by Doctor Who
The Cyberleader considered – for what seemed to Martha a very long time. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘When we find the Doctor, she will be a useful hostage.’
The Cyberman holding Martha released its grip and turned away.
Martha stood rubbing her sore elbow, looking around her. She was overcome by a strange feeling. She was pretty sure she had been here before. But not with the place like this – a dark, empty shell. When she’d been here before there had been lights and music, clowns and aerial dancers, exhibitions and installations and cafes and food stalls.
There had been a whole fairground.
She’d come as a stroppy teenager, dragged there by her mum and dad, still together then. She’d quite enjoyed it, although she’d refused to admit it.
‘I’m in the Dome,’ she realised. ‘The Cybermen’s secret base is the Millennium Dome!’
The Doctor, Major Burton and Captain Sarandon stood watching as a duty corporal finished pinning a scale map of Greater London to the map board on the office wall.
‘Thank you, Corporal,’ said Major Burton.
‘Sir,’ barked the soldier, He saluted and marched out.
‘It’s hopeless,’ said Sheila Sarandon. ‘They could be anywhere on this map.’
‘Or off it,’ said Major Burton. ‘We’ve no guarantee they’re in this area at all. They could be anywhere between Land’s End and John O’Groats.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘I doubt it.’
Sheila Sarandon asked her usual question. ‘Why?’
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‘For one thing, their teleportation equipment isn’t very reliable. It failed when they tried to capture us. I don’t think they’d trust it arty further than they could throw a rat. Mind you, Cybermen – good throwing arms. Still quite a way. But they broke out from Torchwood Tower, remember. I think we’re looking for the first good hiding place close to Canary Wharf.’
‘And how do we find it?’
‘Power,’ said the Doctor. ‘They’d need massive amounts, and they must be stealing it.’ He paused for a moment to think. ‘Unless they have thousands of highly trained hamsters going round in special wheels. . . No,’ he decided. ‘Definitely stealing it. So, if we can trace the electricity leakage. . . ’
‘I’ll get on to the Grid,’ said Sheila Sarandon. She went over to her phone. But it rang before she could pick it up.
‘Hello. . . Yes. . . Yes, I see. Thank you.’ Sheila turned to the Doctor and Burton. ‘My people have checked all over the Royal Hope and couldn’t find your friend, although several people remembered talking to her. But. . . ’ She hesitated.
The Doctor saw the look on her face. ‘But what?’
‘A policeman reported a strange event in the car park. A silver giant grabbing a girl – then they both vanished.’
‘She went back to the TARDIS and found it had gone,’ said the Doctor. ‘While she was there a Cyberman turned up, looking for me –and settled for Martha.’ He began pacing up and down again, thinking aloud. ‘She can’t tell them anything. She doesn’t know where I am. They might just kill her, but there’s a chance they’ll keep her as a hostage. . . Ah!’ He stopped pacing, and pointed at the desk. ‘Can I use your phone?’ He beamed at Major Burton and Captain Sarandon.
‘I keep forgetting how technologically advanced you humans are these days!’
‘Do you think she’ll be able to answer?’ asked Sheila Saran don as she watched the Doctor dialling Martha’s mobile number.
‘If she’s still alive,’ said the Doctor quietly.
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Chapter Twelve
Attack
IN THE ECHOING GLOOM of the Dome, Martha studied the group of Cybermen. They were clustered around their equipment and seemed to be ignoring her for the moment.
Maybe this was her chance. Martha was determined to do something. She certainly wasn’t going to mope around, waiting for someone to come and rescue her.
She started to edge slowly away. From what she remembered, the Dome was huge. Maybe she could get away, hide somewhere. Perhaps she could even escape. If she could find the Doctor and tell him of the Cybermen’s base. . . She moved a little further away.
A metallic voice boomed, ‘Do not move or you will be deleted.’
Martha shrugged and stood still, waiting for another chance.
When her mobile phone rang, it seemed so normal that she answered automatically.
