Doctor Who: Earthshock (9 page)

'Mineral ores,' Ringway blurted out, a merest hint of bravado passing over his pinched features as the laser pistol wavered slightly in his clammy grasp.

Briggs slapped her gloved hand against the back of her seat with sudden impatient savagery, glaring at Ringway. At once he pulled himself together and strode obediently out.

'You must isolate the affected section,' the Doctor advised.

'Not while we're in warp drive,' Briggs snapped.

'It's the only way you'll stop them.'

Torn between suspicion and helplessness, the Captain turned in frustration to the Doctor. 'But who are they?' she demanded.

The Doctor shrugged. 'I don't know yet, but I suspect that whatever is tapping your power circuits wants a lot more than just control of your ship.'

Berger jumped up in alarm as more warnings flashed on the console in front of her. 'Captain, we must come out of warp drive now,' she pleaded. 'If we continue to lose power like this the thrusters could mis-phase.'

'No!' Briggs shouted, with a ferocity that surprised everyone. 'I am not risking my bonus just because of a few miserable stowaways.' She walked contemptuously away.

'You must listen,' the Doctor insisted, rushing over and seizing her by the shoulders. 'The story about the bomb is true. Whoever planted it is now concealed in your hold.'

Briggs shook her head vehemently. 'I will not stop this ship,' she bellowed.

'Our transponder would inform Earth Security that we had deviated from our flight schedule. We would be intercepted and hove to. I'd be penalised for delayed delivery.'

'Are you sure you know what you're delivering?' the Doctor challenged her, a gleam of victory in his eyes. 'You could be giving the enemies of Earth a guaranteed free ride.'

Briggs shoved the Doctor aside and dropped heavily into her command seat.

'Ringway,' she snapped into the intercom, keeping her eyes closely on the Doctor,

'position your squad along the first level. Make sure that whatever's down there stays there.'

'Yes, Captain,' Ringway answered smartly.

'I have no reason to believe your fairy tales,' Briggs told the Doctor.

The Doctor had completely crushed his hat between his hands in his anxiety.

He glanced helplessly at Adric and at Berger for support. 'Then at least believe your own instruments!' he finally yelled in exasperation.

Briggs leaned intently over her command panel. 'We go on...' she said firmly.

Ever since the departure of the Doctor and Adric, the atmosphere in the TARDIS had grown steadily more tense. In the oppressive silence, Tegan and Professor Kyle were gazing apprehensively at the vague shadowy images on the viewer screen. Scott was pacing around like a caged animal, and the troopers were hanging restlessly about, desperate to get to grips with the enemy - whatever it might be. Nyssa had been fiddling at the console for some time, biting her lip and frowning at strange readings on the instrument panels.

Eventually Scott could contain himself no longer. 'I think we've waited long enough,' he said, checking his watch.

'I agree. Something must have happened to them,' the Professor murmured.

Nyssa looked up sharply. 'My instinct is to wait,' she objected.

'Why? They've been gone ages,' Tegan protested.

'I'm as concerned as you are,' Nyssa replied, 'but things do not feel right out there.'

'Is the magnetic field still increasing?' Kyle asked.

Nyssa shook her head. 'It's reducing now, but it's still massive.'

They all stared at the mysterious shadows on the viewer.

'Could it hurt them?' Tegan asked quietly.

Nyssa looked very worried. 'I can't tell without knowing what is causing it,'

she said. 'We shall just have to wait until it stabilises.'

Reluctantly they waited. Time dragged by and still the screen showed nothing but deep, jagged shadows. At last even Nyssa could bear it no longer. 'The field is much weaker now. It might be safe now...' she said uncertainly.

Immediately Scott and his squad snatched up their equipment and stood poised for action, while Nyssa completed a final check.

'I want to come with you!' Tegan suddenly blurted out, grasping the Lieutenant's arm.

Scott shook his head firmly. 'It's going to be very rough, young lady,' he told her rather patronisingly.

Tegan's chin promptly jutted defiantly forward. 'I think I'd find it rougher waiting around in here,' she retorted. She swung round on a startled Professor Kyle.

'Lend me your overalls, Professor,' she ordered cheekily.

