Doctor Who: Earthshock (10 page)

Eventually Adric broke an interminable silence by whispering: 'Doctor, you don't think the Captain's somehow mixed up with whatever's down in the hold?'

Before the Doctor could reply, Briggs suddenly thumped the console in exasperation. 'These surveillance monitors should be working now the power's nearly back to normal,' she complained. Most of the screens were blank although a few were blinking and strobing violently. Briggs stared at them in dismay.

The Doctor started to get to his feet. 'Perhaps I can get help,' he suggested promptly.

'You stay where you are!' Briggs snapped, flicking on the intercom. 'Ringway

... Ringway ... what the devil's going on?' she demanded.

There was a long and ominous silence. First Officer Berger struggled frantically with the monitor controls, while Briggs called Ringway over and over again.

'Something's moving down there...' Ringway's shrill voice suddenly burst through before dissolving into a chaos of static. At the same moment, Berger managed to get a hazy picture on one of the monitors.

'What is it? What can you see?' Briggs shouted, thumping the intercom panel in the arm of her command seat and screwing up her eyes at the blurred but viewable image on the monitor, which showed the central section of the hold.

The intercom buzzed harshly for several seconds, but Ringway didn't reply.

'This could be it . . .' Briggs muttered grimly, gripping her chair.

'What's . . . what's
that
?' Berger's unearthly gasp made everyone look at her with a start. Then they followed her gaze to the one workable monitor. Briggs's green eyes widened and her jaw went rigid. The Doctor jumped up and followed by Adric, walked slowly towards the monitor bank, his face set in a mask of disbelief.

On the flickering screen a group of ghostly silver figures was advancing relentlessly towards the camera. A chill settled over the bridge as Berger zoomed in to show the expressionless zombie-like mask of the Cyberleader himself.

'Are these your friends, Doctor?' Briggs eventually asked in a choked voice.

'Oh most definitely not,' the Doctor breathed, his eyes fixed on the screen as if he were in a trance. Slowly he nodded his head, as if acknowledging that he should have realised something much earlier. 'Those are Cybermen,' he explained deliberately.

'Are they robots?' Adric asked incredulously.

The Doctor shook his head. 'Far, far worse,' he murmured. He turned urgently to the Captain. 'You must withdraw your crew. They don't stand a chance,' he warned her earnestly.

At that moment, Berger managed to pan the surveillance camera to reveal Ringway's barricade starting to disintegrate under the Cybermen's deadly barrage.

Then the screen flashed and went white.

Pulling off her right glove, Briggs hurried over to the armoury locker. 'Our defences are crumbling. We must go out and help,' she said defiantly.

Before she could insert her thumb into the identification lock, the access door leading to the walkway above the hold slid aside and Ringway strode onto the bridge, his laser pistol levelled. 'No, Captain, you'll stay right here,' he said coldly.

Briggs glared at him in astonishment. Then a sarcastic smile gradually creased the corners of her bright red mouth. 'The enemy's out there behind you,' she cried in scornful falsetto. 'You're pointing your laser in the wrong direction, Mister Navigator.'

She whooped with laughter at her joke.

Ringway gave her a glacial smile. 'No Ma'am, I am relieving you of your command,' he crowed. 'I'm sick of your sneering and your bullying.'

The Doctor gave a short, hollow laugh. 'You haven't seen anything yet, Mister Ringway. Just wait until the Cybermen start.'

Ringway looked surprised and momentarily disconcerted. 'You know them?'

he murmured.

'Oh yes, we are very old acquaintances,' the Doctor replied affably, moving slowly and casually round so as to keep Ringway's attention away from First Officer Berger standing by her seat. Through the open door behind Ringway, the sounds of the battle between the crew and the Cybermen had reached a climax. 'This slaughter is utterly pointless, you know,' the Doctor continued, keeping his piercing gaze on the nervous traitor.

'The crew is redundant,' Ringway declared flatly, keeping the Doctor covered.

'You even talk like a Cyberman,' the Doctor taunted him, aware that Berger was slowly manoeuvring herself round the end of the console.

'Those tin soldiers must be paying you an awful lot for this, Ringway,' Briggs sneered, catching the Doctor's eye.

'And I bet it isn't in
gold
,' the Doctor added significantly.