‘Hello?’
The Doctor’s voice rang out clearly. ‘Martha – how lovely to hear your voice. I’m at Chadwick Green Research Centre. So, where the devil are you?’
‘I’m in the Do–’
A giant metal hand reached out and snatched the phone, crushing it into metal fragments. ‘Excellent,’ said the Cyberleader. ‘That is all we need to know. Prepare the attack squad for revival.’
The Doctor looked at his dead phone for a moment and put it away.
‘What did she say?’ asked Sheila Sarandon. ‘Just one syllable,’ said the Doctor. ‘“Doh”. As in “doh, re, mi”.’ He went back to the map and studied it thoughtfully.
‘I spy with my little eye. . . something beginning with doh. . . ’ His pointing finger shot out. ‘And there it is! “Doh”, as in “Doh, how could 49
I have been so stupid?” The Dome! The good old Millennium Dome!
Big, deserted, lots of power outlets – and conveniently close to Canary Wharf. Well, at least someone’s found a use for it at last.’
Martha stood watching as two of the Cybermen dragged a coffin-shaped metal box up to the equipment complex and attached elec-trodes to the sides. The box hummed with power and a giant steel shape sat up inside like a corpse waking from the dead. Or like Frankenstein’s monster coming to life in an old horror movie.
The Cyberman climbed stiffly from the container and stood upright.
Its metal arm clanged across its armoured chest in salute. Then it moved aside and another container was dragged forward.
Martha watched, horrified and fascinated, as the process was re-peated again and again, until four more Cybermen had been revived from hibernation.
The Cyberleader reviewed his troops.
‘Soon we shall be ready for transmission. The Doctor must be captured alive. Other life forms may be deleted.’
Martha wondered if these were all the Cybermen that had been held in reserve. Five in all and, with the original three, eight – unless they had a whole army stashed away. Though, according to the Doctor, they wouldn’t have had time. . .
She stepped forward. ‘Are these all you have?’
‘They will be sufficient.’
The Cyberleader turned to the original two Cybermen. ‘One of you will operate the teleport mechanism. The other will guard the prisoner. We shall return with the Doctor.’
A circle of light appeared in the centre of the equipment complex.
One by one, the Cybermen stepped into it and faded away. The Cyberleader waited till last.
‘What good will it do you to capture the Doctor anyway?’ said Martha as he prepared to depart. ‘He won’t help you.’
‘The Doctor will obey our orders,’ said the Cyberleader.
‘Why should he?’
‘If he does not help us, he will see you die.’
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∗ ∗ ∗
Major Burton was in his element, barking orders into the telephone and busily assembling an assault force to attack the Dome.
The Doctor looked on, his face grave. He seemed to be waiting for something.
‘Don’t spread your forces too thin, Major,’ he warned. ‘I’d keep some men here to guard this base.’
‘They won’t attack us here,’ said the Major confidently. ‘We have the upper hand now. We know where they are. They’ll soon be on the defensive.’
‘We may know where they are,’ said Sheila Sarandon. ‘But don’t forget they know where you are, Doctor.’
‘True,’ he admitted.
‘Because you told them,
’ said Sheila Sarandon.
‘Oh yes. I did, didn’t I?’ said the Doctor.
‘Why? You didn’t have to.’
He sniffed. ‘It just seemed like a good idea at the time.’
‘But. . . If they know where you are, and if they desperately need your help, isn’t it possible they’ll try to come and get you?’
The Doctor made a point of seeming surprised. ‘You really think so?
Well, yes, I suppose it’s possible. Maybe you’d better take precautions.’
The Major looked worried. ‘It’ll take some time for the attack force to assemble. If they attack us again here. . . ’ He smiled. ‘Even if they do, we’ll cope. I made some extra preparations after the last attack, applied for some special equipment.’
The sound of a shot came from outside the office, then another.
Then a volley of shots and the blare of an alarm.
They rushed to the door, and looked out – to see a line of steel figures advancing across the parade ground.
