control surfaces bore almost no relation to her- the Doctor's, rather- TARDIS, with its encrustation of random, baroque, patched-together controls. On the other hand, the walls were visibly warped, and parts of the consoles and time rotor were blackened. She whistled softly to herself.
"How did all this happen?" Facing no reply beyond dour silence, she continued: "I can try to repair the damage in ignorance, but working internally with no shipyard and no block transfer algorithms- well, you'll have regenerated and I'll be dust long before the job's done."
The Rani sighed. Two chairs rose out of the floor and each of them sat in one. Donna was bemused to discover a cup of tea at her elbow, and she sipped it as the Rani began.
"In the early stages of the War, I was on Miasimia Goria. I have an ongoing project there, you will recall. After an entire generation of my breeding stock was wiped out by a change in history, I used my original time capsule to insulate the planet from further damage, as best I was able. I was able to breed a variety of vortex manta that- never mind, the Doctor couldn't follow this and neither can you. I was only vaguely aware of the War's details, and that was more involved than I cared to be.
"The Time Lords came to me after their latest sortie against the Daleks went down in flames. They proposed I create a biological weapon against the Daleks. I warned them that such a thing would be ineffective. That cow of a President promised me Miasimia Goria as a- research colony, I suppose. I was promised my work would be allowed to proceed without further interference from Gallifrey.
"The weapon I developed infiltrated Dalek casings and liquefied the operators. Quite simple, really, although the Council insisted on being horrified when I gave them exactly what they asked for. No one else was willing to handle it, so I was given a ship and told to deploy the weapon myself. When I demurred, I was told my shields around Miasimia Goria would be deactivated, salvaged for the 'war effort.' So I went on their fool's errand.
"I introduced the weapon to ten thousand Dalek ships, skipped ahead while it spread in a dormant state, and then activated it. That entire Dalek subfleet was devastated- less than point oh one percent survivors." Another smile, a tight grin, self-satisfied. "I was told to prepare for a wider deployment of my weapon. I didn't bother."
"The Daleks reacted as I predicted- as the Council, with their typical Time Lord disdain for any neurology but their own, could not accept." It was Donna's turn to smile, but only to herself. They knew, she thought. They were willing to trade one renegade Time Lady for a bucket of Daleks, that's all.
"The Daleks wiped that subfleet from Time itself. It was as though it had never been. And they followed the traces of my infiltration, and tried to do the same for me. With my TARDIS afire and falling apart around me, all I could do was head for a place and time where they could not follow- a time rift. I barely made it, and it cost me a regeneration. I was disgusted to learn where that rift was- and disappointed to realize what must have happened to Gallifrey. How would I return to my research?
"But if I was on the Doctor's pet planet, I could find the Doctor. Find him, and make him repair my ship. So I scanned for him. Instead, I found you- you, marked with his grubby mental fingerprints."
"Oi! It may be true, but you could have a little more tact about it." Yeah, that's it. It's all about repairing your ship, and not about finding an old friend because your entire planet went up in a ball of flames, with even its past burned up. You may be icy, missus, but you're not frozen solid. But, of course, to make the Rani admit her feelings was to taunt a cobra. I wonder if she's given herself little pointy teeth, with venom sacs? With effort, Donna kept her face straight. Cool and professional, that's the way.
"I can repair your ship," I think, Donna said, "but I'll need to make a sonic screwdriver. Unless you'd like me to pop down to the shops, pick up a number ten spanner, and bang away."
"I'm not about to let you run amok with that-"
"I need the tools to build the tools to do the job. Be happy I'm not asking for the robot dog."
Was that a grin? But the Rani said merely, "Very well."
Some time passed. The black patches on the console, and the gaping wounds to the ship they represented, became smaller. Sometimes the Rani watched Donna work, impassively. On one such occasion, she said, without preamble:
"You haven't tried to escape."
"You said you'd been in my skull, tinkering. I'm not fool enough to run after that. An ankle bracelet was bad enough. Although I suppose the Metropolitan Police aren't above an electrode or two in the brain, if only they were allowed." Didn't think I was listening, did you? Well, you wouldn't be the first.
The Rani thought for a while, then went away. And Donna returned to her work.
The next time, the Rani said: "You're not afraid of what I'll do to you, when you're finished. You know you'll be superfluous, but you keep working. Why?"
Donna considered and discarded the option of telling the truth- you'll never admit how attached you get to your pets, will you?- and instead, merely said, "You'll kill me, or you won't. Meanwhile, this passes the time. It's a bit of a nice puzzle, actually."
Again the Rani went away, and again Donna returned to work. But this time, a visible smile played about the Time Lady's lips as she went.
Donna took a moment to compose herself, then entered the control room. "It's done", she said. "I've fixed what I can." Try as she might, she couldn't keep from trembling, a little. To calm herself she inspected the walls, finding no trace of damage. Damn, I'm good.
The Rani looked up, silent. Finally she spoke.
"You've been in my ship. Tinkering."
"I have," Donna said. Please let me be right, and please God let her find a way to admit it without coming off her high horse-
"You made repairs I couldn't. That was the whole point. I couldn't possibly follow everything you've done. You could build in traps I would never spot. I need a hostage, I think."
Donna crossed her fingers. Come on. Time Lords vary enormously with regeneration...
"And there is the question of the stability of the repairs, and your neural augmentation. You lack the wit to appreciate what an achievement that was. I have accomplished what my Prydonian professors insisted was impossible," the Rani continued.
Donna quirked her lip. "Yeah, I've been called that before." She paused, then continued- give her the excuse-, "To get a real idea of how I'm holding up, well, it's best not to place me under a lot of stress, right? No butchering of species in front of the nice Earthling, she'll pop another stitch. But you'll need to test me- and your TARDIS- in all kinds of different environments, won't you? All kinds of different places. Besides, you're obviously badly in need of a holiday. And a proper haircut."
The Rani pondered. Donna's heart was in her throat.
"Perhaps I am." Then the Rani added: "You're far more devious than you look."
Yes!
After a deep breath and slow exhalation, Donna said, "I'm as clever as I need to be. I'm adaptable."
And the smile of the Rani was openly pleased.
-end-
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-06-29 10:10 pm (UTC)*favorites faster than the naked eye*
no subject
Date: 2009-06-30 12:15 am (UTC)I love your icon.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-30 07:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-30 08:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-04 06:15 am (UTC)They need to meet the Master and Lucy from your earlier fic.
...And did the Rani create the Flying Time Monkeys?!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-04 08:14 am (UTC)Thank you!
They need to meet the Master and Lucy from your earlier fic.
I've been thinking about that. :)
...And did the Rani create the Flying Time Monkeys?!
...no?
If you mean the "Reaper" guys from Father's Day, my guess is those are a natural life form that the Time Lords used to keep in check. I'm positive the Rani could create flying monkeys.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-04 06:46 pm (UTC)Also, the reason that I didn't see this story before is that this post (and only this one) doesn't show up on my friends page. Odd.