Engines of War

by George Mann

  Chapter Four

  Before the Daleks had come, Jocelyn Harris had been the governor of the planet Moldox, along with the four outlying human settlements on the planet’s moons. She’d been good at her job, too: the colony had flourished under her dutiful eye. Birth rates were up, the construction programme continued at a steady pace and the terraforming process had proved relatively smooth, with only one memorable malfunction causing a single, harsh winter.

  Jocelyn had taken pride in her work. The people of Moldox, who had re-elected her three times in succession, had celebrated her as the herald of a new age. And to repay them for their unwavering faith, she had betrayed them all to the Daleks.

  She hadn’t done it out of a desire for power, or because of any sort of devotion to a higher cause. They were the sorts of thing that drove most defectors, in her limited experience. No, what she’d done had been motivated by cowardice, and in Jocelyn’s own opinion, that made her the very worst sort of defector. She had done it to save her own skin. When the Daleks had swarmed over Moldox, stripping the planet bare and culling the population, she had agreed to become their human mouthpiece, their puppet, their plaything. All to make sure that she lived.

  Over the years, she’d tried to tell herself that she’d had no choice, that surely it was better if she worked against the Daleks from the inside, inveigling herself into their plans, warning her people on the ground. Only she’d always been just that little bit too afraid to act, to pass any of the information on to the resistance, worried that the Daleks would find out what she was up to. Their retribution would be swift and effective, and that would be an end to it all. She knew that, whatever happened, one thing was certain: she was eminently replaceable.

  She wondered what the Daleks had in mind for her today. Two of the dreadful, brass-coloured tin cans had come to her room – a cell by any other name – and demanded she leave with them immediately. As usual, there was no attempt at niceties, no explanation – just the simple command that she was required in the audience chamber.

  She rose from behind her desk, setting down her data tablet, and did as she was told. The artificial gravity on the Dalek command station was weak, despite its size. The Daleks, she’d learned, had no real need of it – they could magnetise themselves to the metal floors to avoid floating away, and even if they did, they had propulsors that would enable them to fly. The gravity, then, was a simple concession to the prisoners they held onboard the station, and as such, they weren’t particularly given to expending power to ensure it was set at a comfortable level.

  As such, Jocelyn found herself bouncing along behind the Daleks, taking exaggerated strides as she tried to keep up.

  The audience chamber was less than five hundred metres from her cell, and during the many years she’d been held on the station, she’d visited it innumerable times.

  Today, it seemed, the Eternity Circle was in full session. All five of them were here, resting upon their raised pedestals, glaring down at her as she loped into the large, hexagonal chamber.

  She’d never quite been able to establish the function of these particular Daleks, or what set them apart from their more lowly kin. Save for their colouring, of course. They were identical in size and shape to the two guards that had brought her from her cell, but where the standard Dalek casings were decorated with burnished bronze and gold, the five members of the Eternity Circle were a deep, metallic blue, with domed heads of polished silver and matching silver sense globes spotting their lower halves.

  All Jocelyn knew was that they’d been charged by the Dalek Emperor with fashioning new weapons to deploy against the Time Lords, some of which they had been testing on the people of Moldox and the other worlds of the Tantalus Spiral. She knew this because she’d had to file the reports.

  To Jocelyn, they were nightmare creatures; demons encased in blue shells. These were the monsters responsible for what had happened to her beloved planet, her home – and her children.

  ‘Wait,’ barked one of the Dalek guards. Its voice was like nails being driven into her skull. She stopped walking. She was standing in the centre of the chamber, looking up at the five blue Daleks. They seemed to regard her with menace, but none of them spoke.

  The guards retreated, sliding back soundlessly into two recesses by the door. She decided to remain silent until she was prompted to speak.

  High above her, a holographic screen flickered to life, tinting a patch of the air a bright, hazy blue. Its appearance was accompanied by a smell that reminded her of fresh ozone.

  ‘Report,’ boomed the low, grating voice of the Dalek Emperor. Jocelyn glanced up in surprise. The ominous image of its massive, unblinking eye was projected on the screen, but the voice seemed to emanate from all around her, filling the chamber. She sensed the bass rumble of it in her gut, and felt her hackles rise.

