Although silence reigned in the space left following Daniel's departure, the Endeavor's crew was anything but quiet, for a hurried back and forth was presently occurring among them.
'I'm just surprised he was able to halt the flow of time for that long,' Drin communicated, imparting the equivalent of a chuckle into the thought.
'Not that it will last much longer granted.''It seems we have no time to waste debating the matter then,' said Persi, who sent out the vaguest impression of an eyeroll.
'Better to get ready to re-engage. It's not like the Daleks will go easy on us just because we were having a chat with a higher-dimensional entity after all.'Another bout of heated debate broke out then as Zevo moved in opposition of that notion, though it was quickly brought to heel a moment later by Gretho.
"Arguing like this will get us nowhere," he said at last. And, though he could not physically see the majority of them, the rest of the Endeavor's crew could feel the weight of his gaze through the mental link they all shared. The weight of countless millennia to their meagre centuries. "Either course of action presents us with opportunity when you get down to it. Our continued intervention here might just turn the tide, or it might not, and the same could be said for the universe we have been requested to aid."
He paused to see if anyone else would give voice to a complaint. When no one did, however, he continued.
"Qoryudvodronmen, what do you make of the information Daniel gave us?"
"It's interesting enough I suppose," she said over the comms this time. "But given my area of expertise I'm assuming you want me to give an appraisal of their technology?"
Gretho nodded, "That is correct."
"Well, it's certainly more impressive than slamming rocks together, if rather typical for a lesser species. Granted, he only provided us the bare minimum. Things we'd need to know to do our jobs instead of the deeper intricacies."
"Do you think you could construct an interuniversal beacon with it?"
Qor's jaw worked.
"It wouldn't be easy, but I could if given enough time. The calculations would be a problem though. Even for me it'd take hundreds of years-"
Gretho dismissed her concern with a wave.
"INTRA can help with that. What about a telepathic signature?"
Qor blinked. She hadn't thought much of this line of questioning initially, but that definitely got her attention. It almost sounded as if he was trying to see whether or not they could signal someone, or something, but she'd be damned if she could figure out what.
"Sir... what exactly are you getting at here?"
Gretho leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly as he did so.
"Gallifrey must not fall, you all know this. And what better way is there to ensure such an outcome than to simply remove it from the equation altogether? If we can construct the beacon I have in mind, we might just be able to pull the entire planet into this new universe that entity wants us to save. It won't bring an end to the Time War necessarily, but it will grant a much needed reprieve."
There was naught but more silence as he shifted his attention back to the now frozen horizon. It reminded him of the art his people used to make back before the War stripped that aspect of their culture from them. Reminded him of all the moments they'd frozen in time and preserved for eternity upon eternity. But unlike all those static moments, this one would inevitably resume, and death's grim march along with it. That was a fact he simply could not accept. He'd fought for far too long and had his own history mangled far too much just to give up and die, they all had. But that is what would happen if they stayed here. Gretho knew it, and so did his crew, whether they wished to admit it or not. Although many senior officers within Gallifreyan High Command told recruits nowadays that the glimpses of death and destruction they saw were not visions or premonitions, veterans like him knew the truth. Hell, they'd lived it.
Time Lords had several senses available to them, and twenty-two of them had to do with time specifically. Gretho knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he and the rest of his crew would be lying dead in the rubble below if they remained here, their bodies crushed by the wreckage of their own Bowship, and damaged beyond any ability to repair. He'd
seen it, so for him at least their course of action was clear. What was less clear, however, was the goal he was not-so-subtly angling at. Or, rather, the probability of them achieving it. His plan sounded easy enough. They'd cross over to this new universe and use the technology they found there to construct a beacon, utilizing their own minds and even biodata if need be to create a link that would, hopefully, prove strong enough to bring their homeworld over in full. The Daleks left on Gallifrey's surface would still be a problem naturally, and so would sealing the holes left behind in the universal barriers, but they'd be manageable ones at the very least. More manageable than the ten million ships currently stationed overhead anyway.
In actual practice, though, such a plan was barely plausible at best, and downright infeasible at worst thanks to the sheer amount of obstacles before them. There was still the question of whether or not they'd even be able to acquire the resources required to build the beacon in the first place, to say nothing of the threat posed by the Replicators and the other factions. Even so, his people had done the impossible before, and made it look like child's play at that, so who was he to let a little thing like feasibility stop him? Especially considering what was at stake...
"Are you sure that's wise, sir?"
It was INTRA.
"The Protocols clearly state that you are not to interfere with the affairs of lesser species."
Gretho laughed. It wasn't cruel or malicious, but jaded. Cynical.
"The Protocols haven't been a concern for a while now. If they were, we'd not be waging war in the first place."
There was a pause.
"I've made up my mind," Gretho said, his voice booming over the shipboard comms. "We'll provide the aid that Daniel requests, but should the opportunity present itself, you are to seize what technology you can and hand it over to Qor for study unless it happens to be particularly dangerous. As for the Replicators, they are to be destroyed outright. The last thing we need is one of those machines stealing our technology and using it against us."
There was a round of telepathic agreement from the others, though not all of them seemed too keen on this plan, Persi in particular. In the end however there wasn't much for them to do, as seniority was seniority, and an order was an order. Thus it was that Gretho reached out once more, signaling Daniel to initiate the transference.
