Snow and Silence

Prologue: Silence
The 701st Goxoskane remembered when monsters had ruled the heavens.

He remembered them all too well--he had been a young recruit on that fateful day. He remembered their ships appearing in the sky from nowhere. He remembered their weapons. He remembered the destruction they had wrought, the dreadful punishments they had sadistically inflicted on his people.

It had been tens of thousands of years since that day. Millennia, even eons, spent cowering in the dark, The monsters had long since departed from the universe. The Lenscrex Intrusion had long lived in the cold, hollow satisfaction that their ancient enemies had been exterminated. Perhaps the monsters had finally met some sort of justice.

Then the Devil came. Twisting every law of time that existed, the Devil pulled its abominable people from the brink of extinction. Now their ghastly signal echoed through the universe, requiring only a single word before resuming their tyrannical hold over time and space. One name spoken, and time would become the nest of evil and corruption again.

‘’The Doctor will not speak his name. Silence will fall.’’

These simple words, ironically spoken by the very forces now shooting at him, gave Goxoskane strength. Through the pod’s foremost window, he watched as the planet Trenzalore grew larger and larger in his view. His compound eyes zeroed in on his chosen landing site, his clawed foreleg clutching the controls and steering his pod closer. Around him the bits and pieces of his friends and family rained down, burning up in Trenzalore’s thick atmosphere. It was of no consequence. If their contingency plan succeeded, then the death of their species would be a fair price to pay.

His pod took a hit from one of the Papal Mainframe’s proton torpedoes, disabling shield systems. Another shot tore apart navigational capabilities.

He was within the atmosphere now…

Goxoskane clicked his mandibles in a phrase of determination. “Silence will fall,” he croaked nervously. He clutched his precious cargo to his thorax just as a final torpedo struck the pod, and he was destroyed.

He’d already activated the wave, however. Before Trenzalore saw its next sunrise, silence ‘’would’’ fall. �

Chapter 1: Christmas Eve
“The sky’s pretty tonight,” observed Laurena.

Erietta glanced up to where her sister was pointing. The moving lights which always graced Christmas’ sky were particularly frantic tonight. Gone was the leisurely pace they usually orbited at--now they were rushing through the sky at breakneck speed, flashing other lights towards one another.

“I wonder what they’re doing,” she said. “Are they fighting, perhaps? Should we tell him?” She gestured at the Clock Tower in the center of town.

Laurena shook her head, causing the flakes of snow that had gathered on her hat to fall off. “He can see the sky from there, I’m sure. As long as he’s not caught up talking to that silly robot of his.”

Erietta nodded, causing a bit of snow to fall off of ‘’her’’ head. It was always snowing in Christmas--you had to move every now and then just to keep from getting weighed down by all the fluffy snowflakes.

“I don’t know what kind of ships those are,” Laurena continued, pursing her lip slightly. “The Doctor taught me how to recognize some of them. The faint red ovals belong to the Silence.”

“I see the most of them,” Erietta noted.

“I don’t know what the white lines are though,” Laurena complained, shuffling on the log she was perched on. “They look like shooting stars.”

A number of other townsfolk passed by, carrying buckets of food, water and other essentials. It was nearing evening--or rather, it was nearing the time when everyone went to sleep. The sun wouldn’t rise until tomorrow evening.

“Don’t start playing with your hair, but Martinas is coming over,” Laurena suddenly whispered in a teasing tone.

“What--”

She cut off as a young man in a knitted wool hood walked over to where the girls were sitting. He was around her own age, if a bit taller. He was muscular for his age, and his face was dotted with a hint of beard stubble. Despite his masculine appearance, his eyes were soft, blue, and contained a hint of what Erietta interpreted as perpetual confusion. Unconsciously she started braiding her hair between two fingers.

“I said don’t start playing with your hair,” Laurena teased gleefully.

“Hi Martinas,” Erietta said with a smile, pointedly ignoring her sister. “Are the dobbocks stabled yet?”

Martinas grinned back at her. “Yeah, I just put up the last doe now. They’re really going through the hay this winter.” He sat on a log opposite them.

The Truth Field prevented her from saying “Fascinating” or “I find the dobbucks interesting”, so Erietta simply smiled again. She shot a brief glance at Laurena, causing her to nod and start back to their home. Erietta savored her time alone with Martinas, and was somehow able to communicate this idea with a mere look towards her twin sister. She supposed she must have a very expressive face.

“The sky is pretty tonight,” Martinas said, looking upwards.

“Yes, I’ve seen it,” replied Erietta. “You should have seen it a minute ago--there were way more of the white lines.”

