Okay, here is the first instalment of my take on a Doctor Who/Star Wars crossover. The Doctor in question is a fictional nth Doctor based on Stephen Fry and created by Jonathan Hibberd.
   Because of the fanzine this drawn out of (THE OTHER: TALES FROM THE DARK DIMENSIONS) and because of the explicit nature of some of the text this story has an 18 certificate.
   All of this is set inbetween the two Star Wars stories Journal Of The Whills and A New Hope and before the Doctor Who story The Tenth Planet. Kermit5 played no part in the scripting of this.
   All Star Wars characters owned by LUCASFILM LTD.
   All Doctor Who characters owned by BBC WORLDWIDE LTD.
   All other characters owned by VIETNAMESE WALLFLOWERS
   Text © VIETNAMESE WALLFLOWERS 1997 & 1998
   Email us at CALOHAN2@aol.com or SHERTOGENBOSCH@hotmail.com (if it’s working)

PROLOGUE: SUPERSTITIONS
------------------------------------------

   Subtlety had never been Rassilon’s strong point. He sat at his large, wooden desk and looked at the manuscripts Omega had passed to him.
   Theoretically the concept of these capsules was plausible, but despite Pekkary’s alleged first hand accounts of one of these Gallifreyan machines, Rassilon found it as hard to swallow as the Pythia’s prophecies.
   A wift of smoke drifted into Rassilon’s study. He glanced up and saw the shadowy figure of the Other.
   “What brings you here at this hour?” Rassilon asked, slightly agitated.
   The Other placed two ancient Gallifreyan tarot cards face down upon Rassilon’s desk.
   “Pick one.” He prompted.
   “This is just as superstitious as the practices of that cursed Pythia!” Rassilon protested.
   The Other’s eyes bore on him like fiery suns and eventually Rassilon picked a card and handed it to the Other.
   The Other examined it with scrutiny.
   “Mondas.” He muttered. “Just as I thought.”
 
                                                                      *
 
   The Doctor observed the grinding of the teeth like tubes within the time rotor as Jennifer McLain finally found her way into the lavish library-cum-control room.
   She looked at him, tilting her head as she swirled around the room. She was somewhat dismayed at the lack of interest the Doctor was paying her, especially since that business with…well, she didn’t want to think about that right now.
   It was only then that she remembered the T-shirt she had found on the black hat stand with a patchwork coat and had instantly taken a liking to it.
   “Hey, look what I’ve found!” She said with a grin and a tug at the edge of her slimfit T-shirt. “I found it in that part of the TARDIS you don’t like going into.” She paused, slightly worried. “Is it haunted?”
    The Doctor seemed not to hear the last part of Miss. McLain’s speech but he at least granted her the courtesy of looking at the relatively new Slingbacks T-shirt she was wearing.
    “Yes,” He pondered absent-mindedly. “It was Estella’s, I believe.”
    Jenifer frowned.
    “Who’s Estella?” She asked.
    The Doctor looked at her with a certain amount of scrutiny.
    “You know, I don’t think I ‘ve ever met her.” He stated enigmatically. “Well, not yet anyway. The TARDIS is a complex little thing. She has a tendency to locate some rooms in the future, some in the past and some in the present.”
    “So you could bump into yourself?” Jennifer asked, genuinely intrigued.
    “Time is pressing on, urchin. Time.” He smiled and returned to his pondering.
 

CHAPTER I: SKEPTICS
---------------------------------
 
   “Time is pressing on my child. Time.” The Doctor mused as he looked up at the large seal of Rassilon with a certain feeling of distaste more than respect.
   His young grandaughter watched the elderly frame swing his silver hair towards her as he finally began to accept that now their futures were entwined together and at last she seized her moment.
   From inside her jacket pocket she drew out an ancient tarot card that had turned brown with age.
   “What’s this, grandfather?” Susan asked as she passed the artefact over to him.
   He glared down at the card with contempt and finally tore it into two equal pieces.
   “Nonsense.” He muttered. “Absolute nonsense.”
   “But grandfather if you brought it with you from Gallifrey then surely it has some meaning.” Susan protested.
   The Doctor drew himself up to his full height and looked down at her.
   “Absolutely not!” He stated in his stern voice. “Now, I want no more of this mumbo-jumbo nonsense.”
   Susan bowed her head in subservience.
   “Yes, grandfather”, she sighed, and turned and left the large library-room.
 
