Doctor Who: Apollo 23

by Richards, Justin

  ‘There’ll be tea,’ the Doctor promised. ‘Maybe biscuits. I probably have a jammy dodger of my own somewhere. Usually do.’ He patted his pockets. ‘No?’

  They passed several more Talerians on the way. But quite the largest and most revolting Talerian that Amy had so far seen was waiting inside Jackson’s office. Professor Jackson himself was sitting at his desk. Even with the grotesque, glutinous alien standing close by watching them, Amy was again impressed by the view out of the large window behind Jackson. Bathed in pale evening sunlight, the grey moon looked somehow warm and majestic rather than colourless and desolate.

  ‘You must be Raraarg,’ the Doctor said with delight. He held out his hand, regarded the alien’s blobby appendage, and decided: ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘What an unexpected pleasure,’ Jackson said. He dismissed the Talerian who had brought them and looked from the Doctor to Amy and back again. ‘You’ve come to surrender?’

  ‘We came for tea, actually,’ the Doctor told him. ‘I assume the offer still stands?’

  The huge Talerian leader shuddered and growled.

  ‘Tea,’ Jackson mused. ‘I had to drink it at first to maintain the illusion that I was still Jackson. But now I actually find it quite pleasant. I must confess it’s one of the few things I find invigorates this rather strange body I have acquired.’

  ‘That’ll be the caffeine and tannin,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’m sure it’s good for the soul.’ He turned to the Talerian leader Raraarg. ‘You should try it.’

  This provoked more growls and wobbles.

  ‘No,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘It might upset your rather delicate insides, mightn’t it? Must be a problem having a balloon body like that. Any little wound and you don’t bleed, you rupture. Any change in atmospheric pressure and you either squash up and implode, or the internal pressure makes you explode. I can see why you might envy humans. But you can’t just take their bodies, you know.’

  ‘Why not?’ Jackson asked.

  ‘Because you can’t,’ Amy told him. ‘It’s not right. It’s not fair. Its murder, that’s why.’

  ‘What does Professor Jackson think about it?’ the Doctor asked. ‘I assume he’s still inside you somewhere. As the first to be taken over, you’d need to preserve his memories and emotions so you could survive undetected. If you’d just blanked out, people would notice. Worse than just forgetting names – you’d have forgotten everything.’

  Jackson nodded. ‘He’s in here.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Just. The tiniest hint of him. And he knows it. I can feel what’s left of his mind struggling to reassert itself. But you know what? It gets fainter and more desperate all the time. And soon, he’ll be gone completely.’

  ‘Except for his back-up. I assume there is a back-up?’

  Jackson smiled. ‘You know there is.’ He pulled open a drawer in the desk and took out a glass phial of colourless liquid. ‘I could have destroyed it. But that really would be murder.’ He set the phial down on the desk in front of him. ‘The human mind…’ he mused.

  ‘Plus you never knew if you might need him back, did you. You still might – if his equipment goes wrong, or some memory you need has faded away.’

  ‘There is that.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ Amy asked, glancing apprehensively at the shuddering alien beside them. ‘Your blob-men won’t win against trained soldiers.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Jackson said. ‘We can wait, and more Talerian troops are on the way. This is just the first wave. As soon as I boost the signal from Jackson’s process equipment, the main force will latch on to it and transfer here from Taleria.’

  ‘Just as you latched on to it in the first place, I assume?’ the Doctor prompted.

  Jackson smiled thinly. ‘Jackson – the real Jackson – didn’t even realise his process was emitting a signal. It was faint, but it was enough. Our bodies are dying, Doctor. Every generation of Talerians is born more fragile than the one before. We are constantly looking for a new form, a replacement for our frail structure. Imagine my sense of euphoria when my mind was transported along the link and I woke to find myself inside this.’ He spread his arms.

  ‘You too can have a body like mine,’ Amy quipped.

  ‘I won’t pretend it was easy,’ Jackson said. ‘It took me a while to get control of Jackson’s consciousness and take over completely. There were mistakes and problems.’

  ‘Like poor Liz Didbrook,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘The process never completed,’ Jackson told them. ‘But that has been corrected. I boosted the signal, and ensured the next transfers would be perfect.’