'But you're not trained for combat...' Scott started to protest.

'Knowing my friends are in danger is all the training I need!' Tegan snapped, grabbing the Professor's arm and leading her towards an interior door.

Nyssa looked up from her calculations. 'I shouldn't bother to argue, Lieutenant,' she advised as the door closed behind them.

While Tegan and Professor Kyle were changing, Scott took one of the troopers' radios and placed it on the console. 'If the Doctor returns, call me at once,' he told Nyssa. 'I don't want to be out there any longer than necessary.'

A moment later, the interior door flew open and Tegan strode in wearing Professor Kyle's rather too-large overalls and boots. Despite the tense atmosphere, Nyssa found herself suppressing a strong urge to shriek with laughter. Scott just stared open-mouthed as Tegan picked up a spare laser tube dropped by a dead trooper in the cavern earlier.

'Right,' Tegan cried, striding to the exterior door. 'Let's march...'

Ringway and his small squad of crew members had hastily constructed a rough barricade of crates and drums around the top of the steel stairway leading down from the bridge level to the floor of the main hold. While they worked, they kept glancing down into the silent shadowy labyrinth below the walkway, but so far nothing had stirred among the dark cold canyons between the massive silos.

Then all at once, a noise like the savage screeching of some gigantic primitive bird ripped through the ominous stillness. The crew froze as the sound of violently tearing and twisting metal reached an echoing climax and then abruptly ceased.

'To your positions,' Ringway hissed. The terrified squad scrambled for cover and waited, their lasers whirring in their trembling hands.

For a moment there was silence. Then a dull, rhythmic beating sound began far down the length of the vast hold. It was accompanied by a low hissing, like the distant breathing of some monstrous animal. The sounds grew relentlessly nearer and nearer, and became more like the working of a vast bellows or some ancient steam engine. One or two of the squad glanced round as if seeking instructions from Ringway - but he was nowhere to be seen.

The crew members stared open-mouthed as a phalanx of silver figures suddenly came into view from the far end of the hold, marching inexorably towards them like a machine. In the midst of the group towered the Cyberleader, its huge head glinting in the shafts of light between the silos. Each Cyberman held its weapon levelled like a stubby cluster of short tubes...

Eventually one of the crew members fired his laser. The lethal, pencil-thin beam of energy shot down the corridor between the silos and into the advancing enemy. A few sparks crackled off the armoured silver carapaces. Otherwise the laser had no effect. In sudden panic, all the crew members fired at the strange, robotic

creatures. Showers of sparks flew all round the Cybermen, but still they approached unharmed, their empty eyes fixed hypnotically on the barricade above them. The air was filled with the repeated whining of the useless lasers and the spectacular blaze of sparks.

When the Cybermen reached the bottom of the stairway, a fusillade of sickening, invisible bursts thudded out of the ends of their blunt-nosed weapons.

Besieged crew members and bits of barricade were hurled in all directions like leaves in a sudden gust of wind. Still firing their lasers, the surviving defenders desperately tried to retreat towards the bridge as the Cybermen began to climb slowly up the stairway. Burst after burst from the attackers sent more and more of them reeling, their bodies pulped by ultrasonic waves.

When the Cybermen reached the remains of the barricade, they simply marched through it, trampling the heavy steel drums and crates like matchwood...

Scott, Tegan and the troopers had been creeping cautiously among the silos, searching anxiously for the Doctor and Adric and trying to locate the source of the weird and terrifying sounds that had begun almost as soon as they had left the TARDIS.

'We'll never find them here,' Tegan complained, tired and frightened.

'You insisted on coming,' Scott reminded her brusquely.

Tegan peered fearfully into the shadows. 'I know,' she sighed, 'I'm just a mouth on legs really. I just wish I could keep it shut occasionally...' She fell abruptly silent, but her mouth still hung wide open. Speechless, she pointed down a corridor at right angles to the one they had been following. There hung the remains of a silo that seemed as if it had exploded: the thick metal walls were split and peeled back like torn paper.

They stared at the fearsome wreckage a moment, then Scott led them slowly closer, lasers primed. The huge container was empty except for a mass of shredded plastic sheeting scattered like twisted broken cobweb over the floor.

