Amid an escort of more traditional Dalek forms, something shaped very much like a pepper grinder glided across a floor carved out of solid ice. Unlike its tanklike guard it had no weapons. Its menace lay within the brilliant mind sustained in a state of near immortality by its life support systems; a mind that had directed millions of years of exploration, conquest, exploitation and genocide. This was the Emperor Dalek, Davros. Not truly a Dalek himself, but their creator.
Architecture of ice blended into more tradional steel and ceramics and the temperature slowly rose but the Davros and Daleks glided on oblivious to the changes in their environment. They were the ultimate in self sufficiency that Davros' brilliant mind could conceive and yet he was beginning to see flaws in their basic design, flaws he'd never noticed before. It was a puzzle.
The whole situation was a puzzle, Davros reflected. Teleported from victorious conquest, obviously by the Doctor's interference, to a frozen wasteland, the Daleks had encountered an hostile lifeform unlike anything they'd encountered in their millions of years of genocidal history which spanned countless galaxies. Small forms, but incredibly fast, stealthy and powerful. Even in death their acidic ichor corroded Dalek hulls. His Daleks were clearly the supreme life form, but even Davros had to admit that the aliens were near perfect living weapons.
Then came the Skynet machines and the data from them was most perplexing. Mechanical warriors and war machines built by a technology unknown to Dalek science. Davros was facinated by their design and was begining to see the possibilities. His genius was so inspired, it was as if his brain had just started working as it should.
Yet, the Skynet machines held an even greater puzzle. Their records indicated that they were from Earth, home of the one race that had become a thorn in the side of Dalek conquest aided as they were by the interference of the one being the Dalek hated beyond all others. The Earth Davros knew had never produced anything like them and yet, the Skynet AI's record's further claimed that they had exterminated the human race where the Dalek had repeatedly failed.
There were however, cryptic references to time travel experiments in the logs of the mobile battle commands. Daleks had, at various times, dabbled in such technology for obvious reasons. However, the moment for considering the conclusion that brought was not at hand, as the entourage was gliding into its destination. Davros eased his shell over to a technician Dalek, distinguished solely by having a robotic grapple limb. "Report!" Davros snapped irritably.
"Skynet machines have secu-red the peri-met-re!" the technician uttered in the usual shrill monotone. "We have resto-red po-wer. The Dalek are in con-trol of this facil-ity! There are no ves-sels avail-able for use, but we have loca-ted an auto-mated fact-ory! Its comput-er refu-ses to ack-now-ledge our com-mands but we are attem-pting to over-ride its pro-gram."
"Procede," Davros ordered and mused that it was one respect in which his Dalek were superior to pure machines. Once an indoctrinated, vat borne Dalek was installed in its casing it could not be reprogrammed by the enemy. "However the Doctor exiled us to this world, we now have the technology to build space-ships. We will obtain the resources to clone new Daleks. We will equipe them with new, improved shells. We will emerge victorious!"
"Alert!" a Dalek shrilled, its domb spinning in alarm. "Alert! Alert! Scan-ners have detec-ted space-ships in extr-eme or-bit! Sensors indi-cate one war-ship and numer-ous small attack craft!"
"We have est-ablish-ed con-trol of the main com-puter!" another Dalek anounced. "Its cir-cuits will only res-pond to com-mands from an Empo-rer. We have convin-ced it to recog-nise the Empo-rer Dalek! We re-quire your in-put."
The pepper shaker glided forth then opened up like a mechanical flower. In the center the wizened, mutated form of Davros stirred. "Computer, I am Emporer Davros, the Supreme Dalek. I am in command. Do you acknowledge my authority?"
A single red light illuminated the console. "Confirmed," a polite mechanical voice agreed. "You are in command, my Emporer. What can I do for you today, Davros?"
"Excellent," Davros gloated "We will begin by… no. Computer, do you know the location of my enemy, the Doctor?"
"Searching," the voice anounced. "Search complete. My database indicates that the last known location of an Emporer's enemy identified as "Doctor Zarkov" is the planet Earth."
"Doctor who?" Davros demanded, then dismissed it. "No matter. Earth, of course the Doctor is on Earth. We will find the Doctor. We will exterminate the Doctor!"
"Loc-ate the Doc-tor! Ex-ter-min-ate the Doc-tor!" the Daleks chorused as if it were their favorite song. "Ex-ter-min-ate! Ex-ter-min-ate!"
"Computer, I am downloading designs for an intersteller transporter," Davros instructed. "Its construction has top priority."
(Posted Wed, 30 Apr 2003 01:41)
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