The Sontarans marched out of their ship as everyone looked on in horror! “How is this possible?!” asked Rassilon.
“Doctor, when do the Sontarans learn how to make their ships bigger on the inside?” quizzed Amy.
“Their Martial Year 76,000,” replied the Doctor. At that moment, the glowing Miss Tarae stood up.
“You…cutthroat…over-microwaved…skulking…potatoes!” she hissed. “You’re supposed to be…desperate Thanakians!”
“I will admit, acting like someone who is desperate is NOT the Sontaran way,” said Trev, “but the securing of Gallifrey is of top priority! Now, with Gallifreyan technology and science at our disposal, WE shall be the new Lords of Time!”
“THAT’S MY POSITION, YOU ANTS!” shrieked Miss Tarae as she thrust her arms forward, channeling the destructive power of her regeneration energy into various Sontarans. As she continued, her face changed. She grew, her chest became masculine, her hair darkened, and she grew a goatee as her shriek became a male roar. After Miss Tarae spent it all, a new man wearing her Lolita outfit collapsed to the floor.
“DESTROY THEM!” ordered Trev. As the Sontarans fired, Romana and Susan picked up Miss Tarae, now a male again, and carried him into the Citadel with the Doctor covering the retreat and locking the doors behind them.
After a few minutes, the group found a place to set the masculine Miss Tarae down and hole up. “Well, this is a fine kettle of fish!” hissed the Doctor. “The Sontarans duped Miss Tarae, excuse me, the Master, into giving them access to Gallifrey!”
“But why again?” asked Rassilon. “They already tried to invade Gallifrey once!”
“They still crave our mastery over time travel,” mused Romana. “It would make sense that they would try when Gallifrey is so weak.”
“Oooouughh,” groaned the Master as he sat up.
“Ah, the ‘hero’ of the hour awakens,” scoffed Rassilon. The Master ran his hand over his face, then realized he felt a beard.
“…I’m a male again, aren’t I?” he asked no one in particular.
“Gotta say, while I’m fine with men in dresses,” remarked the Doctor, “that outfit doesn’t suit you.”
“We’ll rerobe him later,” said Rassilon. The Master face-palmed as he recalled what happened to cause him to regenerate.
“I can’t believe I was so foolish!” he growled. “I KNOW the Sontarans had developed dimensional transcendentalism and their own Chameleon Circuit in that time! No wonder their Thanakian disguise was so ready to accept my terms!”
“How did you find them anyways?” asked the Doctor.
“My TARDIS picked up a distress signal and I followed it,” replied the Master. “I should have known! The Thanakians never bothered learning Time Lord communication frequencies! That should have been my first clue!”
“The Sontarans, knowing your reputation,” said Rassilon, “and correctly guessing that the Master and Miss Tarae are the same Time Lord, simply showed you what you desired most, Master! Like a CIA agent, you acted on your own agenda!”
“With what little respect I have for you, Rassilon,” hissed the Master, “we are beyond recriminations!”
“YOU OVERREACHED YOURSELF AS USUAL!” shouted Rassilon. “I DRAW ANY BOUNDARIES WE MAY CROSS! I AM THE FOUNDER OF TIME LORD SOCIETY! SWORN TO DEFEND MY WORLD! …Barely to have started fixing the crisis with the Eye of Harmony, then we lurch into this new one with the Sontarans! I save the recriminations for myself for not turning you away from Gallifrey!” As they argued, Romana found current live security footage of the Sontarans entering the citadel.
“THERE is our real enemy!” she shouted, ending the argument for now. “A Sontaran brigade swarming through the capital’s ruins! And above our heads, a Sontaran time fleet just waiting for the moment we switch off the transduction barriers!”
“Even with reduced power,” remarked Susan, “the transduction barriers are strong enough to repel any invasion force…well, any invasion force outside the barriers. We need to repel Trev and his men. But how can we win?”
“The Sontarans are master tacticians, second only to the Daleks,” remarked Rassilon. “What must they think of us now? Mere fools! Desperate, greedy children that would sacrifice their safety for quick advantage!”