The sky was beginning to settle again. If the brightly lit commotion before was a battle, then the Silence’s red ovals had emerged victorious. According to the Doctor, those red ovals were the only thing preventing Trenzalore from burning.

But Erietta wasn’t particularly concerned with interstellar politics at the moment.

“Erietta,” Martinas was saying. He looked nervous, which intrigued her to no end. He usually looked either knowledgeable or confused. Nervousness was an emotion she hadn’t often seen from him. “They’re setting up a dance at tomorrow’s daylight,” Martinas continued cautiously. “I was planning on asking you--”

There was the sound of knocking wood and a loud animal call. Martinas sighed, looking over his shoulder toward his family’s barn. One of the dobbucks--a hairy, strong-legged animal--had apparently broken free of its stable and was rampaging across the farmyard, barking in triumph.

“I should go get that,” Martinas said reluctantly. “It might take a while. See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” she agreed. As he walked away, she gave a sigh and a grunt of frustration.

“I get the feeling I would have liked what he was about to say,” she mumbled irritably. She gave a glance at the sky. All the white lines were disappearing, flashing through the sky and burning up. She almost felt sorry for the pilots of the white lines. They hadn’t even gotten close to the planet before being destroyed.

There was one left, though. Instead of vanishing like the rest, this one little white line simply grew broader and brighter, making a faint whistling sound Eriettta could barely hear. She was beginning to worry when a sound like a thundercrack snapped through the night sky, and the white spaceship in the distance disappeared before her eyes in a flash of light.

Erietta sat staring ashen-faced at the night sky for a few minutes longer. She’d seen ships destroyed amongst the stars before, but this was somehow different. As a fresh layer of snow began to come down, she roused herself out of a slight daze and began marching towards her house.

She had tears in her eyes, and she didn’t know why. Well, that wasn’t entirely true: she ‘’did’’ know why, but she was positive it must have been her imagination.

When that ship disappeared in a flash of light, she had ‘’felt’’ it. A spike of pain had flooded through her body. She had heard the scream of some kind of inhuman voice.

Wiping her tears on her scarf, she went into her house, changed into her nightgown and did her best to sleep. She couldn’t have explained why she didn’t rush to the Clock Tower and call for the Doctor. She knew the strange old man who lived in the tower was very insistent that he be told about anything at all out of the ordinary.

But the clicking, chattering voices in her head told her to fear him.

It was a very confused, very frightened human being that went to bed that night.

�

Chapter 2: The Biting Blizzard
It was a very groggy, very irritable Martinas Bamberi who awoke the next morning. It had been a cold rest period for some reason--a new snow cloud had probably blown over the town. Later some unlucky teenagers would find themselves saddled with the dreaded task of shoveling the constantly falling snow off of porches.

Martinas was determined not to be one of those unfortunates. So with a weary sigh, he forced himself out of bed and into his working clothes.

He made his way through the house as silently as he could--he’d deliberately woken up earlier than everybody else, so he’d have to be careful not to wake anyone.

Shuffling through the pantry for a piece of dried sausage, Martinas was ready to start the day’s chores. With a tired sigh, he stepped out the door and headed out to the barn.

It didn’t take long for him to realize something was wrong. He stopped just a few feet out the door, glancing up at the sky. Before he’d gone to sleep, the perpetual night sky had been abuzz with the ships orbiting the planet. The bright lights had been flashing through the sky like never before. Now, though, an oppressive grey cloud had gathered above the town, obscuring the ships and stars completely.

“That’s a shame. It was rather pretty earlier,” Martinas said to no one in particular. Being out in the snow was refreshing to him. There was a cold wind blowing in from the east, invigorating him. With a slight whistle he continued on his merry, oblivious path to the barn.

About halfway there, he noticed another oddity. He kept taking his hat off and shaking it--a habit everyone in Christmas knew, to shake the constant snow off. But though he could see snow falling all around him, not a flake of it was settling on his hat. He frowned at this, squinting at the falling flakes by the light of a nearby lamppost. They looked like normal snowflakes, but they almost seemed to be curving away from him. He reached his hand out, and several of them quickly blew away.

“I guess it’s the wind acting strange,” he decided finally. He began a determinedly cheerful whistle and finished his path to the barn.

Far above the planet Trenzalore, a fleet of ships regrouped after a fierce battle. Tasha Lem, Mother Superious of the Papal Mainframe, stood on the bridge of their primary defense station, looking out at the shredded debris and starship remnants floating outside their vessel.

“A status report wouldn’t go amiss,” she said grimly, her eyes drifting towards the line of Church soldiers behind her.