  ‘So if we turn off all Jackson’s equipment,’ Amy said, ‘we can stop any more of you turning up out of the blue.’

  The Talerian beside her roared with what sounded unsettlingly like laughter.

  ‘We control the Process Chamber. Major Carlisle and Captain Reeve would never get there alive.’

  In a sudden fury, the Doctor shoved aside the chair in front of Jackson’s desk. He leaned right over the desk and stared into Jackson’s face. ‘What gives you the right to take another life form’s body? What do you really think you can achieve?’

  Jackson stared back at the Doctor, unflinching. ‘When you’ve quite finished.’

  ‘Oh I haven’t started yet.’ The Doctor slowly straightened up, one half of his jacket trailing back across the desk. ‘I came for tea, remember?’

  ‘Enjoy your tea, Doctor,’ Jackson said. ‘And you, Miss Pond. Very soon we’ll round up the humans and simply start to process them all again. All except you, Doctor. Yes, you can have your tea. Let’s call it a last request, shall we?’

  ‘Oh, let’s not,’ the Doctor said quietly.

  ‘But it is, I’m afraid. You see, as soon as you’ve finished, you will die.’ From behind the desk, Jackson lifted one of the Talerian weapons and aimed it right at the Doctor. ‘You’ll die knowing you’ve failed, and that Miss Pond is next in the queue for the process. On its maximum setting, this gun can blast through armour plate. Let’s see what it does to a body, shall we?’

  Chapter

  24

  The canteen had been turned into a fortress. All but one of the doors were barricaded shut, tables and chairs piled against them. When Major Carlisle overrode the fire systems, she’d locked all the doors open so they’d had to physically force them closed.

  Soldiers, scientists and prisoners sat on the floor or stood in small groups. Nurse Phillips was at a table, tending to several minor injuries. The only open door was guarded by Major Carlisle and several other soldiers.

  ‘They must have worked out where we are and what we’re doing by now,’ Liz Didbrook said. She was looking pale and tired. But her head was clear at last of the alien presence that had tried to force its way inside her mind.

  Carlisle had to agree. ‘When Captain Reeve gets back, we block this door.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then we wait for the Doctor and Amy.’

  At some point, Carlisle realised, she’d moved from hope to belief. There was no doubt in her mind that the Doctor would sort things out. It was strange how she trusted the man, almost despite his appearance and youth. There was a wealth of experience behind his eyes and she dared not think how he had come by it. What he had faced. What he had done…

  The sound of running feet signalled the return of Reeve and his team. They had gone in search of as many people as they could find – directing them to get to the canteen as quickly and cautiously as possible.

  ‘There are blob-men right behind us,’ Reeve warned. ‘Not too many, luckily as most of them seem to be guarding the Process Chamber.’

  ‘Maybe that’s where they’ll bring in their reinforcements,’ Carlisle guessed.

  ‘We could take the fight to them,’ Reeve suggested. ‘We have two of their guns now.’

  She shook her head. ‘We stay put, like the Doctor said. But we’ll keep this door clear in case we get a chance to do something. Or we need to
evacuate.’

  ‘At least we know bullets stop them,’ Captain Reeve said. He checked his handgun. ‘Not that we have many left. And they’ve sealed off the armoury. We won’t get any more ammunition.’

  The first of the Talerians oozed into view along the corridor. Several others followed cautiously, guns at the ready, plates of armour rattling as they moved. An energy blast seared past Reeve and blew a chunk out of the door frame.

  ‘Then we need to make every bullet count,’ Carlisle said.

  The Doctor busied himself at the tea urn as if he and Amy really had just popped into Jackson’s office for a chat and refreshments. He lifted the lid and sniffed at the Earl Grey. He took a long-handled spoon from a small rack nearby and stirred the brew slowly and thoroughly.

  ‘Sure you won’t?’ he asked Amy.

  ‘Not without milk, thanks.’

  The Doctor turned to the Talerian leader, Raraarg. ‘And I assume you’ll give it a miss. If you ever took on human form, you’d want to try it though.’ The Doctor held a cup under the urn and turned the tap. ‘Not that you’ll get the chance.’

  Having poured a second cup, the Doctor walked back to the desk. He passed a cup of tea to Jackson, then pulled up the chair he’d moved aside earlier and plonked himself down on it with a relaxed ‘Aaah!’