  ‘The weapon approaches completion,’ said the Dalek on the far-left pedestal, drawing out the words in its rasping monotone. ‘Soon the Eradicator will be ready.’

  ‘Excellent,’ replied the Emperor. ‘We stand on the eve of Gallifrey’s destruction.’ A pause. ‘What of the progenitors?’

  ‘Twelve of the seventeen epochs identified have now been seeded with Dalek progenitors,’ replied another of the Eternity Circle. ‘The Time Lord forces are spread thin. The War is fought on multiple fronts.’

  ‘As it was proscribed,’ said the Emperor. ‘What progress has been made on development of the new paradigm?’

  ‘Testing on the planet Moldox is almost complete,’ replied the Dalek on the central pedestal, its radiation valves flashing as it spoke. ‘Data suggests the new Temporal Weapon paradigm is almost ready for distribution through the time-space continuum.’

  ‘Show me,’ purred the Emperor.

  ‘I obey,’ replied the Dalek. Its head swivelled in Jocelyn’s direction. ‘Jocelyn Harris. You have served the Daleks well,’ it said.

  ‘I’ve tried,’ she stammered, unsure precisely where this was going.

  ‘Your betrayal of your own kind shows only that you cannot be trusted,’ continued the Dalek. ‘You will be ex-ter-min-ated.’

  ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘No! I’ll do anything. Tell me what I have to do to prove myself to you.’ She started backing away towards the door, but she knew there was nowhere to run. She was on a Dalek command station, orbiting a vast space-time anomaly. Any reprieve would be temporary. It wouldn’t stop her from trying, though.

  She turned around, intending to bolt for the door, but cried out in frustration at the sight of a Dalek silhouette in the doorway, blocking her path. As she watched, trying frantically to figure out what to do, the new Dalek glided slowly into view.

  It was different from the others. The same bronze and gold patterning, the same height and general appearance, but the midsection had been replaced, so that instead of the usual arm and gun stick, there was an enormous black cannon mounted on a ball socket.

  She backed away, lurching in the low gravity.

  The Dalek edged towards her, levelling its cannon. ‘Eradicate! Eradicate!’ Wisps of ruby-coloured energy began to gather around the nozzle of its weapon.

  ‘No! Please!’ screamed Jocelyn, raising her hands to cover her face as the cannon spat a stream of light at her.

  The last thing she saw was the eye of the Dalek Emperor glaring down at her from the screen above with maleficent intent.

  Chapter Five

  ‘Careful. It might still be out here,’ said Cinder, crouching by the TARDIS and scanning the ruins for any sign of the Degradation. ‘That one was armed with four energy weapons.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s scuttled off to warn its friends by now,’ said the Time Lord. ‘They won’t like the fact I’m here very much at all.’

  Cinder stared at him. She’d heard that Time Lords were famously arrogant, but this was different. He didn’t seem as if he were being boastful. In fact, if anything, he’d delivered that last comment with a weary inevitability that suggested he didn’t really wa
nt to be here. She was warming to him, although, for now, she’d have to remain cautious. He was difficult to decipher, and she had no idea whether she could trust him or not. She just hoped he wasn’t going to make any trouble if she did manage to get him into Andor. A quick look, and then back here to the ship. That was her plan. If they were swift, they could return by morning.

  He had his screwdriver in his hand again. She watched as he raised it up over his head and pressed the button. He moved his arm back and forth in a sweeping motion, listening to the sound it made, before shrugging, and then tucking it away into his ammo belt again.

  Cinder walked over to stand beside him. She glanced around her, still feeling a little too exposed in the gully. ‘I’m Cinder, by the way,’ she said. She didn’t offer him her hand.

  The Time Lord nodded.

  Cinder sighed. ‘Usually when someone tells you their name, the polite thing to do is respond by telling them yours.’

  ‘Is it?’ said the Time Lord, a little bluntly. They lapsed into silence for a moment.

  ‘Well?’ prompted Cinder.

