The question is not so much whether there is life on Mars as whether it will continue to be possible to live on Earth.

Anonymous

A Thousand Days

It never rained on Mars.

Once, perhaps, according to the terraformers that were flocking in by T-Mats. Perhaps it would rain once again, as soon as the planet was made more hospitable for human life. Perhaps, come to think of it, attempting to terraform the red planet decades earlier would not have only given life to it, but saved millions of other lives as well. Perhaps the banished Ice Warriors might realize that, and come to the conclusion that sometimes it was preferable to ask for help rather than...well, inciting a war that led to the destruction of their already weakened civilization.

Mahmoud Gidada didn't care. Mars could remain dry or drown as far as he was concerned. He just wanted to get back home. A process that had been delayed even further by the T-mats being shut down in order to protect their electronics from solar activity. Harmless to Earth, but with Mars's pitiful magnetic field, anything not shielded against the solar particles could be fried. And while all of the Third Tactical Response Brigade's equipment had been shielded from the outset, the T-Mats recently set up weren't. Mahmoud didn't know what genius had forgotten what every UN soldier had remembered for the last three years, but if he ever ran into the bastard, he was going to get in a rover, drive to Valles Marineries and listen to the bastard's screams as he fell down seven kilometres. Another body to add to the graveyard down there.

"Mahmoud, mon ami...it is late to be out, no?"

And yet you're out as well.

Glancing up at the dusty sky, Mahmoud noted that Jean-Pierre had a point. There was a distinct gloom to the western side of Olympus Mons and checking the temperature readout on his suit's HUD, the temperature had gone down to -71 degrees. Granted, he could stay out as late as he wanted, but with what was being called the Thousand Day War over, he was under little obligation to.

"You should get in Mahmoud. The T-Mats...they take you home."

"Will, take me home. And not while this planet's magnetic core is still all snoozy."

Jean's visor was polarized for some reason, so Mahmoud had no idea what reaction he had to his comments. Nor did the newly arrived terraformers, when he tried to press the issue of how on earth (no pun intended) the red planet could be made viable as long as its magnetic field was so weak. The Ice Warriors had tried and failed as miserably in the war against Earth. Heck, apart from the Valles Marineris ambush, their only real success was the destruction of Paris, and that had only served to harden Earth's resolve.

And Jean's as well...

How Jean had felt when he woke up one morning in Lyon to see his country's capital go up in a mushroom cloud he'd never said, anymore than the people of the Moonbase had explained how they were able to send the Ice Warrior invasion fleet into the sun bar mentions of a grey haired doctor. All Mahmoud knew about the former was that Jean's first point of call was to head to Ireland, replace the green and orange with blue and red and get blasted off with the rest of the Irish/Ethiopian Third Tactical over 56 million miles to fight bona fide Martians (yes, actual Martians, not those sycorax weirdos). All Mahmoud knew was that he was perfectly happy to stay on the dead world along with every other weirdo who decided that Earth wasn't good enough for them.

And maybe they had the right idea. After all, Earth was still reeling from the Oil Apocalypse and climate change and from what Mahmoud had read, the first light speed ship to Proxima Centauri would be launched next year-captained by the daughter of one of the staff of Bowie Base One who'd perished nearly three decades ago. Maybe he was being over-optimistic, that he could just take a T-Mat, arrive back in Addis Ababa and assume everything would be all right. That genocide could only be answered with genocide in turn. That after failing to change Earth to suit their own needs, the Ice Warriors had left the way open to humanity to do the same to their world.

Mahmoud didn't know whether he should be glad about that or not.

A/N

This was something of a rarity for me in a Doctor Who context, in that it's primarily a oneshot based on lore rather than characters, and EU lore at that. The Thousand Day War, which I'm guessing was created to follow up on the First Doctor story The Seeds of Death struck my interest for a few reasons in that it's not a blown out of proportion conflict (e.g. the Time War) but actually has humans on the offensive and winning (which, when one considers how many times the Doctor has saved our arses, is something of a rarity). Not that I think one has to unilaterially support one's own species, and the context doesn't ask one to. The Ice Warriors attempt genocide, and it backfires, with them losing Mars altogether. Guess that's what happens when you try to copy Armageddon in regards to asteroid impacts...

Anyway, came up with this as a result.