When Sarg entered the office, Kade could immediately sense his anger.
‘General, one of the humans has attacked us,’ said Sarg.
‘Yes,’ said Kade, ‘I am already aware of it.’
Sarg paused, seemingly surprised by this. ‘Really?’ he asked. ‘And how do you think we should respond?’
‘Respond?’ said Kade. ‘Colonel Sarg. . . We do not need to respond. We shall continue with our investigation as planned.’
‘The investigation?’ said Sarg. ‘But sir. . . The situation here is volatile. If the humans are fighting back. . .’
‘The humans?’ said Kade with a dismissive snort. ‘Their pitiful attempts at insurrection will do nothing to improve their situation.’
‘We lost six soldiers, General. . .’
‘I was aware of that, Sarg.’ Kade crossed the office, tapping the palm of one hand with his baton. ‘And how, Sarg, would you respond to this situation?’ he asked, walking slowly in a circle around the Colonel. ‘What would be your next move?’
Sarg shifted awkwardly, his gaze fixed on the ground.
‘I would return to the ship,’ he replied, ‘and destroy the colony. Leave no survivors.’
‘But of course,’ said Kade. ‘The Battle Fleet response. Destroy everything. Never mind the progress we are making. Never mind the evidence we have gathered. Destroy everything, regardless of the greater good. And when, Colonel Sarg, our troops are ambushed by the Rutans in another system because of a plot almost identical to this one – a plot that comes as a surprise only because those who could have given us vital information were destroyed in your beloved inferno – what will you say then, Sarg?’
‘We have been given no such information,’ said Sarg, turning now to face the General. ‘We have questioned many humans, using all means necessary, and not one of them has broken. Even those we strongly suspect of being Rutan have said nothing.’
‘Then you have failed in your duty!’ roared Kade. ‘The humans are frail and weak and susceptible to pain, and yet they haven’t broken? Question them harder. They will break.’
‘They will not, sir.’
Kade stepped back from his second-in-command.
‘Colonel Sarg, I do not like your tone,’ he said.
‘General, the men are behind me,’ said Sarg. ‘They are eager for war, and you have given them an investigation.’
‘Really?’ said Kade. ‘So the men have your ear, now, do they? And they are behind you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Sarg.
Kade struck the palm of his hand with his baton once more, this time clenching his fingers around it.
‘This is mutiny, then,’ he said.
Sarg did not reply.
‘Now that is a shame,’ Kade continued. ‘An immediate denial might have been just enough to spare your life. Your silence is a challenge, Colonel Sarg. A challenge to which there is only one solution.’
The television studio was exactly as the Sontarans had left it. The camera had been tipped over onto its side. Smalls’ last speech lay scattered across his desk, half of it unread. On the floor, a sound technician’s headphones lay next to an abandoned microphone.
‘Wow,’ said Wallace. ‘It looks exactly like it does on TV.’
‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Well it would do. What with it being a TV studio and everything.’
He walked across the studio towards a large wall, in the centre of which was a window. Through the window he could just about make out the dim glow of monitors, and a row of empty chairs.
‘Bingo!’ he said. ‘Control room!’
To the side of the large window was a door. The Doctor tried the handle, but it was locked. He reached inside his jacket and drew out his sonic screwdriver.
‘What’s that?’ asked Vienna.
‘Sonic screwdriver,’ the Doctor told her.
‘A sonic what?’
‘Sonic screwdriver. It’s a screwdriver, only it’s sonic.’
‘And what does it do?’ asked Vienna, still sounding faintly unimpressed.
‘Watch,’ said the Doctor, pointing the screwdriver at a keypad to the side of the door. The tip of the device suddenly lit up with a blue glow, and it emitted a shrill, high-pitched squeal. The keypad blinked into life and, with a soft clunk, the door was unlocked.
‘Sonic screwdriver,’ said the Doctor, holding it up to show the children. ‘Just about the handiest thing in the universe. After a small towel. You can never go wrong with a small towel.’
