‘Your ship?’ Emma said. ‘You mean, your spaceship?’
‘Spaceship, time ship, whatever you want to call it.’ A sad look crossed his face. ‘I met some good people not long ago, and the Sontarans killed them. I don’t want that to happen again, not if I can help it. I’m getting you out of here.’
They were halfway to the TARDIS when everything went dark.
Holly gasped. ‘The power’s gone off again!’
There was silence. The Doctor guessed that all the students were thinking the same thing. After a few moments, Sid put the thought into words. ‘Every time there’s been a power cut, someone’s died.’
‘Not every time,’ said Emma. ‘No one died earlier tonight when the power went off, did they?’
‘Perhaps we just haven’t found the body yet,’ said Jess, her voice sounding scared. ‘Perhaps it’s floating in the swimming pool like Laura, or shoved under the stairs like Andy. Perhaps we’ll go round the corner and trip over it!’
Holly stumbled and gave a shriek. ‘The body!’ she cried. ‘It’s the body!’
The Doctor whipped his torch from his pocket and turned it on. The light showed what Holly had fallen over. It wasn’t a body. It was a pair of chunky rubber boots.
‘I fell over these earlier!’ the Doctor told them. ‘That means we’re right by the TARDIS!’
He waved the torch beam around, looking for his ship.
It lit up the helmeted head of a Sontaran, standing right in front of them. There was a large black gun in its hand that was pointing straight at the Doctor.
Then the Sontaran flung up its other hand to
cover the eye slots in its helmet.
The Doctor yelled in delight. ‘It’s dazzled!’ he cried. ‘As long as I shine the torch in its eyes, it can’t see us!’
He jumped to one side as the alien fired a shot towards the voice. He didn’t let the torch beam waver, though.
The Doctor thrust a hand in his pocket and pulled out the TARDIS key. He threw it back over his shoulder, yelling ‘Catch!’
‘Got it!’ Jess called back.
‘Good girl! Now, there’s a big blue box just over there. You won’t be able to see that it’s blue in the dark, but trust me. Let everyone in and wait for me.’
A laser beam from the Sontaran’s gun briefly lit up the TARDIS. ‘There you go!’ cried the Doctor as he hopped out of the way again.
He could hear the footsteps as Jess hurried forward. ‘Where’s the keyhole?’ she called. ‘Oh wait, here it—’
There was a huge flash. Pale green light flared around the TARDIS. Holly and Emma screamed, Sid and Karl yelled, but there was no sound from Jess.
They all blinked as the lights came back on. Then they saw Jess. She was lying on the floor by the TARDIS. A melted, twisted scrap of metal in her hand was all that remained of the key. Her eyes were open, but saw nothing. She was dead.
* * *
Chapter Five
THERE WAS NO time to mourn Jess.
With the lights back on, the Sontaran was able to see again. Its gun was steady now, pointing straight at the Doctor.
‘You will come with me!’ the alien said, its voice deep and harsh.
‘Ah,’ said the Doctor. ‘The thing is, you see, I don’t really want to do that.’
‘Then you will die.’ The monster’s massive, three-fingered hands gripped the weapon tighter.
‘Ah!’ said the Doctor again. ‘I don’t really want to do that either!’
He was staring straight at the Sontaran. He hoped that if he kept eye contact, the alien would forget about the students behind it. They were all frozen to the spot, none of them daring to move.
‘And you might not want me to do that, if you knew who I was,’ he continued. ‘I’m not one of the sports students.’
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the toolbox, still lying by the TARDIS. ‘Not saying
I don’t like sports, of course. Darts, now. Quite keen on darts. Just like little javelins, they are.’
He saw javelin-thrower Sid’s head jerk up at that.
‘Except that instead of trying to throw them a long way,’ he went on, ‘you’re trying to hit a small target.’
‘Stop your chatter!’ shouted the Sontaran, still aiming the gun at the Doctor. ‘If you do not belong to this place, you will tell me why you are here!’
‘Well, I’ve come to fix things,’ said the Doctor. ‘Come to fix problems using my trusty toolbox. Everyone should have a toolbox. Full of handy tools. Chisels, screwdrivers – just like little darts . . .’