                                                                  *

   The Doctor pulled the Dakekanium chain-sword from it’s place on one of the TARDIS’s shelves and remembered poor, wild-eyed Abslom Daak. With a sigh he turned to Jenifer.
   “Now, you little scallywag”, he said brandishing the sword. “I want you to stay put for a few minutes while I just pop off outside.”
   “What, you mean I can’t come?” Jennifer frowned.
   “I believe I just stated that” the Doctor said as he glided over to the doors. “I won’t be long.”
   With that he disappeared out of the doors leaving her alone, just like everyone always did eventually. She looked at the scanner to see where they were but it seemed to be as stubborn as this new Doctor.
   “Well”, she said turning away. “I’m not going to stay in here without anything to do.”
   Having said that she initiated her first act of rebellion against this person who both was and wasn’t the Doctor she knew.

   From within her room she pulled over her stereo, turned it full up and began to play her Rage Against the Machine tape.
   Technically it was her big brother , Ed’s, but she had always borrowed things from him and never given them back. Tears began to form in her eyes when they found the tuma the size of a mushroom in Ed’s brain a year ago and she remembered how she had played his Nirvana ‘Unplugged’ CD constantly and cried every night until he died. That was when she stopped crying, forever.

   Inside the walls of the Technocratically Advanced Cathedral of the Sovereign Le Trévison. Cyber-Cardinal Lyman slammed his steel rod onto the ground with a fury that was most unlike a man of the cloth.
   “How much longer must Mondas suffer the vanities of these pathetic Martian immigrants?” He bellowed.
   The young princess looked down upon him, her hair falling behind her shoulders like Rapunzel’s.
   “The Ice Peoples of Mars are a peaceful race,” She said in a soothing tone. “We have less to fear from them than from our own barbaric siblings on Earth.”
   “I demand that they be dealt with now.” The Cyber-Cardinal replied, as he became closer to being charger with insubordination.
   There was a silence that seemed to last for years as the princess met and the preacher’s eyes and tried with all her might to telepathically subdue him. As always, reason failed against another closed, religious mind.
   Suddenly there was the sound of another mind within the room they occupied which was neatly accompanied by the clicking noise of shoes upon metal.
   Cyber-Cardinal Lyman turned to see a tall, dark haired man in a flowing white jacket strolling up towards the throne of the Mondasian princess. His eyes descended down and he saw the harsh teeth  of the man’s chain-sword and fear consumed him.
    The man stopped in front of the Cardinal and pointed the sword  at him. There was a brief moment before a puzzled look crossed the man’s face and he himself looked down at the weapon.
   “Oh,” He muttered, sounding slightly embarrassed. “I forgot about that.”
   He moved the sword over to his left hand and returned his other hand in it’s former position.
    “Good evening,” He said in his deep, low voice. “I’m the Doctor. I believe you sent for me.”

                                                                       *

   An illegal and experimental one man Time Scaphe sliced it’s way across the shores of time and space. To the naked eye the Scaphe was invisible on the simple basis that it had no shape and therefore for most people it had no presence.
   Deep inside the Scaphe sat a man with a rough beard and long, black robes yet despite this he was still relatively youthful.
   At the moment the Scaphe emerged from the realms of the extra-dimensions and multiversies, it’s pilot had but one thought;
    I shouldn’t be doing this.

                                                                       *

   Jennifer had known what it was like to be alone for most of her life but as the final song of the Rage Against The Machine album ended she felt as alone as she had at Ed’s funeral. Where was Sam when she needed her most?
   Eventually she decided that the last thing she needed was to stand around the TARDIS control room looking at books with titles like Jane’s Alien Artefacts.
   “There’s only so much a girl can take.” Jenifer sighed as she pulled her jacket over her shoulders.
   She smiled as she thought of how the jacket had pissed the Doctor off when she first brought it. It was made entirely of red PVC and depicted a large Prozac capsule on the back.
   “Very Akira.” She grinned to herself and opened a door at the back of the control room.
   A cold shudder ran down her back, the door she had came through was no longer leading towards her bedroom. It was as if the whole control room had moved itself.