Just then, a series of sickening thuds throbbed through the hold followed by the clatter of flying metal and horrifying human screams.

'The Doctor?' Scott gasped, turning to a chalk-white Tegan. 'Follow me!' he whispered, leading them swiftly through the silos towards the noise.

By the time they reached the end of the hold near the bridge stairway, the firing had stopped. Crouching in the deep shadows, they watched the silver figures of the Cybermen trampling indifferently over the bodies strewn over the upper landing.

For several seconds they were too shocked to move or speak.

'What
are
they?' Tegan finally managed to gasp, her voice a mixture of horror and fascination.

'Whatever they are they're difficult to kill...' muttered Scott, unable to avoid a shudder as he scanned the wreckage of the barricade and tried to assess their chances.

Tegan's fear rapidly turned into a deep and burning anger as she stared up at the mangled bodies of the dead crew members. 'Well, Lieutenant, do we go on?' she asked bluntly.

'Up there... past those things?' Scott snorted. 'Those poor guys were using lasers just like ours, but I don't see any of those silver things dead.'

The stairway was now clear as the Cybermen moved away along the first-level walkway and advanced towards the bridge. In a few minutes they were out of sight.

'We could at least try,' Tegan said accusingly.

Scott hesitated, filled with admiration for Tegan's plucky determination. Then he nodded and smiled. Signing to the others to follow he edged carefully out of the shadows and ran lightly towards the stairs. No sooner had they broken cover than two Cybermen suddenly appeared, returning along the walkway. Scott and his companions darted back into the shadow of the silos just in time. The two Cybermen stopped at the top of the stairs, as if guarding the route to the bridge.

'Think we could clobber those two?' Tegan whispered eagerly.

Scott crouched in the dark niche, thinking. 'There's a chance if we can all concentrate our fire,' he murmured, staring up at the seemingly indestructible figures looming above them. 'Aim at those gratings on their chests, but wait until they're facing us squarely,' he instructed.

With a thrill of excitement, Tegan primed her laser tube just as the Lieutenant had shown her and took careful aim. The whirring sound caused the two Cybermen to swing round to face them.

'Now!' Scott cried.

An intense cluster of powerful laser beams struck both Cybermen simultaneously. At first nothing happened. Then, as the Cybermen raised their deadly blasters to annihilate their attackers, thick black smoke began to pour out of their ventilator units. One of them swayed drunkenly and then overbalanced and crashed down the stairway, dropping its weapon as it fell.

'Come back here!' Scott screamed, as Tegan rushed forward. The troopers continued to fire at the Cyberman up on the walkway until it started staggering wildly about, with oily smoke and thick brown fluid erupting out of its chest. Reaching the first Cyberman, Tegan kicked its supporting arm away from under it as it attempted to get up, seized its weapon and frantically fiddled with the unfamiliar mechanism. She backed slowly against the stairway as the Cyberman succeeded in standing upright and began to advance towards her, its huge arm raised to strike.

Suddenly the blaster fired in her trembling hands. She was thrown backwards by the recoil and the Cyberman exploded in a messy hail of splinters. She sagged against the metal struts shaking violently and bathed in sweat. For a few seconds everything went blank.

Above her, the other Cyberman was lurching away towards the bridge, Scott's lasers still burning into its back.

When Tegan came to again, Scott was dragging her back into the shadows, his face a conflict of admiration and fury. 'The other one got away,' he muttered. '
We
are going back to the TARDIS.'

Despite her shocked and dazed state Tegan resisted with all her might. 'Oh no, we're not,' she retorted, shaking free, the light of battle in her eyes, 'not until we've found the Doctor and Adric.'

The Doctor and Adric had been sitting morosely on the deck of the bridge, facing the wall with their hands on their heads like two naughty schoolboys. Meanwhile Briggs and Berger sat tensely at the console, fighting to keep the unwieldy old freighter stable in its warp drive. Now that the power-drain had started to subside, the Doctor was at a loss to think of some way to force the Captain to co-operate in dealing with the unknown parasitic enemy in the hold.