The Sontaran kept staring at the Doctor. Its gun was still pointing towards him. But then, very slowly, it toppled forward like a felled tree. A screwdriver was sticking out of the back of its neck.
‘Ha ha!’ The Doctor punched the air, and ran forward to shake Sid’s hand. ‘Well done you! You shouldn’t be an athlete, you should be a spy, you’re that good at working out coded messages!’
Sid looked a bit bashful. ‘I should have thought of it myself,’ he said. ‘You’d told us before about the Sontaran’s weak spot, and the toolbox was just sitting there . . .’
‘Is it dead?’ asked Holly, looking down at the prone alien.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘Just knocked out,’ he said. ‘So we’d better make tracks before it comes round.’
All five of them turned to the TARDIS.
‘Jess is dead, though,’ said Emma. She was staring at the girl who still lay in front of the ship’s doors.
‘Massive electric shock, just like the others,’ said the Doctor, kneeling down beside the body. He looked at the melted key in Jess’s hand and pulled a face.
‘Can we get into your ship without the key?’ asked Karl.
The Doctor wrinkled his nose. ‘I can sort that. I’m more worried that the TARDIS is still packing a charge, though.’
‘Surely Jess would have earthed it,’ Karl said.
The Doctor was already pulling on the heavy rubber boots. He added a pair of thick insulated gloves that were poking out of the toolbox. ‘Proper electrician’s gear,’ he commented. ‘Better safe than sorry.’
He took a couple of steps towards the TARDIS, a gloved hand outstretched. A bright green spark leapt from the ship, arcing through the air towards him.
The Doctor backed off. ‘If I hadn’t had these on,’ he said, peeling off the rubber gloves one finger at a time, ‘there would have been toasted Doctor on the menu.’
‘So we can’t get out in your ship,’ said Sid.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘No. We’re stuck here with the Sontarans.’
* * *
Chapter Six
THEY HURRIED THROUGH the corridors. The four students had all decided to stay with the Doctor. None of them fancied trying to hide from the Sontarans on their own.
It was easy to track down the rest of the athletes. The Doctor and his friends just followed the sound of screams.
‘They’re in the gym hall,’ Holly told the Doctor. She shivered. ‘What are they doing in there?’
‘That’s what we’ve got to find out,’ he replied.
Emma looked thoughtful. ‘Doesn’t the hall have a viewing gallery?’ she said. ‘They might not notice us if we were up there, but we could see what was going on.’
The Doctor beamed at her. ‘Good plan!’ he said. He spun around. ‘Lead the way!’
They hurried up a flight of stairs and into the viewing gallery. There they crouched down, not wanting to be spotted by any Sontarans who looked their way. Bent almost double, they crept to the front of the gallery and peered into the gym.
Frantic, crying students filled one end of the hall. They were dressed in nightclothes. Some of them seemed dazed. Perhaps they didn’t know that they were awake and thought they were still in a nightmare. At the other end, towering above them, was a Sontaran. The Doctor did a double take. Then he realised that the short alien was standing on a vaulting horse. ‘I hope he falls off,’ he muttered.
>
A Sontaran stood on either side of the horse. ‘Silence!’ shouted the Sontaran on the left.
The Sontaran on the other side echoed him. ‘Silence! Silence!’ Their guns swung from side to side, covering the panicking students.
A laser beam flew into the crowd. There were cries, but it didn’t seem as though anyone had been hit. A warning shot. The students fell silent except for a few sobs.
‘Silence for Major Stenx!’ shouted the left-hand Sontaran.
‘Silence for Stenx the Strong-hearted!’ shouted the right-hand Sontaran, despite the fact that the students had clearly got the message already.
The central Sontaran carefully lifted up his helmet. Emma clapped a hand to her mouth. There were gasps all around the gym as the alien’s head was revealed. Its skin was the muddy brown of a rotten apple. Its head was as domed and hairless as the same fruit cut in half. Little piggy eyes squinted from either side of a large nose. A small black tongue flicked in and out of a slit of a mouth as the Sontaran spoke.
