Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks: 50th Anniversary Edition (Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection)

by Ben Aaronovitch

  Ace landed on a soft spongy surface. She reached down and touched the floor. It felt like packing foam.

  ‘This way,’ hissed Rachel from the darkness. Ace followed her voice. There was a glimmer of light from in front. Ace saw that they were in a short hexagonal corridor about twenty metres long. Rectangular archways left and right opened into dark empty spaces. More of the packing material was strewn on the floor.

  ‘Where’s the Doctor?’ asked Gilmore.

  ‘Here I am.’

  Ace jumped at his voice – she hadn’t heard him come down the shaft.

  ‘I can’t get the door open,’ said Gilmore.

  The Doctor squeezed past Ace, Rachel and Allison to where Gilmore was pushing at the hatch. The Doctor checked the floor and then stamped hard on one particular spot. There was a sharp hiss of hydraulics and the hatch swung open. Daylight poured in. Gilmore drew his service revolver and stepped out. They all bundled out behind him. Ace blinked in the light.

  Gilmore holstered his revolver. ‘Playground’s clear.’ He started off towards the school. Rachel and Allison followed.

  ‘I rigged a communications relay into the shuttle control systems,’ said the Doctor. ‘We can monitor the Daleks with the transmat in the cellar.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said Ace, ‘you mashed up the transmat.’

  ‘I,’ said the Doctor, ‘can do anything I like.’

  Rachel watched the soldiers scatter as Gilmore strode through the school foyer.

  He hasn’t changed, thought Rachel.

  A soldier lurched into her and she almost fell. The man staggered on a few paces clutching his head. He looked as if he was going to collapse.

  ‘Allison,’ called Rachel. She caught up with the man and grabbed his shoulders as he collapsed. Allison arrived to help Rachel just in time to stop the soldier falling.

  ‘It’s Corporal Grant,’ said Allison. She gently prised away the Corporal’s hand and felt his skull.

  Rachel spotted Gilmore talking to a couple of men down the hall. ‘Group Captain,’ she called. Still Gilmore did not turn. ‘Ian!’ she shouted. Gilmore’s head snapped round.

  ‘What happened?’ Allison asked the corporal.

  ‘Sergeant Smith,’ said the corporal, his words were slurred.

  Concussion? wondered Rachel.

  Gilmore arrived and put his weight under the man. ‘Is he all right?’ he asked Allison.

  ‘No idea,’ said Allison, ‘I’m a physicist.’

  A cool hand brushed Rachel’s hand aside. It was the Doctor. He checked the corporal’s pupils and then the pulse at his throat. Then he reached out and tweaked one of the corporal’s earlobes.

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ said the Doctor. ‘Rachel and Allison, I’ll need your help.’

  ‘Sorry?’ said Rachel.

  The corporal shook his head; his legs steadied and this took his own weight.

  Rachel stepped back as the man straightened. When she looked for the Doctor he had gone.

  ‘What did he say?’ she asked Allison.

  ‘He said he needed our help.’

  ‘That’s what I thought he said.’

  ‘He’s got my pistol,’ said the corporal.

  ‘Allison,’ said Rachel, ‘get your hands off that man’s scalp and come on.’

  Now, thought Rachel, the Doctor wants my help.

  Mike crept closer to the open gates. Ratcliffe’s warehouse looked quiet, but Mike knew better than that.

  The sound of another explosion came from the south east; columns of smoke drifted up above the skyline.

  He checked the pistol and tucked it into the waist of his trousers. He had been forced to abandon the Ford Prefect half a mile back because of the fight between the Daleks. In the end, he sneaked through a derelict house to get past.

  Mike walked through the gates and stopped: the yard was deserted. He started towards the sliding doors at the end of the yard. Then he saw it, tucked away in the far left corner and mounted on trestles. It was the coffin that the Doctor had buried. Mike realized that this was the Hand of Omega.

  Mike went cold. They wouldn’t leave that unguarded, he thought.

  He spun round and found himself facing two Daleks. They were in grey and black livery – the Daleks that the Doctor called renegades. Mike quickly put up his hands. He saw their gunsticks take aim.

  ‘No,’ he shouted desperately. ‘No, don’t. I have a message for Mr Ratcliffe.’ He didn’t know if they had understood, but they didn’t fire. ‘A message for Mr Ratcliffe,’ he repeated. The Daleks moved forward; Mike expected to die.