  ‘What sort of name is “Cinder”?’ he said, deftly changing the subject.

  ‘It’s the only name I have, these days,’ she said. ‘I used to have another, a long time ago, before the Daleks came. But after they killed my family and left me to die inside a rusty old dustbin, I left that life behind. The people who found me named me “Cinder”, on account of my hair.’ She reached up and tousled her mess of orange locks.

  The Time Lord regarded her thoughtfully. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I used to have a name, too, but I can barely recall the last time I used it.’

  ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Was it terribly embarrassing?’

  The Time Lord cast her a sidelong glance. ‘It was a name that stood for something. I’m no longer worthy of it.’

  ‘Isn’t that for others to judge?’ said Cinder.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he replied.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Tell me what it was.’

  He seemed to think about it for a moment. ‘The Doctor,’ he said. ‘I used to be called the Doctor.’ He turned and trudged off down the road, his head bowed.

  ‘Well, Time Lord who used to be called the Doctor,’ she called after him. ‘You’re going the wrong way.’

  The temperature had dropped with the fading light as the afternoon slowly turned to dusk. Thankfully, Cinder’s compact backpack had not been damaged during her fall from the escarpment, and she was able to wrap herself in the warm, hand-knitted jumper she carried with her for the purpose.

  Night never fell entirely on Moldox. The light from the Tantalus Eye kept the planet enshrouded in an eerie twilight. Cinder had never known any different, of course, and the thought of utter darkness, impenetrable black, filled her with dread. In her experience, the darkness harboured the monsters. At least on Moldox, you could see them coming.

  They had taken a path through the ruins rather than keep to the roads. It meant scrabbling over broken lintels and walls and taking a more circuitous route, but it was harder for the Daleks to move about in the ruins, and if they took to the air they were easier to spot.

  They’d seen only one further patrol as they’d trudged the first five miles through a landscape of broken habitation domes and civic buildings: two Daleks and two Gliders, skimming over the rooftops, looking for signs of life below. The Doctor had pulled Cinder into a temporary shelter in the archway of a shattered doorway as they’d passed overhead. They’d waited there for a further ten minutes, just to ensure the patrol was not doubling back.

  She’d told the Doctor they had a quick stop-off to make en route, and they were approaching it now – the last known location of the rebel camp. It was a motley assortment of tents, lash-ups and temporary structures built from the debris of fallen buildings. From above, it was designed to look like any other waste-strewn field, but from down here it resembled the encampment of a marching army, nestled amongst the splintered structures that had once formed a square or recreational park.

  Around thirty men, women and children, all dressed in scavenged rags, milled around cleaning weapons, cooking food and tending to each other’s wounds. This was the only family that Cinder had known since the age of 7. This was the sum total of the human resistance movement, and, as far as she knew, the last of the free people of Moldox – the ones who had chosen to fight back against the Daleks and had been strong enough and light enough on their feet to survive.

  ‘What is this place?’ said the Doctor. ‘I thought you were taking me to Andoc.’

  ‘Andor,’ corrected Cinder. ‘And I am. This is the stop I told you about. I need to collect some things.’

  ‘This is where you live?’ said the Doctor.

  Cinder shook her head. ‘Not for more than a couple of days. We have to keep moving if we want to stay ahead of the Daleks. But yes, this is it. This is my life. These are my people.’

  The Doctor said nothing, but simply stood, regarding the place with his old, watery eyes.

  ‘Come on,’ said Cinder. ‘I don’t want to be here any longer than necessary. I just need to throw a couple of things into my backpack.’

  She led him through the makeshift hamlet, drawing open stares from the people they passed.

  ‘Don’t mind them,’ said Cinder, her voice low. ‘It’s rare enough we find another living human to join our little gang. Imagine what they’d think if they knew you were a Time Lord?’ She grinned, deciding not to add that they would probably lynch him, given the opportunity.

  ‘Cinder!’