  Raraarg was wobbling ominously and emitting irritated squelching growls.

  Jackson smiled indulgently and sipped his own tea. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told his leader. ‘This will be over soon.’

  ‘Not too hot, I hope?’ the Doctor asked politely.

  ‘Just how I like it, thank you.’

  The Doctor set his tea down on the desk and leaned back in the chair. ‘So, last chance time, then.’ He tilted his head so he could look at both Raraarg and Jackson. ‘Are you going to surrender and retreat, never to darken these skies again?’

  Jackson laughed. ‘Very droll, Doctor. But I’m afraid it’s over.’

  ‘You are so right,’ the Doctor said.

  ‘That’s a “No” then, is it?’ Amy asked. She had no idea what the Doctor was doing, but he was up to something.

  Raraarg let out a menacing, throaty growl. The creature’s eye rolled angrily. The meaning was obvious – ‘Kill him now!’

  Jackson held up his hand. ‘In a moment, I promise you.’

  ‘He doesn’t know, does he?’ the Doctor said.

  Jackson frowned. ‘Doesn’t know what?’

  ‘Last chance – surrender or suffer the consequences.’

  Raraarg squelched towards the Doctor.

  Jackson drained his tea and set the cup down on the desk next to the glass phial still standing there. He raised the gun again. ‘There will definitely be consequences,’ he said.

  ‘What doesn’t our globby friend know?’ Amy prompted.

  The Doctor was smiling. ‘He doesn’t know he’s been tricked. He doesn’t know that Professor Jackson isn’t a Talerian at all. It’s not us who are being held prisoner here…’ He turned towards the shimmering blob. ‘It’s you.’

  The Talerian swung round to stare accusingly at Jackson.

  ‘He’s bluffing,’ Jackson said. ‘I boosted the signal and opened the pathway so you could bring in the attack force. This is his last pathetic attempt to…’ Jackson blinked rapidly several times, hesitating as if trying to find the right words. ‘… to confuse us. To turn us against one another.’ He leaned forward glaring at the Doctor across the desk through his pale blue eyes.

  ‘Yes?’ the Doctor prompted. ‘Something to tell me?’

  ‘Only that your time is up. I told you that Jackson’s mind is completely suppressed by my own.’

  ‘So you did. I remember that.’

  ‘And I have the back-up copy safely here.’ He pointed at the small glass phial standing next to the cup on the desk.

  ‘So you do. I can see that.’

  ‘You mean that phial?’ Amy said. She frowned. There was something about it, now she came to look. ‘That empty phial,’ she realised.

  Jackson stared down at the little glass bottle. His eyes widened in shock and surprise.

  Raraarg surged forwards. A glutinous hand snatched up the phial, holding it close to the Doctor’s face as the slit-like mouth dribbled and spat. The creature’s body shook with agitation.

  ‘Where did it go?’ the Doctor interpreted. ‘Well, I would have thought that that was obvious.’ He nodded towards the pale-looking Jackson. ‘I put it in his tea.’

  ‘All the time,’ Jackson said quietly, in a voice that was somehow warmer and more emotional than before, ‘every single moment, I knew what was happening. I tried to escape – to find ways out of the prison of my own mind. I managed to get control for long enough to transfer a tiny part of my own memory to Prisoner Nine. I hoped that way to warn you, Doctor. But it was like looking out through windows in my own head. Windows…’ He looked at the Doctor. ‘Of course, that’s the answer. I remember what you said, Doctor. Thank you. And goodbye.’

  ‘No!’ the Doctor shouted. ‘No, no, no – don’t do that!’

  He reached across the desk, trying to grab Jackson as the man rose to his feet.

  Raraarg moved quickly, despite its bulk. The Doctor was knocked sideways as the creature surged forwards. Globby arms lashed out, sending Jackson flying sideways. He crashed to the floor.

  ‘Hold on to something!’ the Doctor shouted to Amy.

  She grabbed the side of a bookcase, welded to the wall. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just hold on tight!’

  Raraarg was bearing down on Jackson. The man pushed himself backwards, scrabbling for the Talerian gun knocked from his hands when he fell. He found it, brought it up, and fired.

