The Last Message (short story)

 was the second of four Time Lord Victorious short stories released by Eaglemoss Collections. It was printed in DWFC TLV 1, which came with the Dalek Drone and Dalek Emperor Figurine Set.

Plot
One phrase echoes through the Emperor of the Restoration's chamber on Skaro: "I... am... the... last...". These words had been found echoing through the Dalek City. This message had come from a Dalek Drone; although normally the Emperor pays no attention to Drones, he has made an exception, as the Drone's message has travelled for millennia across space and time to reach Skaro.

From his chamber, the Emperor watches on the signal display as the broken Dalek, embedded in rock, still fights for survival. The message continues: "I survive... I will repair..." This does not surprise the Emperor, as all Drones are programmed to keep going and obey their instructions.

"I will grow stronger" continues the Drone, "no matter how long it takes". The Emperor watches the dataflow to more accurately asses the message's age, and swiftly calculates how many thousands of years the Drone had spent clinging to the rock before it had enough power to send its message. The Emperor then compares the Drone's vital signs with those of thousands of Daleks in similar circumstances, and is briefly impressed, believing that the Drone should have died three thousand years before sending its message.

"There is still time..." continues the Drone. Its voice shifts to a desperate and pleading tone; the Emperor does not care for this, although it wonders if any other civilisations have intercepted the Drone's transmission and what they would have made of it. "I must warn the universe..." it continues. The Emperor glances down at a panel as the Drone's transmission is quickly tagged and analysed, when researchers match the Drone in the recording with another in the Daleks' registry. The Emperor pauses the recording to observe the data, allowing itself to imagine a word barred from Dalek vocabulary: "interesting".

Although the Emperor believes that the Drone in the recording is almost certainly dead by now, it observes from a record that the very same Drone in the recording is currently operating on Skaro as part of a one-hundred Dalek crew in a Dalek Time Squad. The Emperor realises that, at some point, the Drone would travel back in time on a mission that would fail, and it would send the message in an attempt to warn the Daleks of their failure.

The Emperor infers this from the frozen recording of the Drone. For some time, the Emperor has become increasingly aware of small inconsistencies in the universe, as if time was being rewritten. The Emperor has had Dalek Scientists researching temporal science day and night for decades, and has long suspected that the Time Lords have been altering the Dalek race's history. It now wonders if they are responsible for the emerging temporal irregularities. Although Drones are not sophisticated experts on temporal politics or physics, the Emperor considers the possibility that the Drone has learned something that may incriminate the Time Lords.

The Emperor allows the message to conclude. "I must warn the universe," continues the Drone, "about the Doctor." The Emperor finds itself interested once again. Delving deeper into Skaro's systems, it calculates permutations and a vast number of possible actions, while plans and schematics sweep across the chamber's walls. Although the Emperor would normally summon the Dalek Prime Strategist for assistance, it decides not to on this occasion, desiring, in this moment, to construct the Restoration Empire's future alone.

The Emperor realises that the Drone's transmission does not include specific information concerning the era of time that the Drone's message had been transmitted from, nor did it specify how the Doctor was involved. However, there is enough information for the Emperor to wholly commit to an entirely new course of action for the Dalek race. Concluding that history was under attack, and the Restoration Empire was not immune to these attacks, the Emperor decides that it needs more information from a location such as the Archive of Islos, where the Daleks could learn how exactly the Doctor was involved in the temporal anomalies.

Leaving its chamber for the fleet of Dalek ships already prepared, the Emperor glances back at the frozen recording of the Drone's transmission, and briefly considers retrieving the Drone's remains, due to its actions having changed the course of Dalek history. However, the Emperor decides against such an action, as the Drone has already told the Daleks all that they needed to learn.

Characters

 * Emperor of the Restoration
 * Dalek Drone

Continuity

 * The Emperor of the Restoration decides to get more information from the Archive of Islos. (WC: The Archive of Islos)
 * The Emperor discovers that the Doctor is somehow involved in the divergences occurring across time. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead)
 * The Dalek Drone broadcasting the message will later arrive on the Starship Future, when the ship takes on fuel twenty years into its voyage. (AUDIO: Genetics of the Daleks)