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Chapter Thirteen
Battleground
THE DOCTOR SURVEYED THE advancing group. ‘Six of them,’ he said.
‘And one or two more back at base.’
Shots rang out, as soldiers fired from the shelter of the nearby buildings, Bullets bounced off the armoured bodies of the attackers. The Cybermen ignored them and continued their steady advance. Red flares of energy pulsed from their wrist-guns. A soldier screamed, twisted and fell.
Major Burton and Captain Sarandon drew their revolvers and joined the defence. Their bullets, like those of the soldiers, had no effect. ‘Rifles and revolvers won’t do any good,’ called the Doctor.
‘So we’ve just discovered,’ said Major Burton grimly. ‘But don’t worry, Doctor. I told you, I ordered some special equipment.’ He raised his voice in a parade-ground bellow. ‘Special squad forward.’
Two men rushed forward from between two of the buildings. They wore heavy packs and carried a sort of giant metal tube between them. In what was obviously a well-rehearsed action, one soldier knelt down, and the other helped him to shoulder the tube. Then the second man knelt behind the first and adjusted the giant tube, using his fellow as an aiming platform.
‘Latest ground-to-ground rocket launcher, said the Major. ‘Reload-able, uses high-explosive shells. Still in the experimental stage. But they claim it’ll take out a tank.’
When the tube was ready, the first soldier held it steady while the second pulled a firing handle set into the weapon’s side.
A fiery streak shot across the parade ground, striking a Cyberman full in the chest. The results were immediate and spectacular. The Cyberman exploded in a ball of flame, and a shower of metal fragments rained down on the parade ground.
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A ragged cheer went up from the surrounding soldiers.
‘Reload,’ bellowed Major Burton.
The second soldier took a shell from the pack and loaded it into the tube.
‘Fire!’ shouted Major Burton.
He was too late. Several energy blasts converged on the weapon, and it exploded, killing both soldiers.
‘Second squad forward,’ shouted Major Burton.
‘Fire and take
cover!’
Another two-man team appeared, aimed their weapon and fired. A second Cyberman was destroyed, and the team darted back into cover between the buildings.
With incredible speed they reloaded and fired again, blowing up another Cyberman.
‘Three down, three to go,’ said Major Burton. ‘I told you we’d cope, Doctor.’
He had spoken too soon. As the second team darted from cover to fire for the third time, all three surviving Cybermen fired at once. Like the first, the second weapon exploded, killing its crew.
‘How many more of those things have you got?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Just one. It’ll have to be enough.’ Major Burton raised his voice.
‘Third squad forward!’
The arrival of the third squad seemed to take the Cybermen by surprise, and yet another Cyberman was blasted into nothingness. But the shot alerted the two survivors, and they both turned and fired, killing both soldiers. Somehow, the weapon escaped most of the im-pact and rolled across the parade ground.
The two remaining Cybermen advanced. Suddenly Major Burton leaped from the shelter of the doorway, dashed across the parade ground, grabbed the weapon and the fallen shell-pack and carried them into cover. Even for a man his size, it was an incredible feat of strength.
‘It takes two to fire it,’ shouted Captain Sarandon. She started to follow him.
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But the Doctor was ahead of her. Dodging between the pulses from the Cybermen’s guns, he ran behind the building. Major Burton was loading the rocket launcher and struggling to raise it to his shoulder.
The Doctor helped him, then knelt behind the Major, steadying the launcher.
‘Firing lever – on the side,’ gasped Burton.
The Doctor found it – just as a Cyberman came round the corner of the hut. For a moment, the Doctor paused. He looked at the Cyberman, thought about the human being it had once been – a thinking, feeling, real person. But no more. That person was dead already.
The Doctor and the Cyberman fired at the same instant. The Cyberman exploded, and so did the launcher. The Doctor, leaping aside as soon as he’d fired, was knocked off his feet by the blast.
Major Burton was not so lucky. His body lay slumped across the shattered remains of the weapon.