  Not at the alien creatures about to strike at him. At the wide picture window behind the desk.

  The glass exploded into fragments, which were immediately whipped away as air rushed out of the base. An alarm sounded. The teacup and empty phial on the desk shot out of the window as the air escaped. Books were torn from the shelves, papers whipped into a swirling frenzy.

  The Talerian leader gave an anguished cry of anger and pain. Then it exploded like a balloon blown up too much. Glutinous, viscous fluid spattered across the room. The plates of armour went flying.

  Amy’s hair was blowing round her face as she held tight to the end of the bookcase, struggling to brace herself in position despite the wind trying to drag her towards the window.

  Across the room, Jackson smiled with satisfaction. Then he was gone, his body tumbled across the grey lunar surface, debris and detritus from the base following.

  ‘Decompression alert!’ Captain Reeve yelled as the sirens went off. ‘Hold on!’

  ‘Get the door closed,’ Carlisle ordered. ‘It’ll slow the loss of air.’

  In the corridor, the Talerians were swept off their feet by the sudden rush of air drawn through the base. They tumbled backwards. As the pressure dropped, their bodies started to swell. Then, like their leader, they exploded – hurling grey-green ooze down the corridor.

  ‘Oh gross!’ Carlisle said. She gave the door a final heave shut.

  Throughout Base Diana, the same thing was happening to all the Talerians. With the doors locked open, the whole base depressurised as the air escaped. Atmosphere pumps struggled to keep up. Emergency systems signalled bulkheads to close – with no effect, thanks to Major Carlisle’s earlier sabotage.

  In Jackson’s office, the Doctor was holding on to the edge of the heavy desk.

  ‘Here – help me, Amy!’ he yelled.

  ‘I’m not letting go,’ she shouted back.

  But she was. She could feel her feet being dragged from under her. Fingers slipping on the metal.

  ‘I’ll catch you,’ the Doctor promised.

  She didn’t have any choice. Amy’s fingers finally lost their grip and she tumbled towards the window.

  The Doctor’s arm grabbed her as she flew past, dragging her down behind the desk.

  The whole desk was shif
ting now, dragged towards the smashed window.

  ‘We’ll have to time this just right,’ the Doctor shouted above the noise of the rushing air. He was holding tight to one of the two support struts holding up the desk.

  Amy nodded. She realised now what he was going to do. She grabbed the other support strut. ‘Count of three.’

  The Doctor grinned. ‘Three!’ he yelled.

  At the same moment, they each lifted and flipped the desk over on its side. Caught in the outrush, the desk flew across the room, top surface first. The desk was bigger than the window. It slammed over the hole, sealing it tight. The pressure held the desk incongruously in place, as if it had been glued to the wall.

  The Doctor dusted his hands together. ‘Result,’ he said.

  ‘One nil to the good guys,’ Amy agreed, still gasping for breath. ‘We should get to the canteen.’

  The Doctor grinned. ‘Just as soon as I’ve sealed this room shut and turned off the homing beam that Jackson’s equipment is broadcasting. Then, cinnamon buns here we come, oh yes indeed.’

  Chapter

  25

  ‘Without the quantum link,’ said General Walinski, ‘Base Diana is unsustainable.’

  ‘To be honest, I’m amazed it worked as long as it did,’ the Doctor told him. ‘The whole thing was incredibly unstable. Could have failed at any moment.’

  The Doctor and Amy were in Walinski’s office with Candace Hecker and Agent Jennings.

  ‘You managed to get the quantum displacement systems working long enough for you and Miss Pond to get back, I see,’ Agent Jennings said.

  ‘Something like that,’ Amy agreed.

  ‘And Pat Ashton is due to splash down in a couple of hours,’ Candace said. ‘He’s a bit low on oxygen, but he’ll be fine.’

  ‘We’ll have to put together another mission to bring everyone back,’ Walinski said. ‘Shame they couldn’t all come back with you.’

  ‘They were a bit busy,’ Amy said. ‘We just snuck out.’

  ‘Left them to tidy up, check the base is airtight again, do the washing up,’ the Doctor said. ‘Oh, and dismantle Jackson’s equipment, too, before anyone gets the idea it can be salvaged and tries to get it working again.’