“The last alien forces were destroyed during their assault on the planet,” a colonel informed her. “Minimal casualties were experienced on our side of the conflict. A small contingency of the alien forces managed to board the Mainframe, but was destroyed with little difficulty. The last of their vessels was disintegrated in Trenzalore’s upper atmosphere.”

“It was one of the most idiotic attacks we’ve yet seen,” Tasha mused, narrowing her eyes at the warship fragments floating out the window. “There’s a plan here, something we’re not supposed to see… Friar-Technician, get me a current survey of our priority-alpha defense site. Open a communications channel to the Doctor.”

“Yes ma’am.” The technician flipped a series of switches and dials, making a confused sound. “Mother Superious, I’m detecting heavy cloud cover over the town of Christmas. It’s preventing me from getting a signal through.”

“I’m supposed to be notified of cloud formation,” Tasha Lem scolded.

“Yes ma’am,” the Friar-Technician agreed helplessly. “Our meteorological instruments failed to predict this one. Possibility of alien origin, perhaps…?”

“A clever excuse,” she replied icily. ‘’But one that is, perhaps, plausible,’’ she thought to herself.

The Mother Superious turned and exited the bridge room, accompanied by her guards.

“Have the alien bodies from the boarding party been incinerated yet?” she asked.

“The cleaning process is still underway,” a guard explained. “Their unclean bodies shall not defile this Church for much longer.”

“I desire to see one of their unclean bodies,” Tasha said. “Take me to the site of the battle.”

The guards escorted her through a series of corridors, finally reaching a chamber lined with corpses both human and alien.

“This is where they all met their end?” she asked, kneeling down to inspect an alien body.

“For the most part, ma’am. A few entered the Confession Priest quarters, where they were electrocuted. We’re having trouble removing their bodies--”

“Since the cleaners keep forgetting what they’re supposed to be cleaning,” Tasha said dryly. “Tell them to wear their neural pieces.” “Yes, ma’am,” the guard continued. “The rest died aboard their ships, well away from the planet. Only a single pod even managed to enter the atmosphere.”

Tasha Lem nodded, turning her attention to the corpse. It was not an alien species she recognized--it resembled an enormous insect, like an ant. Its carapace was pale blue, though she could tell at a glance that some of the others were grey or white. The impression it gave was of an ant entirely carved out of impure ice.

“Have any database searches uncovered this species?” she asked in frustration.

“No, ma’am. Their technology doesn’t match with any known species, and their biology is, well, alien to us.”

“New alien races is nothing new,” Tasha said gravely. “But this race was advanced enough to hold its own against our fleet for almost twenty minutes. An interstellar species of that caliber doesn’t just appear with no records of its existence. Someone should have documented their first contact, or their first superluminal testing, or their colonization of surrounding systems.”

She watched as the last bodies were carried away for incineration. “This leaves us facing a species with no history and unknown technology.”

“Ma’am,” said the colonel respectfully, having followed her to this room. “With respect, we have already faced and defeated them. God’s already given us victory.”

“I don’t think God’s given us victory,” Tasha said quietly. “I think He’s given us a mystery. A mystery and a challenge.”

She gathered up her trailing dress and headed out of the chamber back towards the bridge. “I want all technicians to concentrate on opening communications with the Doctor. On no account are our fighters to make planetfall until we have more information. If there ‘’is’’ an alien plot in progress, we cannot risk accelerating it until the Doctor’s prepared to combat it.”

“Yes ma’am,” the troops said enthusiastically.

Tasha Lem turned to face a window, gazing out on the planet from space. “I ‘’do’’ hope you’re prepared to combat this,” she muttered softly to herself. “I’d hate to see Trenzalore become your grave…”

Martinas stopped whistling when he stepped inside the barn. Something seemed wrong.

“Hello Butter Stick,” he said distractedly, petting a young male dobbuck on his way inside. Most farmers in Christmas had help from siblings when doing farm work. Martinas didn’t mind doing them alone, since it meant no one had to hear the slightly peculiar names he liked to give animals.

“Anything I should know about, Toasty?” he asked, scratching a dobbuck under the antennae as he prepared to open the first stable. Most of the small woolly animals slept outside of the stables, but a few, such as pregnant females, were contained while the townspeople slept. The eyeless animals were usually capable of taking care of themselves, but some needed a bit of extra care and observation.

Right now, the dobbucks were acting a little oddly. They were moving around the barn in brief runs from one wall to another, feeling at every corner with their antennae and making their low-pitched alarm calls. Martinas frowned and glanced around the barn, trying to find something that might have them worried.