“What’s done is done, Rassilon,” said the Doctor. “Now we must deal with the current situation. As you said, they’re tacticians. Even with their failure, Stor and his men must have transmitted valuable data about Gallifrey’s defenses. Then they used that data to concoct various plans to try again. By chance, the Master inadvertently helped them put one of their long shots into action.”
“There’s so much happening at once!” sighed Rassilon.
“Grandfather, there’s something I need to tell you,” said Susan.
“Susan, I hate to say it, but it will have to wait until we deal with all these crises.”
“Grandfather, it’s about the Eye!” insisted Susan.
“Susan-!”
“Hold on a minute, Doctor, let’s hear her out,” said Romana. “Let her cook, I believe 21st century humans would say. Susan, the floor is yours.”
“As us Time Lords are well aware,” began Susan, “the Eye of Harmony is the main source of power. The transduction barriers, time vortex monitoring equipment, and a TARDIS heart, are all linked to the Eye. But the connection between the Eye and a TARDIS heart is different. In order to handle the temporal energies, the link is established via the Main Eye and a smaller version of the Eye inside a TARDIS.”
“Hold on, there’s a star in each TARDIS permanently about to collapse?” asked Amy.
“That’s right,” confirmed Susan. “But there was something Gallifreyans after Omega overlooked. A TARDIS heart has to remain small in order to keep a TARDIS functioning.”
“Of course! That safety measure was built into the first TARDIS!” realized the Doctor.
“I get it!” gasped Rassilon. “Remove a TARDIS heart, allow it to grow-!”
“And hey presto, a NEW Eye of Harmony to power Gallifrey!” finished the Doctor.
“So who will sacrifice their TARDIS’s heart?” asked the Master.
“No one needs to!” replied the Doctor. “Rassilon, lead us to Banza’s TARDIS! Maybe we can convince it to let its heart become the new Eye!” Rassilon flinched.
“That’s…not possible anymore,” she said. “Banza’s TARDIS went through the full shutdown sequence. Its heart is…unavailable.”
“Why mention that fool of a general’s TARDIS?” asked the Master.
“He survived,” explained the Doctor.
“But he used his last life to save New Earth from Rita Repulsa and the Toymaker,” continued Amy.
“And we sent his TARDIS back to Gallifrey to be respectfully scrapped,” finished the Doctor. “And if it went through the full shutdown sequence, then its smaller Eye collapsed on itself with no damage.”
“Right now, Doctor,” sighed Rassilon, “the only active TARDIS’s are the Master’s Type 75…and your Type 40.”
“Oh? …Oh. …OOOOOHHHOOHOAHAHAHA!” The Master started cackling. “Oh, this is just too rich! You’re asking the Doctor to sacrifice her only means of escaping Gallifrey!”
“There’s still YOUR TARDIS!” hissed Amy.
“Not a chance!” laughed the Master. “Doctor, you want to help Rassilon? You’ll have to sacrifice your TARDIS!” Those words echoed in the Doctor’s mind, proving how insane the Master really is.
Meanwhile, Trev and his men were still swarming through the capital. By now, the scout ship was empty. Trev took in a breath. “…Fear,” he sighed with a wicked grin. “The citadel is rank with it!”
“Perhaps singing will amplify it,” suggested his adjutant.
“Do you have a song in mind?” asked Trev.
“Just the old marching song at the Academy.” Trev grinned at the suggestion.
“Set the beat, Adjutant! I feel like singing that glorious marching anthem!” ordered Trev. The adjutant obeyed and set a marching beat, then Trev began to sing.
“Sontar, Sontar! We march for Sontar!
The Light of Sontar is why we march!” By now, other Sontarans were joining in!
“Sontar, Sontar! We fight for Sontar!
The Glory of Sontar is why we fight!
Sontar, Sontar! We die for Sontar!
The death of our enemies is why we live!
Sontar, Sontar! We live for Sontar!
Sontaran troopers are bred for war!”