Deep in the belly of Chelsea 426, the fusion candle blazed with the intensity of a sun, an intense column of white hot flame, channelled down towards the surface of the planet below.
Around the candle’s flame were metal ramps and walkways forming bridges from one side of the cavernous space to the other, many of them passing within metres of the intense heat and light.
At either end of one such bridge were gathered the higher-ranking officers of the Fourth Sontaran Intelligence Division, while in its centre General Kade and Colonel Sarg faced one another.
Between them stood a third Sontaran, holding aloft two large metal staffs. The staffs were carved from end to end with intricate engravings; symbols and images as ancient as the Sontaran Empire itself.
‘Colonel Sarg,’ said the soldier. ‘You have challenged the chain of command within the Fourth Sontaran Intelligence Division, a challenge which amounts to mutiny. General Kade. . . You have countered Colonel Sarg’s challenge by demanding a duel. As is the way of Sontar you must now fight. . . To the death.’
Kade and Sarg both nodded to the soldier, who handed them their weapons before walking to the far end of the metal bridge, leaving them alone at its centre. The General and the Colonel adopted battle stances and, but for the incessant throb of the fusion candle, the vast chamber fell silent.
Then, all at once, those gathered at either end of the bridge began to chant:
‘Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha!’
Kade was first to act, swinging out the lower end of his staff in a sweeping arc that hit Sarg in his side, before lifting up the weapon to shield himself from Sarg’s response. Sarg ducked down and thrust the end of his staff into the General’s abdomen, sending him reeling back towards their audience.
Kade paused for a moment to gather his thoughts and then charged toward his second-in-command, swinging his staff this way and that so that it hacked through the air with a great whooping sound.
Sarg crouched again, lifting up his weapon, but Kade leapt up and flipped over in mid air, dropping down behind the Colonel and spinning on his heels with astonishing grace before striking Sarg in the back of his head.
Sarg lurched forward, clearly dazed by the blow, but recovered quickly, turning to face the General once more.
They met at the bridge’s centre, staffs suddenly and violently locked together, each Sontaran pushing forward with all his strength.
Their audience continued to chant, even faster than before:
‘Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha!’
Sarg seemed to have the upper hand, pushing Kade back against the bridge’s barrier and bearing down on him with his full weight so that the General was now leaning precariously over the chasm into which the white flame of the fusion candle was channelled.
Sarg looked into the General’s eyes. He sensed no fear in his commanding officer, but the General was beginning to tire, he could tell that much. Sarg was the younger of the two and, he felt, the stronger. It would take only one decisive blow to end this for good. Another violent shove, and he might just manage to push Kade over the edge of the bridge and send him tumbling down into the blazing inferno.
‘Give up, Kade,’ he said. ‘It’s over.’
Kade looked up at Sarg and, to Sarg’s horror, laughed. With a forceful grunt, he pushed his own staff violently upwards, sending Sarg staggering back. For a moment they were separated, and the Sontarans at each end of the bridge fell silent.
This moment’s pause was short-live
d, for within seconds they had clashed once more, this time smashing their clubs together with such force that the noise of each collision very nearly drowned out the roar of the fusion candle. Kade delivered a blow to Sarg’s chest. Sarg responded by slamming the end of his staff into Kade’s stomach.
For a moment Sarg thought he had beaten him; the General was now doubled over, clutching his stomach and wincing in pain.
But Sarg was wrong.
With a look of fierce malevolence, Kade stood straight and then, with a speed that took the younger Sontaran by surprise, charged forward with an almighty roar.
In one sudden move, he swung his staff around in a dizzying arc, tearing Sarg’s weapon from his hands and sending it spinning, end over end, into the blinding light of the fusion candle, where it was vaporised in a nanosecond.
Sarg held up his hands to defend himself, but it was no use. Kade was upon him at once, beating him to the ground. The General threw his weapon to the floor and with terrifying strength lifted Sarg up into the air until his feet left the ground.