Adric had noticed that something was afoot. 'Why is that Doctor?' he asked with exaggerated curiosity.

'Because the Cybermen are highly allergic to the stuff. Suffocates them,' the Doctor explained. 'Doesn't it, Mister Ringway?'

Ringway smiled humourlessly. 'Just keep talking Doctor.'

Adric had turned away slightly and was thoughtfully fingering the large star-shaped badge pinned on his tunic.

Briggs saw that Berger had almost reached the panel on the console containing the release switches for the freighter's emergency bulkhead shutters. 'Ah... where do these... these Cybermen come from, Doctor?' she asked, forcing Ringway to follow her with his eyes as she moved beside the Doctor.

The Doctor gestured courteously to Ringway as if inviting him to answer.

Ringway stared impassively back at him. 'They originally came from Mondas, but that was destroyed,' the Doctor replied. 'I'm rather surprised they didn't warn you about me, Mister Ringway.'

'Perhaps you over-estimate your own importance, Doctor,' Ringway retorted sourly.

'I doubt it. In the past I've been quite a nuisance to them...' the Doctor said with a cheery smile.

'What are you doing there?' Ringway shouted, suddenly suspicious of Adric's movements. Behind Ringway, Berger froze.

'Nothing,' Adric mumbled, without turning round.

Ringway lunged forward and swung the boy to face him. He pressed his pistol against Adric's head and yanked his hand away from his chest. 'It's
gold
,' Ringway breathed, staring at the gleaming badge.

'Only the edge...' Adric protested, flinching aside so that Ringway was obliged to turn his back on the others.

Ringway ripped the star from Adric's tunic. 'Trying to conceal it, were you?'

he shrieked in a strange manic tone, raising his pistol to strike.

Briggs leaped forward, chopped Ringway hard across the back of the neck and hurled him sharply against the console. At the same instant, the Doctor seized the laser from Ringway's limp hand and picked up the badge from the deck.

'Listen!' Adric murmured. There was a forbidding silence. Everyone turned towards the open doorway. 'The fighting's stopped...' he said.

'Quick!' Briggs yelled at Berger, who was unlocking the bulkhead-shutter master control.

At that moment, the deck began to reverberate with a heavy tramping sound and a fierce hissing. Several huge shadows suddenly fell across the landing just outside the bridge. With a gigantic crash two heavy shutters slid down over the entrances just as an enormous silver shape loomed in the doorway.

The Doctor hurried over and tapped one of the shutters dubiously. 'This won't hold them off for long,' he warned.

'They should hold until we reach Earth,' Briggs answered, flopping into her seat and surveying Ringway's motionless body with weary distaste. 'Earth Security will do the rest.'

The Doctor came over to the bank of blank surveillance monitors. 'There could be an entire invasion force,' he murmured grimly. 'How many of those silos are you carrying Captain Briggs?'

'Oh, about fifteen thousand . . .' Briggs began. She stopped, clutching the arms of her seat in sudden horror. 'No, Doctor . . . no . . . it's not possible...' she stuttered.

Outside the bridge, several Cybermen were examining the material of the bulkhead shutters when their Leader strode purposefully into their midst.

'The Doctor must be taken alive,' he ordered. 'What is the delay?'

The Cyber Deputy explained what had happened.

'Our plans must not be hampered by such trivial obstacles,' the Cyberleader rasped. 'Prepare a sonic lance.'

Three of the Cybermen hastily assembled a kind of giant blowpipe. The Deputy took the sonic lance and aimed it at the centre of one of the shutters.

'Ready, Leader,' the Deputy announced.

'Excellent,' the Cyberleader boomed. 'Activate.'

A shuddering spasm ran through the device as it began to emit a low throbbing noise. Within a few seconds a dull red patch appeared in the middle of the shutter and began to spread out.

'The material is resistant, Leader,' the Deputy reported.

'More power!' the Leader ordered, and the throbbing of the sonic lance intensified.

Hissing with anticipation, the Cyberleader watched as the red glow began to brighten and to spread more rapidly over the shutter.

On the bridge, Captain Briggs was sitting motionless in her command seat staring down at Ringway's unconscious body, her lips curled in contempt. With Adric peering over his shoulder, the Doctor was pouring over computer displays showing the freighter's layout.