‘I am Major Stenx of the Twelfth Sontaran Battle Fleet. This building is now under Sontaran control,’ he announced. ‘You there!’ A three-fingered hand jabbed towards a scared-looking young man near the front of the crowd.
‘That’s Jimmy,’ whispered Karl.
‘What is the purpose of this place?’ Stenx went on.
‘This is . . . this is BASE,’ the lad stammered. ‘We’re training for the Games.’
‘Games?’ echoed Stenx. ‘What are these “Games” of which you speak?’
Jimmy could barely speak for fear. ‘The . . . the Globe Games,’ he said at last. ‘We compete with other countries in sports.’
‘Ah!’ Stenx’s thin mouth curved into a smile. ‘You are warriors, then, of a sort. This is good! Sontarans, too, think training is vital if one is to defeat one’s enemies. Perhaps you will provide a challenge for Sontaran soldiers, unlike the rest of your feeble species.’
Stenx ordered Jimmy to come forward. Trembling, the young man did so, and stood in front of the vaulting horse.
‘Tell me,’ said Stenx, ‘in what sport do you compete?’
‘I’m a hurdler,’ Jimmy said. His voice was so low that the Doctor had to strain to hear.
‘A hurdler?’
‘I jump over hurdles. And run. Run and jump. Over hurdles.’
‘Run and jump.’ Stenx leaned over to speak to one of his aides. The Sontaran nodded, then stomped over to a balance beam and knelt down, appearing to inspect it. Stenx turned back to Jimmy. ‘You could jump over that?’ he asked, pointing at the beam.
Jimmy nodded.
‘Good. Do so. I wish to see this “running and jumping”.’
The Doctor stared down at the Sontarans. Every instinct he possessed was telling him to leap from the viewing gallery and confront them. He knew, though, that he had more chance of stopping them if they didn’t know he was there. So far, at least, they hadn’t harmed anyone.
Down in the gym, Jimmy had started to run towards the beam. As he picked up pace, the worry seemed to drain from his face. He was an athlete. This was what he did.
The youth soared gracefully into the air. He cleared the beam easily, and came in to land. His foot touched the floor.
There was an explosion. It happened in a split second, and no one had time to turn away. All the students saw exactly what happened to Jimmy.
The Doctor saw it too. His hands were on top of the barrier and his knees were bent. He was ready to vault down into the hall before the sound had even died away.
Strong arms dragged him back. To the Doctor’s enormous surprise, Emma was pulling him down to the floor of the gallery. Her swimmer’s muscles were straining to hold back the angry Time Lord. ‘Don’t!’ she whispered. ‘If they catch you, you’ll condemn us all to death.’
‘But that boy, Jimmy,’ the Doctor began.
Emma shook her head. ‘It’s too late for him. You have to stay free, for the rest of us. You’re our only hope.’
Down in the hall, Major Stenx was speaking to the shocked students. ‘An interesting study. The youth had speed and some degree of skill, but his mind was not alert. He failed to detect the charge placed by Captain Skeed.’ He sneered. ‘I believe you humans have a saying which he did not observe: “Look before you leap”. He did not, and so is no match for the might of the Sontarans!’ Stenx thumped a fist against his palm. ‘Sontar-ha!’
The two Sontarans beside him took up the cry. ‘Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha!’
Up in the gallery, the Doctor was nearly boiling over with anger. He wanted to be down there, facing the Sontarans. It was only Emma’s hand on his arm that was holding him back.
‘I need to know why they’re here!’ he hissed through closed teeth. ‘Then maybe I’ll be able to stop them.’
Karl, Sid and Holly had crept closer, perhaps feeling safer near the Doctor. ‘Maybe it’s something to do with the swimming pool,’ Sid suggested. ‘That’s where the first death happened.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘As good a place to start as any,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
As they crept from the gallery, the Sontarans’ shouts echoed after them. ‘Sontar-ha! Sontarha! SONTAR-HA!’
* * *
Chapter Seven
THE DOCTOR AND the four students made their way out of the viewing gallery. They headed towards the swimming pool.