Sarg looked down at Kade but, before he could plan his next move, the General had turned and, with one final, triumphant bellow, thrown him over the edge of the bridge.
As Colonel Sarg merged with the light and the heat of the fusion candle, he almost instantaneously vanished, his last, desperate scream cut off as suddenly as it had begun.
Kade now stood alone at the centre of the bridge. At either end those gathered were now silent, looking upon the General with dumbstruck awe.
The soldier who had handed them their weapons walked out once more and, standing at the General’s side, shouted, ‘General Kade is victorious! All hail General Kade!’
‘All hail General Kade!’ cried the Sontarans. ‘Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha!’
‘OK,’ said the Doctor, flicking switches and pressing buttons. One by one the screens of the control room were turned on. ‘Now if I just do this. . . And. . . this. . .’
On one monitor they saw the video screens of Miramont Gardens switch from the logo of The Smalls Agenda to a dazzling blue.
‘Right,’ said the Doctor, leaning in towards a microphone in the centre of the control panel. ‘Testing testing. . . One-two, one-two. . .’
Beyond the studio they heard his voice echoing through the streets and thoroughfares of Chelsea 426. The Doctor laughed.
‘Ha!’ he said. ‘I’ve always wanted to do that. Ever since Woodstock. Now. . . If I just do this. . .’
He lifted his sonic screwdriver to the microphone. Once again it was lit up blue, but this time none of the teenagers could hear a thing.
‘Watch the screens, kids,’ said the Doctor. ‘This is gonna be good.’
IT HAPPENED QUITE suddenly. One moment the Sontarans guarding each exit to the loading bay were standing there, stoic and immovable; the next they were on their knees, their hands clasping their ears.
None of the prisoners could hear a thing, and yet the Sontarans appeared to have been deafened by some almighty noise. The only thing the humans in the loading bay had heard was a strange voice saying the words, ‘One-two. . . one-two. . .’
And now this.
At first all they could do was look at one another in confusion. Then, gradually, the humans began to talk; a low murmuring that increased in volume; questions overlapping questions.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Jenny, holding her husband by the arm.
‘I don’t know. . .’
‘Are they dying?’
‘I don’t think so. . . I don’t know.’
Mr Carstairs was one of the first to step forward, leaving the main group. He walked slowly towards one of the Sontaran guards, his heart pounding in his chest, waiting for the moment when the guard would stand and come at him with his baton or rifle, but it didn’t happen. Closer and closer he got, but the guard stayed down, his hands over his ears. As Mr Carstairs got closer still, he heard that the creature was making an agonised, strangulated mewling sound in the back of its throat.
‘What is it?’ asked Mr Carstairs. ‘What’s happening to you?’
The Sontaran looked up at him, and their eyes met. The soldier could barely contain his anger, grinding and gnashing his teeth, but he was powerless.
Behind Mr Carstairs, more of the prisoners now came forward; tentatively at first, but gradually increasing in number, until the stricken guards were surrounded.
Mr Carstairs looked over to the other side of the loading bay and saw his wife and a small group of residents making their way towards one of the exits. He broke free of the throng and ran to where his wife and the others had now gathered at the door.
‘Bess!’ he said. ‘Where are you going?’
‘We’re leaving,’ said Mrs Carstairs quite calmly.
‘Leaving?’ said Mr Carstairs. ‘But where? We don’t know what’s happening yet.’
It was now that he noticed that one of the residents at the exit was Mr Pemberton.
The shopkeeper turned to him with a menacing glare.
‘We are leaving,’ he said.
Mr Pemberton turned to the locked door and reached out towards its security panel. There was a flash of light, and tiny bolts of electricity shot out from his finger tips, causing the security panel to fizz and spark. The door slid open.
‘What. . .?’ said Mr Carstairs. ‘But how did you do that? What did you just do?’
‘We are leaving,’ said Mrs Carstairs, and together she and the others walked out through the door and made their way into the colony.