'We could pump all the air out of the hold,' Berger suggested, selecting a more detailed diagram of the silos.

The Doctor shook his head regretfully. 'Cybermen don't need air, I'm afraid; in fact, they flourish in a vacuum,' he explained.

There was an agonised groan from the deck. Ringway stirred and propped his back against the front of the console.

'Pity, I've just been composing a particularly nasty epitaph for you,' Briggs muttered, jabbing Ringway with the toe of her boot. She pointed the laser pistol directly between his eyes. 'Would threatening to kill this little rat slow down those tin soldiers out there, Doctor?'

'Not in the least,' the Doctor laughed. 'They are not well known for their loyalty.'

Ringway rubbed his bruised neck. 'You're all dead already, so why don't you surrender?' he scoffed.

'I never surrender, it's too embarrassing,' the Doctor retorted, studying the computer displays closely.

Adric suddenly noticed a burning smell. Glancing round he saw the large glowing patch spreading across the shutter behind them. 'Doctor!' he shouted.

'So they've started, have they?' the Doctor murmured, hurrying over and cocking his head near the hot metal and listening. 'Sonic lance, of course,' he said to himself.

'High-frequency sound waves?' Berger exclaimed, making a half-hearted attempt to obtain a picture on the surveillance monitors.

'Probably a mixture of high and low rapidly alternating,' the Doctor explained, walking quickly round the bridge and glancing wildly at the masses of instruments as if searching for something vital.

Ringway was staring excitedly at the ominous red glow and laughing silently to himself.

The Doctor suddenly stopped and grasped Briggs's shoulder. 'You have anti-matter propulsion?' he enquired eagerly. Briggs nodded.

'Stabilised vessel containment system,' Berger confirmed.

'Excellent!' the Doctor cried, watching the spreading glow for a few seconds.

'We may be able to tap the stabiliser.'

Berger hurried over to a large panel and opened it. 'The system is controlled from this unit,' she said.

The Doctor rushed over and knelt down to peer into the unit, muttering quietly. Feeling rather superfluous, Adric went over and tried to find out what the Doctor was up to, but the Doctor simply grunted and started working busily away inside the panel.

'You're always too busy to explain anything to me!' Adric complained loudly.

'Surely I can do something...'

'Give me the square root of 3.6987311,' the Doctor shouted jumping up and striding across to the main computer terminal where he punched in some figures.

Without a pause Adric replied: 'About 1.923209.'

'That's impossible!' Berger cried out as the computer flashed up its answer: 1.9232085.

'Oh Adric's very quick,' the Doctor laughed, hurrying back to the stabiliser unit and delving back into its innards. 'You see Adric, the freighter's anti-matter fuel must be stored so that it doesn't come into contact with ordinary matter...'

'Otherwise they'd annihilate each other,' Adric butted in.

'Exactly,' the Doctor agreed, starting to connect one end of a long length of coaxial cable into the stabiliser. 'So this little device constantly rearranges the position of the atomic particles making up the containment vessel to keep them out of the way of the anti-particles trapped inside.'

Adric shrugged. 'But how does that help us here?'

'Simple!' cried the Doctor, 'The stabiliser will tell the atoms in the shutter that everything is all right and that they can stop letting the Cybermen's sound waves push them around.'

Adric glanced at the shutter which was now glowing bright red all over. 'But will it work, Doctor?' he murmured doubtfully.

'It's got to,' the Doctor said grimly, completing his adjustments, 'otherwise, to quote our friend Mister Ringway over there, we're all dead.'

Still sitting by Briggs's feet and covered by the laser pistol, Ringway gave a cynical laugh as the Doctor walked over to the shutter with the free end of the cable.

The shutter was now a brilliant bluish-white and was beginning to sag as it started to melt.

The Doctor gave rapid instructions to Berger at the main computer and to Adric kneeling in front of the stabiliser panel. 'Now remember, Adric, when I tell you: first the red button and then the green...' he concluded, approaching the white-hot shutter with the cable held in his outstretched hands.

'Anti-matter . . . always hated the stuff . . .' muttered Briggs with cynical gloom, watching with a pessimistic frown as the Doctor averted his face from the searing heat and poised himself on tip-toe.