The inside of the barn was laced with several large piles of snow. “Poor little dobbucks,” Martinas said sympathetically. “Wind blew a bunch of snow in here, right? Odd that you’re upset about it though. You usually love snow. You’re adapted for it, right? That’s how the Doctor explains it...”

Martinas checked behind his back nervously. Occasionally ferocious beasts would wander in from the local forests. Trenzalore had a number of native animals just like the dobbucks. Maybe a predator had come by and frightened them?

Then he paused. The snow inside the barn… the barn’s door was facing the west, and the wind was blowing from the east. How could so much of it possibly have blown inside?

Martinas opened a stable door, and cried out in shock.

The previous evening, one of the pregnant dobbucks had broken free of her stable, interrupting his infinitely-important conversation with Erietta. He’d put the dobbuck back in the stable for the night, making sure to secure it especially tight.

The dobbuck wasn’t there now.

All there was in the stable was a few bones. Thick dobbuck bones, scattered around the stable. They were laying in blood-splattered piles of snow.

Martinas started to retch. The snow was ‘’moving’’. It was as if every snowflake was alive, fighting other snowflakes in pulling the last pieces of flesh off of the dobbuck’s bones.

He wildly turned around to view the barn. Now that he really looked at it, that explained the piles of snow that had somehow gotten inside against the wind--the snow was ‘’crawling’’ inside.. That explained the frantic movements of the dobbucks--they were staying out of the snow.

Martinas shakily stepped away from the stable, with a brief glance over the top of the others confirming that all the stabled animals had met the same fate. ‘’In the stables’’, he guessed, ‘’they weren’t able to get away.’’

As he slowly stepped out of the barn, he heard a slight crunch under his foot. In horror, he looked down and saw his boot standing the middle of a snow pile.

He let out a scream as the snowflakes started scurrying up his pants leg, but he doubted anyone could hear him. He ran a few paces away, but he was still in the snow. Snow was everywhere in Christmas. Some of it was moving, some of it wasn’t. How could he tell which piles were real snow and which were the snowflake creatures?

To make matters worse, the falling snowflakes that had swerved away from him before seemed to have gotten used to him. He watched in horror as the snow from several meters away started moving towards him in midair. There seemed to be a curtain of moving snow gathering around him.

He kicked his feet, shaking the biting snowflakes out of his pants leg. He doubted he’d get very far, but he started running breathlessly back into town.

“Help!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. He stumbled several times in his attempt to run through the deep snow. “Somebody help, please!”

The snowflakes in the air began flying into him at immense speed. As he opened his mouth for another scream, a stream of snow flew through the air and into his throat, choking him. He stumbled and fell face forward just as he entered town.

The snow was all around him now. He’d been completely buried by the moving snowflakes, which were now biting and tearing at his skin. He couldn’t breathe since they were crawling down his throat.

He began to feel faint, which a small part of him said was because of his suffocation. He started to drift in his own consciousness, vaguely remembering his family, the townspeople, the Doctor and his robot head. Erietta…

He was positive he must have already died when he heard an odd buzzing sound from somewhere outside the snow that covered his face. The snow slowly stopped biting, and the flakes started leaving his throat.

A kindly, familiar voice started speaking. “Right then. Snow that bites. Wasn’t expecting that. You don’t seem to like sonic frequencies…”

The last of the snow retreated away from him, and Martinas could blurrily make out a skinny figure with a cane a few feet a way.

“Oh, hello,” the familiar man said. “Didn’t know they’d caught someone. Let’s see if you’re OK… no, don’t faint now. Look at me, I’m an old man. Do you think it’s easy dragging unconscious teenagers at my age?”

Martinas passed out.

�

Chapter 3: Waking Up
The room was warm. Quiet. Erietta felt like she could lay there forever, she was so tired.

‘’Silence. Silence will fall.’’

Suddenly she sat up in bed, panting. Drops of sweat were on her brow and she wasn’t sure why. Was it a nightmare? Had she just dreamed the night before?

Shakily she stepped into her slippers and got out of bed. Her room was typical of Christmas bedrooms--small, practical, but comfortable. At one end of the room was her bed, at the other a mirror and dresser.

She got dressed in a warm wool dress, one of her better ones with faint rose outlines embroidered on. After all, there would be a dance later that night, when the sun rose.

“This is going to be a simple, easy day,” she told her reflection in a matter-of-fact voice. “No chores, no strange voices. Get up, tease Laurena, find Martinas, kill the Doctor, dance with Martinas tonight…”

She frowned. “Huh? No. Get up, tease Laurena, kill the Doctor, ensure the Time Lords never enact their twisted travesty of justice on another species…”

Now she was panicking. “My name is Erietta Rale,” she murmured to herself. “I don’t kill people, certainly not the Doctor. I don’t even know what a Time Lord is…”

An image flashed through her mind. ‘’A man with harsh features, staring at her as if in judgement. He was dressed in red finery, carrying a staff.’’