                                                                       *

   “Look, I really don’t appreciate all of this cloak-and-dagger business”, the Doctor said, raising his voice somewhat.
   “I assure you that no one wants your presence whom ever you may be.” Lyman said, obviously using the Doctor like a mental punchbag.
   The Doctor placed the point of the chain-sword to the ground and lean on it.
   “I’m sorry but I don’t like having my TARDIS plucked out of time and space and deposited in the middle of the Cybermen’s heartland”, he sighed.
   “Cybermen?” The princess questioned. “What on Mondas are Cybermen?”
   The hair on the back of the Cyber Cardinal’s neck bristled.
   “If that is a slander against the technologically advanced peoples of Mondas and the supreme Technocratically Advanced Cathedral of the Sovereign Le Trévisan then I shall strike you down with your own weapon”, Lyman shouted.
   The Doctor scowled as he turned to face the Cardinal.
   “Could you please stop hurling your thoughts and abuse at me”, the Doctor said in a very dangerous tone.
   For the first time Cyber Cardinal Lyman began to sense something dangerous, almost unbalanced, about this man who called himself the Doctor.  It was then that Lyman realised it was not the weapon that made him cower but rather this unbalanced factor that the Doctor possessed.
   Suddenly there was the stamping of large heavy feet. The princess looked up and the Doctor and Lyman turned to face the new arrival.
   The creature dwarfed the other inhabitants of the room by two feet and was reptilian in appearance. Simply put, it was a Martian.
   “I have come to announce the arrival of my mistress.” It hissed, standing still in the doorway.
   “I have already granted audience with two unexpected visitors.” The princess stated, somewhat agitated.
   “So who would your mistress be?” The Doctor asked, his eyebrows arched high into his forehead.
   “The one who has summoned you here…” The Martian replied without emotion.
   “So the plot thickens.” The Doctor murmured to himself.
   “…The Time Lady, Mistress Rani.” The creature said completing it’s sentence.
   The Doctor watched as a tall woman with curling blonde hair stepped into the princess’s throne room, grounding a cigarette beneath her high heals as she did.
   Like a snake uncurling she opened her arms as if it were she who was welcoming them.
   “Doctor,” She smiled. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
   The Doctor frowned deeply.
   “Why have you brought me here, Rani?” He demanded.
   She smiled and batted her eyelids.
   “So you can be a witness of course, my dear Doctor. A witness to the birth of your own silver nemesis, a witness that will be silenced before I leave.”
 
 

CHAPTER II: SYMBOLS
----------------------------------
 
   “Invisible history, according to certain modern
     hermetics, stands in the same relation to ordinary
     history as Lobachevskian geometry does to
     Eucliden. It is another world, or rather a world
     of another dimension.”
                                                                   -André Nataf,
                 The Wordsworth Dictionary Of The Occult
 
   The Rani placed her hand to her forehead and sighed.
   “Oh, how my cup runneth over.” She exclaimed as she lit a cigarette and then offered one to her adversary.
   The Doctor shook his head.
   “I gave up.” He murmured, his voice almost subservient.
   The Rani looked him up and down, focusing mainly on his lower torso.
   “You’re half the man I use to know, Doctor.” She said with pure contempt, blowing cigarette smoke through her nostrils.
   The Doctor almost blushed.
   “I really don’t think you’re one to judge that, my dear.” He retorted, not entirely confident in himself.
   The Rani scowled at him and then fixed upon the old man was referred to as the Cyber-Cardinal. She clicked her fingers and the Ice Warrior was soon at her side.
   “Let us show the good Doctor and the people of Mondas their own future.” She said, hissing like a serpent.
   She smiled and the Ice Warrior grasped the old man by his arms.

                                                                        *

   Jennifer McLain looked up in awe at the sight before her. In the dimly lit candlelight she could just make out a half-lion, half-eagle creature that dwarfed her not only physically but mentally. It tilted it’s head as Jennifer began to back away towards the control room.
   The griffin looked at the young child with a certain amount of curiosity.
   “Don’t run.” The griffin said in a calm, gentle voice. “In fact I’d be glad of the company.”
   Jennifer stopped and suddenly felt stupid that her initial reaction to the griffin had been to run.
   “Who are you?” Jennifer asked, tentatively stepping forwards.
   The griffin coughed and tried to look theatrical.
   “My name is Cheiranthus Cheiri and I am a griffin.” He stated proudly.
   Jennifer giggled under her breath, trying to come to terms with the improbable situation she found herself in.
   Well, Daleks in the sewers and a man that changes his face are one thing but faerie stories? She laughed at the thought.
   “So, erm, Mister Cheiri, what you doing here?” she asked.
   The griffin sat itself down on the oak floor and motioned for Jennifer to do the same.
   “Why I live here of course!” Cheiranthus smiled.
   Jennifer’s jaw dropped with surprise. That was the last answer she had expected.
 
                                                                    *

   The Scaphe ripped out of un-space and into reality with a fireworks display that rivalled that of the first, and to be honest rather false, celebration of the American Independence Day.
   It took up residence on the shoreline of the great Mondasian capital.
   The bearded, starved looking man emerged slowly from the Scaphe, blood running down his forehead and into his mouth, slowly caressing his dry lips.
   Everything he had learnt on Gallifrey told him that what he was doing was against all socially acceptable codes of conduct yet still he found himself looking upon the vast civilisation of Mondas, a civilisation that due to it’s own pettiness had allowed itself to be exploited by an out of control and over-zealous religious cult, much like the Pythia’s on his own home world, and eventually be ground to dust leaving a heartless race of biomechanoids as it's only legacy.
   Now he, Ligustrum Ovalifium, was the only person who stood in their way.
 