After a moment’s pause, Mr Carstairs followed.
All around him he saw warriors on their knees, wailing in agony. He had only enjoyed a moment’s glory when it happened – that low rumbling, a sound that instantly rendered every Sontaran immobile. Every Sontaran except for Kade.
He clawed his way along the ground on his hands and knees towards one end of the bridge, where soldiers lay rolling around in agony. He could hardly see; his vision was blurring and warping, coloured dots dancing before his eyes.
There was only one person in the colony who could have done this; one person who could have thought of a weakness and exploited it. The Doctor.
However, Kade’s thoughts were not of revenge. He was focused solely on stopping that sound, that crippling sound that seemed to tear through every fibre of his body.
Using what little strength he had left, Kade dragged himself onto the wide metal platform and tore the rifle from the grasp of one of his soldiers. He looked up at the edges of the chamber and saw the large speakers from which the sound came. His hands still shaking and his head still filled with noise, he took aim and fired.
One of the speakers exploded with a shower of sparks. He took aim at another, and fired again. He blasted the speakers apart, one by one, until, as suddenly as it had started, the noise stopped.
The gathered Sontarans ceased their wailing and got to their feet. Kade surveyed his soldiers with disgust, then made his way to the chamber’s exit. There was only one place that noise could have come from, one place where the Doctor could be. He had offered the Doctor a means to escape. The Doctor hadn’t listened.
He would have nobody to blame for his fate but himself.
‘Oh. . . Not good,’ said the Doctor.
‘What’s not good?’ asked Jake.
The bank of monitors in the control room now showed a number of views of the colony. In one dimly lit corridor they saw General Kade, leading a procession of Sontarans away from the fusion candle. As they came to each new section of corridor, the General would take aim and blast apart the source of the noise that had deafened them.
‘Looks like the General’s a bit miffed,’ said the Doctor. ‘Though that might be an understatement. I think he’s coming this way.’
Elsewhere in the colony, on walkways that had been deserted, passengers and residents now ran from the loading bays and out into the streets.
‘Well,’ said the Doctor, ‘at least it kind of worked.’
>
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Wallace.
‘Right,’ said the Doctor. ‘First we have to get out of here before the General turns up. Then we have to get rid of all the ammonia. I mean, for one thing, it doesn’t smell very nice, and for another, if we get rid of the ammonia we get rid of the Rutans.’
He paused, and then smiled.
‘Rid of the Rutans. They’re a very alliterative race, aren’t they? Root out the Rutans. . . Rid of the Rutans. . . Around the ragged rock the ragged Rutan ran. . .’
‘Doctor,’ said Vienna impatiently. ‘The Sontarans. . .? Are coming this way. . .?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said the Doctor, leaving the control room. ‘This way, kids.’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Jake.
‘The Oxygen Gardens.’
‘Hang on,’ said Jake. ‘That’s where those plants are. The evil ones, I mean.’
‘That’s true,’ said the Doctor. ‘Not trying to tell me you’re scared of a few overgrown dandelions, are you?’
Jake huffed, as if he found the Doctor’s words insulting.
‘I didn’t say I was scared of dandelions,’ he said.
‘Mm,’ said the Doctor, with mock sympathy. ‘Petrified by pansies?’
‘No!’ said Jake. ‘But those plants. . . they’re different.’
‘Yeah,’ said the Doctor. ‘But this time they’ll have you guys to contend with, won’t they?’
The teenagers looked at one another, puzzled, and then back at the Doctor.
‘Oh, come on!’ said the Doctor. ‘What’s with the glum faces? In an hour’s time, you three will have defeated an alien race and saved the colony. And all in time for tea.’
Jake, Vienna and Wallace laughed.
‘You’re serious?’ asked Vienna.
‘Oh yes,’ said the Doctor.
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because I’m the Doctor.’
‘That’s it? Because you’re the Doctor?’
The Taking of Chelsea 426 Page 12
