The Wanderer: Imdali

The TARDIS wheezed into existence, an alarm going off the moment it finished materializing. The Wanderer pulled the screen towards him, quickly checking the information on it, before heading for a small chest next to the stairs to the console room's upper level, Veda watching in confusion from the other side of the console.
"What's the alarm?"
The Wanderer crossed to Veda's side before taking her left hand and placing a device in it, the Time Lord returning to the chest for another of the devices.
"The TARDIS has detected non-native technology so I want to be prepared in case we run into it. The device I've just given you is an energy wand. It'll disable most electronics and stun organic life for about an hour."
Veda examined the energy wand, noting it's simple point-and-press interface, before glancing at the shield vambrace the Wanderer still wore.
"Do I get one of those too?"
"Maybe if we manage to go to Durendil. And get there before the Daleks did."
Veda let the matter drop, tucking her energy wand into the pocket of her uniform tunic, before following the Wanderer from the TARDIS.
"Where are we this time?"
"According to the TARDIS we're on Imdali, in the Human year of -7,942BC."
Veda glanced around as the pair began walking deeper into Veracity, Imdali’s capital city, and left behind the com-booth the TARDIS was disguised as.
"A minus numbered year of the Human calendar? What's the point in that?"
"In the 41st Millenium Humanity develops an almost stable means of time travel. Nowhere near that of Gallifrey's but it is more usable than previous technology they'd created. They'd long encountered humanoid species that had ancient legends of being Humanity's temporally displaced children and, with some assistance from the Venatrix, they figured out that it was all true."
"A stable and closed predestination paradox."
"That's right. Imdali is a product of that system. They need to know what year it is on Earth so that they don't change the chain of events leading to their creation."

Whilst they'd been walking the Wanderer had been surreptitiously watching the people around them. No-one seemed overly anxious of the skies so presumably whatever the TARDIS had picked up on wasn't because of any extra-planetary invasion. Snatching an actual newspaper from a stand on a street corner the Wanderer flicked through it before cursing.
"Veda, look at this." The Time Lady leaned over and frowned as she saw the page the Wanderer had paused on. "I'm not seeing things am I?"
Veda shook her head, gaze fixed on a picture of what appeared to be a Sontaran greeting an Imdalian official. The caption mentioned some sort of trade agreement but she shared the Wanderer's disbelief.
"I didn't think Sontarans did trade deals. Don't they normally just invade a world and take what they want?"
The Wanderer snorted in amused agreement and kept reading the newspaper, finally pointing at a small paragraph near the end of the article.
"It says here that there'll be a shindig tonight at the government palace. Let's get back to the TARDIS and prepare. I'm sure I've got some psychic paper somewhere."

The Wanderer and Veda spent a couple of hours in the TARDIS' expansive wardrobe, taking their time in picking out what to wear. Eventually, after a lot of searching in the library, the Wanderer had found his psychic paper and it was decided that they'd be going as members of foreign nobility, requiring clothing of fine quality and make. They made it to the palace shortly after the start of the reception, fashionably late as the Wanderer said, and the Time Lord began mingling, Veda instead keeping to the edges of the chamber. Everything quieted when the Sontaran was ushered in, the entire room's attention on the squat alien as he walked to the main table at the far end of the room, and the assembled crowd was shown to their tables once he had been seated.

"He looks bored."
"The Sontaran? He probably wishes he was anywhere else."
Both they and the Sontaran had sat through nearly an hour of speeches, broken only by the serving of what was said to be first course of a banquet, and all the aliens in the room were bored, although all three hid that fact. A ripple of light applause signaled the end of another person's ramble and the Wanderer glanced at the main table when the planetary governor, the man seen shaking the Sontaran's hand in the newspaper picture, rose.
"We have heard from several esteemed guests tonight, Doctor Tannda in particular, but now I'd like to ask our offworld guest if he would speak. Commander Styx?"
The Sontaran stood, almost glaring at the room and began speaking, his manner blunt and straight to the point.
"The assistance provided has been good and the materials you have given will be of great use to my colony fleet." Both the Wanderer and Veda shared a glance at that and began paying more attention. "I will ensure that your world's name lives in history."
Styx sat and the second course was swiftly bought out as the crowd absorbed the Sontaran's brief statements. Both Time Lord and Lady only picked at their food, like everyone else more interested by the Sontaran, and they politely excused themselves before a new round of self-indulgent speeches began.

Ducking into a side street the Wanderer pulled the p-mac out, activating the tablet computer and watching the screen after unfolding it. When a pulsing light appeared he grinned, turning to Veda.
"Just found his ship. Shall we take a look?"
"Shouldn't we have done that first, instead of going to that reception?"
The Wanderer frowned at the mild reprove in Veda's tone before grinning again, setting off towards the location marked by the light on the p-mac screen.
"Probably, but then I would have missed the chance to update my outfit to match my new body. And surely you needed something better than that Guard uniform?"

The ship, a typical Sontaran battlesphere, sat in a field on the edge of Veracity, the small patch of cracked dirt and blackened grass beneath it implying that the vessel was regularly used. Standing on a balcony overlooking the field the Wanderer pointed his p-mac at the ship before frowning, glancing between it and the Sontaran craft.
"Nothing wrong with the battlesphere. But the blast pattern? That indicates Styx is going somewhere."
"A larger ship in orbit perhaps?"
The Wanderer put the p-mac away and turned to leave the balcony.
"We'll have to go back to the TARDIS to check. Unless you want to go closer and check the battlesphere's records?"

The Wanderer and Veda stood in front of the screen in the TARDIS console room, their gazes flicking between the sections of the Sontaran mothership they'd discovered hiding on the far side of the Imdalian moon.
"See here? The nutrient tanks have been shot through."
Veda nodded, tapping a button to zoom in on the mothership's bulbous midsection.
"Looks like the teleport system has been destroyed as well. That'd explain why he has had to come here for help."
The Wanderer hummed in agreement and suddenly moved to another stretch of console, dragging the screen with him, before pointing at the screen after about a minute, Veda moving to be next to him.
"In three days a squadron of Rutan ships, probably the same ones responsible for the existing damage, will enter the system and destroy the Sontaran mothership."
Veda checked the dated entries, all of them related to Imdali, on the screen.
"But why does the mothership stay here?"
"Well obviously something stops Commander Styx from returning to it. Perhaps it's us."

The battlesphere was still sitting in the field when they returned to it. Hefting the backpack hanging over one shoulder the Wanderer checked the p-mac one more time before scurrying across the field and quickly inspecting the spherical scout craft, glancing briefly back towards the balcony where Veda waited. The hatch swung open after a second and the Wanderer slipped inside, putting the backpack on the deck and rummaging through its contents. Like a TARDIS, and more than a few pieces of clothing worn by Time Lords, it was bigger on the inside and soon equipment surrounded the Wanderer, all of it connected to a small glowing crystal supplied by the TARDIS itself. With a grin the Wanderer attached a final control board to the contraption he'd built, the crystal's glow getting brighter, and he tucked the entire device in an empty storage locker, plugging a thin cable into a nearby port so that the contraption could interface with the battlesphere.

"That's the time-loop starting." The Wanderer turned away as the Sontaran battlesphere powered up and rose into the air, only getting to a height of half-a-dozen meters before flickering, reappearing back on the ground and then beginning to repeat itself. "I wasn't sure it would work. It's been a long while since I've made one."
"When was that?"
"The Alpha Point, 22 years after the start of the War, about 600 years ago on my own timeline. Although that was with the help of a Vortex Entity."