‘I don’t think we’re going to learn anything, though,’ said Emma. ‘I know Laura died there, but the other two didn’t.’
Holly nodded. ‘Well, yeah. But Andy’s body was found quite near the pool area, and Joe was Laura’s boyfriend – he might have been trying to find out what had happened to her.’
The Doctor’s ears pricked up. This was news to him.
‘You didn’t tell me two of the victims were a couple,’ he said to Emma. ‘I thought no one round here spoke to anyone else!’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Sorry. I forgot you wouldn’t have known.’ She shook her head. ‘But I still don’t think the pool’s important. We’ve been swimming there every day since and not seen anything odd.’
‘Ah, but you didn’t know what you were looking for!’ he said.
Karl looked hopeful. ‘And you do?’ he said eagerly.
‘Well, no,’ said the Doctor, and the students sighed. ‘But I am an ace private eye with a degree in detecting and a licence to sleuth. I’ll work it out.’
They reached the pool room. The Doctor asked Karl to stay on guard, watching for Sontarans. The sprinter seemed relieved not to have to come inside with the others.
The Doctor flicked a switch as they entered, and the pool area was flooded with harsh white light. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Emma shiver.
‘Cold?’ he said.
She shook her head and pointed at the pool. ‘That’s where she was,’ she said. ‘Laura. You could just see her hair, floating out on the surface like seaweed.’
The Doctor patted her shoulder awkwardly. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to let anything like that happen again.’ He paused for a second, trying to think of something else to say. ‘You know, it is a bit chilly in here. Indoor pools are usually toasty warm.’
‘The heating went out with the first power cut,’ said Emma, still staring at the water.
‘Ah.’ There didn’t seem to be a lot else to say. The Doctor was itching to begin his search. He started to roam around the room, looking for anything that seemed out of place. Notices on the walls warned about the dangers of running on the wet tiles. The Doctor was still wearing the rubber boots, though, and he was as sure-footed as a cat.
After a few minutes, Sid called over, ‘Is it just me, or can anyone else smell something?’
They all sniffed. ‘It’s just chlorine,’ said Emma. ‘They put loads of it in the pool to keep it clean. You’d get used to it if you were down here all the time.’
Sid shook his head. ‘No, there’s something else.’
The Doctor joined Sid. He shut his eyes, letting his ke
en Time Lord sense of smell take over. ‘You’re right, there is something,’ he said, and began to sniff like a bloodhound, with his eyes still closed. Only Sid’s quick reactions stopped the Doctor walking straight into the swimming pool.
After a short detour, he was back on the trail again. ‘It’s over here,’ he said at last, opening his eyes. He was standing by a grille in the floor. He peered through it, but couldn’t see anything.
After a few waves of the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor was able to pull up the grating. Using his torch, he examined the opening, and finally reached an arm down the hole.
Emma, Sid and Holly watched with bated breath as the Doctor pulled his arm out again. His hand came into view. It was holding on to another hand, gripping it as if pulling someone up through the floor.
But there was no person on the other end of the hand. There wasn’t even an arm.
Holly turned round and was sick. Sid and Emma looked as though they were thinking of joining her.
The Doctor laid the hand on the tiled floor. ‘Someone’s tipped about a gallon of chlorine over it. They probably hoped to hide the rotting smell. That makes it harder to judge how long it’s been down there, but I’d say about a week.’
‘But that’s before Laura died!’ said Sid.
‘Oh yes.’ The Doctor nodded. ‘And none of the bodies you showed me had a hand missing. There weren’t just those three deaths. There were four.’ He turned and stared at the students. ‘At least.’
Emma opened her mouth, but the Doctor never heard what she had to say. An alarm blared out, making them all jump. Then a hoarse Sontaran voice boomed out of a speaker. ‘Alert! Alert! Humans are still loose in the building! They must be found!’
‘What’s happening?’ cried Holly.
‘Well,’ said the Doctor, ‘I reckon the Sontaran that Sid knocked out has just woken up. The building is sealed, so they know we must still be around somewhere.’
Doctor Who: The Sontaran Games Page 2