                                                                      *

   Deep within the heart of the city’s sewers the Cyber-Cardinal’s dream was being made flesh, or rather machine. Shadow figures in white and silver robes chanted as they attended to a small altar.
   Upon the altar was a humanoid heart, thousands of tubes and pipes running into it from the ceiling.
   The robed figures stopped abruptly and looked towards the heart. I t had began to beat.

                                                                        *

   A huge frame consisting of tarnished metallic limbs and fresh, bleeding wounds entered the room, bringing with it a sense of fear.
   The  Doctor straightened up as he observed the poor, reanimated monstrosity and looked into it’s white eyes. They were not entirely unfamiliar, uncomfortable yes, but not unfamiliar.
   He looked upon what remained of the man’s elegant, dark skin and cursed himself for being such a stupid old man. Moreover he cursed his old memory which seemed to have a habit of failing late. Maybe it was just post-regenerative trauma but something at the back of his mind told him that it wasn’t.
   The Rani smiled wildly as she watched the Doctor’s expression, the way he was trying to dredge up all his past incarnations’ memories.
   “What’s the matter, Doctor?” She goaded. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
   “I…I don’t believe in ghosts.” He faltered.
   The Rani strolled over to him and stood in a manner that was far too close for comfort. She ran her long delicate fingers through his dark hair.
   “No, of course you don’t, dear.” She whispered, implying a certain amount of sexual innuendo. “But you do believe in reanimated corpses don’t you, darling?”
   The Doctor looked at the abomination and like the wrath of God the answer hit him.
   “Toberman.” He whispered weakly.
   The princess stepped down from her throne to stand alongside the errant Time Lord and the Cyber-Cardinal remained silent.
   The Doctor swayed his head from side to side in a despairing manner and then stopped suddenly. He began to remember things he had forgotten since his regeneration and once again the old fires began to rekindle and burn brighter than ever. He turned to the Rani with rage in his voice and tears in his eyes.
   “How dare you?” He said, voice raised. “How dare you desecrate life in such a manner?”
   The Rani flashed him a cold smirk.
   “You’re not the only one who suffers from curiosity, my dear Doctor.” She stated in a self-assured tone.
   “I do not know from whence you came but I demand that you take yourself and your…your…abomination from the regal sanctum.” The princess stuttered weakly.
   The Rani glared at her with serpent’s eyes then clicked her fingers.
   “Toberman.” She said and the creature that had once allied himself with the Doctor upon the cold surface of Telos marched menacingly forward.
 
                                                                       *

   Cyber-Guards were all over the palace. A shield of pure anti-manner prevented them all entering the throne room and dissension was beginning to spread amongst the civilians.
   Lyman’s technocratically obsessed cult was gaining new devotees with every moon-tide that passed and now it looked as if the Royal House of Mondas was truly about to fall to it’s knees.
   A lone guard looked out upon the snow swept surface of his homeland when suddenly he heard the click of voice disguisers. He stepped forwards and was rewarded with a fatal blast to his heart, disrupting then scrambling his insides.
   He dropped to the ground and as the snow already began to cover his form, figures in white armour with black trimmings emerged from their camouflage.
   The lead figure nodded his head towards the palace and his communicator clicked on.
   “In there.” He ordered and with that they advanced.

                                                                            *

   “You live here, right?” Jennifer asked, agape.
   “As I believe I have just stated.” Cheiri said calmly.
   She frowned the frown that is inherent in all teenage girls.
   “Does the Doctor know you live here?” She whispered, leaning slightly forwards but not too close.
   “Sometimes.” The griffin stated almost as enigmatically as the TARDIS’s owner himself.
   “How can you know you live here but only know this some of the time?” She asked, beginning to feel like Alice questioning the Queen of Hearts.
   Cheiranthus placed his two front paws together and assumed a thoughtful manner.
   “Well, let’s just say I slip in and out of fashion.” He said as if he were saddened by this.
   “How do you mean?” Jenifer inquired, her curiosity becoming ever present.
   “You’re aware of the Doctor’s status as a Time Lord aren’t you now, my child?” He asked.
   Jenifer pretended she knew more about the Doctor than she actually did.
   “Yeah, course I do.” She replied in an attempt to sound self-assured.
   “Well then let me tell you a story. A story of the Doctor’s first incarnation.” The griffin said unwisely.