  Damn it! She recognised the voice. She kept her head down. Coyne was the last person she needed to run into now. She’d hoped to slip away without having to see him, without facing the guilt of leaving him here – of leaving them all here – while she ran away with a stranger in a blue box. What she was doing wasn’t brave. She knew that deep down, but she’d grown so tired of the ceaseless running, of scratching out an existence amongst the ruins and constantly watching over her shoulder for Daleks. She’d never wanted to be a warrior, but the role had been thrust upon her by circumstance, and now, finally, this was her opportunity to escape, to do something different with her life. She knew if she saw Finch that the debt she owed him risked pulling her back in.

  ‘Cinder! Who’s your friend?’

  With a sigh, she turned to see Coyne making a beeline for them from around the other side of his tent. ‘Hello, Coyne,’ she said.

  He was lean and muscular, around 40 years of age and was one of the leaders of their small troupe. He was also the veteran of numerous encounters with the Daleks, as testified by the deep purple scar across the left side of his face, where a glancing energy beam had incinerated his ear and chewed up the flesh of his cheek.

  It had been Coyne who had plucked her from the dustbin in the burning ruins of her homestead, and Coyne who had taught her how to survive, how to fight.

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ he said, with a wary look at the Doctor.

  ‘This is …’ She hesitated. ‘This is—’

  ‘John Smith,’ said the Doctor, extending his hand.

  ‘Well, John Smith,’ said Coyne, looking the Doctor up and down. ‘Where have you been hiding?’

  ‘Anywhere the Daleks can’t find me,’ said the Doctor, with a thin smile. ‘Moving about from place to place, never staying still for very long.’ He glanced at Cinder, and she could tell this wasn’t a lie. ‘I found Cinder here trying to singlehandedly take down a Dalek patrol,’ he continued, ‘and decided to drop in and help.’

  Coyne laughed amiably. ‘Yes, that sounds like Cinder.’ He put a protective arm around her shoulder. ‘But why didn’t you take anyone with you? You know the rules. It’s not safe to go out there alone.’

  ‘I wasn’t alone,’ she replied. ‘I had John Smith here, didn’t I?’

  Coyne rolled his eyes. ‘You know precisely what I mean, Cinder,’ he said. ‘Look, I bet you could both do with something to eat. Come on, t
he stew’s almost ready.’

  Cinder glanced apologetically at the Doctor. ‘Well, we …’

  ‘That sounds like a marvellous idea,’ said the Doctor.

  The stew was a thick broth made from vegetables and herbs, but it was hot and welcome, and Cinder gulped it down, enjoying the rare sensation of a full belly.

  It was now what passed for night on Moldox, and the strange, ethereal light of the Eye rippled across the sky, an aurora of yellow, pink and blue striations. It bubbled like the surface of some unfathomable lake, like a colourful oil painting being smeared across the sky.

  The Doctor, who’d been deep in conversation with Coyne for the last half an hour gleaning details about the Dalek occupation force, came to sit down beside her on an overturned drum. He followed her gaze, looking up at the sky.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Do you know what they are?’ he replied. She shook her head. ‘Time winds.’ He took a long swig from a metal mug of tea. ‘Temporal radiation from the Eye. What you’re seeing up there is a billion years of history, a glimpse into the night sky of the ancient past and the furthest reaches of the future. The radiation causes anomalies, glitches in space-time. It’s a window right through to another time, only the world on the other side is shifting in constant flux. And yes, you’re right – it is rather beautiful.’

  Cinder glanced up at it again, this time with new eyes. ‘All that time, all those years of peace. Now there’s only the War.’

  ‘The universe is full of wonders, Cinder. The things I’ve seen … the glass moons of Socho, the Red Veil of the Eastern Parabola, the sky beaches of Altros. There are things out there that would make you weep with joy.’ He was watching her intently.

  ‘Moldox was like that once,’ she said. ‘Before your war. Before the Daleks came. The skies used to be filled with transport ships, bringing in new and exotic people every day. The cities heaved with life. People were happy. Out on the plains they erected pleasure palaces that overlooked the Barian Sea, with its golden water and beaches formed from grains of ice. They built towers that seemed to reach almost all the way up to the Eye itself, and machines that looked and thought like men. It was an empire to behold. Now it lies in ruins.’