The Doctor struggled to his feet and staggered over to him. He knelt beside the body, felt for a pulse and found nothing.
The Doctor straightened up just as the Cyberleader, the only Cyberman to survive the battle, appeared around the corner of the hut.
The Cyberleader raised his arm, and the Doctor gazed into the barrel of the Cyberweapon attached to its wrist. . .
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Chapter Fourteen
The Gateway
FOR A LONG MOMENT the two confronted each other.
The Cyberleader scanned the Doctor intently. ‘You are the Doctor.’
‘You’re not wrong, you know. I am the Doctor.’
‘You must help us.’
‘You could be wrong now, though. Must I?’
‘Your female associate is our prisoner at the place humans call the Dome. Come to us there and help us, or she will die.’ As he finished speaking, the air around the Cyberleader shimmered and he faded away.
Captain Sarandon came round the corner, revolver in hand, just as the Cyberleader disappeared.
‘Well, that was the last of them.’
‘For the moment,’ said the Doctor. ‘There are more of them at the Dome. I’m not sure how many.’
‘The assault force will deal with them.’ She looked down at Major Burton’s body. ‘Is he dead?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
She nodded, accepting the loss as soldiers do. ‘He was very brave.
Posthumous VC, I shouldn’t wonder. You were brave too, helping him.’
‘Was I? Guns aren’t brave, you know.’
‘All the same, I’m grateful.’
‘What will you do now?’
‘Join up with the assault force and finish the job for him.’
The Doctor looked her in the eyes. ‘If you attack the Dome in force, you’ll lose more men.’
‘It goes with the job.’
‘I can’t let you do it. My friend Martha is a prisoner there. The Cybermen will kill her as soon as the battle starts. They’ve no use for 57
prisoners.’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor, what else can I do? It’s not just your friend who’s in danger.’
‘You can trust me,’ said the Doctor.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said you were grateful – then do something for me. You’ve got my TARDIS here?’
‘Yes, it’s in the security vault.’
‘Take me to it. If y
ou do, there’s a chance I can save Martha and dispose of the Cybermen for you – without any more loss of life.’
‘You deliberately told the Cybermen where you were, didn’t you, Doctor? So you could make a deal with them.’ She looked hard at him.
‘They’d have found me sooner or later,’ the Doctor said quietly. ‘And how many more people would have died along the way? How many weak, defenceless people would have been killed as they tore this city apart to find me? They need me in order to survive, and that’s the thing that drives them. Not emotions, not love or hate or ambition or greed. Survival.’
‘The Cybermen want you to reopen some gateway, bring back their army. Would you do that?’
‘No.’
‘Not even to save your friend?’
‘No.’
‘How can I be sure of that? How can I be sure you wouldn’t sacrifice us all to save her life?’
‘Because I can’t do it,’ said the Doctor. ‘The gate they want me to open is closed forever. Even to me.’
‘Then they’ll kill you both.’
‘Oh, I do wish you hadn’t said that. Look, I’ve got a sort of a plan,’
the Doctor told her. ‘OK, it’s not fully worked out, and a lot depends on luck. But, for it to work, I have to be in the Dome with the Cybermen
– and with the TARDIS.’
She studied him a moment longer. ‘All right. But we’ll attack the Dome and destroy the remaining Cybermen anyway. If you want to 58
be in there when we do. . . This way, Doctor.’
They walked back towards the now floodlit parade ground, where squads of soldiers and medics were clearing away the debris of battle and carrying off the dead and wounded. On the far side of the parade ground, the main gates were open. A convoy of army trucks was driving through them.
‘The assault force is arriving,’ Sheila said with satisfaction. ‘I’d better brief them. This way.’
She led him to the concrete archway, guarded by saluting sentries, that formed the entrance to the vault, and punched a security code into the electronic lock. Massive steel doors slid slowly back, and they moved into a concrete corridor ending in a lift, guarded by yet more soldiers.