  ‘You are my prisoner,’ said the Dalek, and Mike relaxed. ‘You will obey all instructions or you will be exterminated.’

  ‘You said it, mate.’

  ‘Watch your end,’ said Allison. Rachel tried to get a better grip on the big television set – it kept threatening to slip out of her hands. They started down the cellar stairs again.

  ‘When the Doctor said he needed our help,’ said Rachel, ‘I hoped he meant more in the technical area.’

  ‘It was a vain hope,’ said Allison.

  The Doctor and Ace were by the transmat. The Doctor had pulled the panelling off the shattered consoles and was buried in a spray of cables. When Ace saw Rachel and Allison coming down the stairs with the television, she tapped him on the shoulder.

  The Doctor pulled his head out of the console and smiled at them. ‘Good, you got it,’ he said. ‘Put it down on here.’ He patted the transmat dais.

  Rachel and Allison heaved the television on to the dais. The Doctor immediately started running cables from the transmat to the television.

  Allison watched in fascination. ‘How does he do that?’

  ‘Do what?’ asked Ace.

  ‘It’s easy,’ said the Doctor, ‘when you’ve had nine hundred years’ experience.’

  Nine hundred years, thought Rachel, right. She watched the Doctor’s fingers working. Precisely what he did, Rachel couldn’t make out, but under his hands grew a complicated assembly that ran from transmat to television.

  ‘The Daleks got themselves in a war with the Movellans,’ said the Doctor, ‘who are a race of androids. They’re just as nasty as the Daleks but more attractive to look at. The Movellans decimated the Dalek battle order with a selective virus.’

  He’s not even looking at what he’s doing, realized Rachel. How does he do it? Is it instinct?

  ‘Am I boring you?’ asked the Doctor.

  Allison’s eyes had a glazed look. Ace was grinning.

  Rachel shook her head, and the Doctor smiled.

  ‘The virus fragmented the Daleks and left them in isolated factions, one of which seems to have resettled Skaro. This imperial faction seems to be in conflict with a force of renegade Daleks.’ The Doctor stopped working and looked up at Rachel. ‘And that’s odd.’

  ‘What’s odd about some internecine violence?’ said Rachel. ‘There’s been enough of it on this planet.’

  ‘Daleks don’t have internecine conflicts,’ said the Doctor, shaking his head. ‘One Dalek meets another Dalek, they bang databases, and one winds up giving orders to the other, except…’

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘Except,’ said Ace, ‘when one Dalek doesn’t recognize another Dalek as being a Dalek.’

  The Doctor and Rachel both looked at Ace. ‘Very good, Ace,’ said the Doctor. ‘How did you come to that?’

  Ace grinned. ‘Simple, ain’t it. Renegade Daleks are blobs. Imperial Daleks aren’t blobs – they’re bionic blobs with bits added. You can tell Daleks are into racial purity, so one faction of Daleks reckons that the other blobs are too different, mutants, not pure in their blobbiness any more.’

  ‘Result?’

  ‘They hate each others’ chromosomes,’ said Ace. ‘War to the death.’

  ‘With us in the middle,’ said Allison.

  The Doctor pulled a slim case from his pocket. He pushed a switch on the side and it clicked open. A lens and body as
sembly snapped out. The Doctor attached another cable to it and placed it carefully on top of the television.

  ‘Now, Ace,’ said the Doctor, ‘let’s see which blobs are winning.’

  Mike carefully watched the Black Dalek. It moved silently through Ratcliffe’s office and stopped by the desk. There, a young girl was bent over a globe; inside the globe, lightning flared.

  The two Daleks had ordered him into the office. Ratcliffe was waiting there on his knees.

  The Black Dalek – the Dalek Supreme – turned its eyestick to regard him. ‘Kneel,’ it had ordered, and Mike had knelt. Then that creepy little girl had come in and started working on the globe.

  ‘Repairs to the time controller complete,’ said the girl.

  ‘Prepare to leave,’ ordered the Black Dalek.

  Ratcliffe nudged Mike with his elbow. ‘Without that thing,’ he whispered, ‘they’re stuck here. A man in possession of that would have something to bargain with.’