‘’He was waving the staff at a gathering of enormous ants, pure white in coloring. They were cowering and screaming in fear of him.’’

She clutched the wall with trembling hands. “Laurena!”, she screamed. “Laurena, come up here please!”

There was a slight thumping as her sister rushed up the stairs, finally flinging the door open and entering. There was an intense look of concern on her face.

“Laurena,” panted Erietta, “we need to kill the Doctor.”

Laurena’s eyes, already wide, now looked like saucers. “‘’What?’’”

“I mean ‘call the Doctor’,” Erietta corrected firmly. “Please, get the Doctor. Before it’s too late.”

Her sister turned around to rush out again, but Erietta gripped her by the arm. “No!”

“But you said to get the Doctor…”

“You can’t,” Erietta insisted--though she wasn’t sure why she insisted it. “Listen, I’m not sure what’s going on, but--”

“That’s why we need the Doctor,” Laurena argued, shaking her sister’s grip off her arm. “You looked awful when you went to bed last night. I thought maybe Martinas had something stupid to you or something, but you’re really scaring me now. We need--”

“I said ‘’no’.” Erietta stared into her sister’s face firmly. She’d always been able to communicate with her sister without talking. Now she put everything she had into ‘’impressing’’ upon her the importance of not telling the Doctor. The Doctor couldn’t know anything about this. The clicking, chattering voices in her head insisted that this was the case.

She started massaging her forehead gingerly. Everytime the voices started, her head hurt a little more. When did that start?

“Eri,” Laurena began. She was using a nickname she hadn’t used in years. Why would the human do that? Correction: why would ‘’her sister’’ do that?

“Eri, I think there’s something wrong. Talking to the Doctor can’t hurt, but if there ‘’is’’ something wrong, he can help. Will you please come with me to the Clock Tower?”

Erietta, adrift in a fog of strange suspicions and chattering voices, nodded absently. “Yes… I think that’s for the best.”

Laurena nodded in relief and took her sister’s hand. “Let’s go…”

Her sister guided her through the house to the front door. Their father lay snoozing on the couch, oblivious to what was happening around him. Laurena didn’t bother to wake him up, as she was in a hurry.

The window in the door seemed odd, somehow. The snow from last night had stuck to the glass, and almost seemed to be moving slightly.

Erietta suddenly slapped Laurena’s hand as she tried to open the door.

“Ow! Why would you do that?”

“You can’t go outside,” murmured Erietta. “I’m out there.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Laurena was looking increasingly worried. “Erietta, you’re inside with me right now. There’s nothing outside but the snow.”

“I ‘’am’’ the snow,” Erietta rumbled. “I was shattered, last of my kind. Now I feed. Now I grow. Now I will carry out my purpose.”

Laurena grabbed her twin by the arm and flung the door open. “Eri, I’m sorry, but we have to see the Doctor. Just come along.”

“Don’t open the door, you stupid ape,” Erietta snarled. “You don’t know what’s out there. The flesh will be stripped off your bones if you step out that door. The rest of me is out there. I am assembling.”

Ignoring Erietta’s increasingly deranged ramblings, Laurena tried to drag her out the door.

As soon as she did so, a pile of snow outside the door rose up like a living thing and threw itself against her. Laurena fell the floor and started screaming, flakes of snow scurrying up and down her dress and biting her skin.

Erietta watched dispassionately for a moment, then shook her head. “No!” she screamed. “Not her. We--you--we don’t have to kill her!”

The snow slowly and reluctantly retreated, leaving a sobbing Laurena on the floor. Erietta picked up a heavy piece of wood from their porch and placed a firm hold on her sister.

“You will die soon,” she said in a voice that wasn’t quite her own. “Or more precisely, you will cease to live. But we are capable of kindness. We have determined the force necessary to leave you unconscious while not killing you or leaving permanent damage. You will live through what hours you can, sleeping and oblivious to the end of your world.”

“Why?” whispered Laurena. “Eri, why are you doing this?”

“Your sister is not responsible for this. She has no volition of her own at the moment, although she did request that you be allowed to live. Your sister was an unexpected, but welcome, surprise to my plan. Now go to sleep.”

The creature that was Erietta swung the piece of wood into her sister’s head, and dragged her unconscious form into a corner. She then put on a warm wool cap and left the house. �