  ‘For what? Our lives?’

  ‘Nothing so mundane. If we had that, we could demand anything.’

  ‘You never give up, do you?’

  Ratcliffe chuckled. ‘That’s what separates us from animals and the sub-human – we never give up.’ He leaned closer to Mike. ‘But we must move soon, else they’ll be away.’

  ‘What makes you think I’m interested?’

  ‘You came here, didn’t you?’

  Yes, I did, thought Mike. I was looking for a traitor and found that the traitor was me.

  ‘I came here to kill you,’ said Mike.

  ‘Good,’ said Ratcliffe. He licked his lips. ‘First things first, then.’

  Ace was flung against the window as the Doctor threw the Bedford van round a corner. Up ahead she could see a burnt-out Dalek in the middle of the road.

  ‘Dalek,’ said Ace.

  ‘What type?’

  ‘Imperial, I think.’ Ace hung on to the seat as the Doctor swerved round the broken casing. Debris crunched under the van’s tyres. ‘It’s hard to tell.’

  ‘Imperial,’ said the Doctor. ‘A scout model.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Fairings are wider.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The Doctor changed gears and the van accelerated. They turned another corner and Ace felt the rear wheels skidding. The van leaned over ominously, then straightened. A rail tunnel was dead ahead. Wrecked Daleks were clustered around its entrance, all of them in the cream and gold imperial livery.

  The Doctor was forced to slow down to thread his way through them and into the tunnel. Smoke roiled around the ceiling.

  ‘There was a major battle here,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘No kidding,’ said Ace. ‘I can’t see any wrecked renegades.’

  The Doctor slammed on the brakes; Ace was jerked forward. ‘Watch it, Professor.’

  The Doctor jumped out and crossed in front of the van. Ace slid back her door and followed. The Doctor was kneeling by two, oval patches of black on the road. He motioned Ace to stay back, and from his coat he pulled a device which he held over the nearest sooty patch. The device chattered violently and the Doctor snatched back his hand.

  ‘Radiation?’ asked Ace.

  The Doctor nodded and switched off the device. It vanished back into his coat. ‘And lots of it. That is all that is left of a couple of Daleks.’ The Doctor looked up the road. ‘I think the imperial Daleks have brought out their big guns.’

  The special weapons Dalek punched a hole through the renegade central positions. Behind it, section four and the shuttle commander mopped up the survivors.

  The renegade Daleks on the northern and southern flanks were forced to withdraw. As they broke cover the imperial Daleks surged forward to cut them down.

  The Emperor watched the white stars on the situation map dose in on the Renegade base. How long before the Renegade’s time corridor is established?

  Five minutes, reported Scan-op.

  It was all a matter of time.

  One part of the Dalek Supreme watched the two human captives. Another monitored the current tactical situation. Contact had been lost with all the front line warriors.

  Departure in three minutes, reported the girl.

  Instigate equipment destruct sequence, ordered the Dalek Supreme. All warriors fall back to transit zone.

  The Bedford van swerved up on to the curb. Ace’s head bounced against the van’s roof. The Doctor stamped on the brake pedal; Ace flung out her arms to protect herself as she lurched forward.

  ‘Out,’ shouted the Doctor.

  Ace slung back her door and jumped onto the pavement.

  The Doctor rolled over the passenger seat, out of the door and landed on his feet beside her. He put his finger to his lips, then motioned for Ace to look over the bonnet.

  Ace looked. Down the road she could make out the gates of Ratcliffe’s yard. She heard a scraping noise to her left. Ace slowly turned her head. It was a Dalek – or perhaps was once a Dalek. Instead of the normal manipulator arm and gunstick arrangement, a vast gun barrel sprouted from its torso. Flanges swept back from the gun’s muzzle and terminated in concentric rings of metal. The Dalek was filthy. Grime streaked over its flanges and fairing.

  Ace continued to watch as it went past the van towards Ratcliffe’s yard. A phalanx of imperial Daleks followed. Ace ducked down behind the bonnet.

  ‘Which blobs do you think are winning?’ asked the Doctor.

  ‘The bazooka blobs,’ said Ace.

  17

  SATURDAY, 16:32

  IT HAPPENED VERY fast.

  Mike and Ratcliffe were ushered outside by the Black Dalek. In the yard, grey Daleks were clustered closely round the Hand of Omega. The girl carried out the time controller and placed it on a trestle in front of the Hand of Omega. ‘Time controller fully operational,’ said the girl. ‘Departure imminent.’

  Too bad about Ratcliffe’s plan, thought Mike.

  The Black Dalek rotated to face the two men. ‘Destroy human captives.’

  ‘No!’ shouted Ratcliffe.

  The world shook: the yard gates dissolved into an orange ball of flame; heat washed the exposed skin of Mike’s hands and face. Then the noise came, smashing him back against the double doors.

  Mike saw Ratcliffe running for the time controller and the Black Dalek twisting to follow his path. A bolt of light hit the Dalek next to Mike; flame blossomed from its top dome. There was a ringing in his ears.

  Ratcliffe snatched the time controller and shouted something.

  More beams of light streaked through the smoke that masked the smashed gates. Another Dalek exploded. Mike saw the iron fire escape that ran up to the warehouse’s second storey and lunged for it.

  The Dalek Supreme was getting confusing sensory input. Images from the girl’s eyes kept merging with its own optical sensors. It caught a fragmentary glimpse of Ratcliffe picking up the time controller. It tried to shoot, but the double image confused its fire control and the energy bolt went wide.

  Incoming fire from the imperial Daleks was intensifying; the renegade Daleks’ defence was disorganized.

  The Dalek Supreme’s options were limited. It spat an order at the girl. Recover the time controller.

  The blast caught Ace and the Doctor half-way towards Ratcliffe’s yard. Even at fifty metres Ace felt the heat of the fireball. She had been looking at the gates when they exploded, and her eyes were dazzled. Ace blinked, but all she could see was the orange after-image.

  The Doctor took her by the hand and she stumbled after him.

  Power crackled through the girl’s nervous system. Charged as she was, time went slowly. She easily dodged the blaster bolts that seemed to float through the air. Her augmented eyes zeroed in on the human, Ratcliffe. In a moment she could see everything: the complex organic molecules that formed the fabric of his suit, the interplay of muscle in his shoulders, the constant motion of those absurdly fragile internal organs.

  Power bunched up inside her; she flu
ng out her arms to Ratcliffe and loosed it.

  Mike heard Ratcliffe stumble behind him. He turned to see Ratcliffe falling forward, crackling blue fire racing along his back. Ratcliffe’s eyes were open in surprise, his mouth worked silently. He held out the burning globe of the time controller.

  Mike took it as Ratcliffe fell to the iron steps. At the bottom of the fire escape Mike saw the girl. She was smiling.

  The shuttle commander swung to the left of the special weapons Dalek. Its eyestick scanned the yard as it searched for the renegade Dalek Supreme. The shuttle commander took a glancing hit from a blaster bolt and lost three of its sensor globes.

  Alarms sounded as the Abomination fired. The radiation discharge overwhelmed the shuttle commander’s shields.

  The shuttle commander saw a flash of black in its peripheral vision, and shot forward, compensating for the rough terrain by overloading its motivator.

  The distinctive black casing of the Dalek Supreme was framed in the shuttle commander’s aiming retide. The shuttle commander fired once but the Dalek Supreme shifted sideways and the shot missed.

  It tried to line up again, but the Dalek Supreme had turned to bring its own weapon to bear. The shuttle commander’s optical sensors whited out as a blaster bolt clipped its dome; it blindly returned fire. Its sight cleared just in time to see the Dalek Supreme vanish through the doorway to the warehouse.

  The Abomination fired again and the last renegade was obliterated.

  The shuttle commander’s life support indicators were red-lining. It could feel vital systems shutting down as its power-plant ceased to function. With fading vision it looked at the Omega device – the imperial Daleks had triumphed.

  Darkness closed in. With a final gurgling sigh the shuttle commander commended its database to the Empire. Then it died.

  The systems co-ordinator relayed the data to the Emperor. We have recovered the Omega device.

  18

  SATURDAY, 16:34

  ‘I CAN SEE again,’ said Ace as she opened her eyes. She and the Doctor were opposite Ratcliffe’s yard. Smoke obscured the interior but the firing had stopped.

  ‘Which blobs won?’ she asked.

  Dalek shapes began to emerge from the smoke – the Doctor’s hand tensed in her own.