[Sarah Jane Adventures 07] - The Last Sontaran

by Gary Russell

  Kaagh’s war cry, much closer now, jolted them into running again, taking the right-hand junction.

  They rounded a bend.

  And realised it was a dead end, although at the far wall was a door.

  A big steel door.

  A big rusty steel door.

  A big locked rusty steel door.

  ‘I think I took a wrong turn. Sorry,’ Clyde hissed at them.

  And Kaagh’s war cry rang out, so very much closer.

  There was a handle on the door. It looked like it hadn’t moved since the 1950s, when the place was built. Clyde strained and struggled, and Luke tried to help but they couldn’t budge it.

  But they didn’t give up. They couldn’t, too much was at stake.

  ‘First time in my life…’ Clyde panted between shoves, ‘that I wish I carried a lipstick!’

  Maria squeezed into the tiny space by the door, pushing on it while the boys concentrated on the handle. Then Clyde pushed them both back. ‘One last chance,’ he said and with a roar of frustration, he raised his right foot and kicked at the handle.

  The door swung violently open, Clyde’s momentum plunging him into the greenery of the grass outside.

  Maria and Luke were outside a split second later, Maria already closing the door before Clyde got up.

  Luke had found a broken tree branch, a really thick one and thrust it under the ridges on the metal door, at an angle with the ground so the door couldn’t be opened from inside.

  They hoped.

  A sudden flurry of bangs and grunts, followed by an angry growl from inside proved they’d outwitted Kaagh. At least for the moment.

  Breathless, but silent, the three kids waited by the door until they heard Kaagh’s angry footsteps receding.

  Clyde pointed at new bulges in the steel, where Kaagh’s incredible strength had actually dented the doorway. That, I reckon, is what you call a toad in a hole.’

  Chapter Eight

  Rescue

  Sarah Jane slowly came round, shaking her head as if to clear it. She was in the Rec Room. Lucy Skinner was sat opposite on the pool table’s edge, watching her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  Sarah Jane sat upright. ‘Where’s Clyde?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Lucy, mournfully. ‘Dad locked you in here with me. What’s happened to him? He’s acting like some sort of a robot.’

  ‘He’s being controlled by a Sontaran warrior,’ said Sarah Jane, as if that explained everything to the poor girl. ‘And if we don’t get out of here, it’s going to destroy the world.’ She needed her sonic lipstick to get through the door, so she reached for her handbag. But it wasn’t there. Of course, why would Kaagh do anything as helpful as that!

  She glanced around the room, full of spare parts for machines and computers. ‘Oh well, Lucy, we’ll just have to manage on our own wits, won’t we?’

  Outside 36 Bannerman Road, Alan Jackson was leading Chrissie up the path to the road, where a brand new, really rather expensive, sports car was parked.

  He nodded appreciatively. ‘Nice car. Someone’s doing all right.’

  If there was a trace of sadness in Alan’s voice it was only because he’d never been able to afford to give Chrissie things like that.

  Or Maria.

  But if he took the job in Washington, who knew what he could give his daughter…

  ‘The car’s Ivan’s,’ Chrissie was saying, ‘and I’ve borrowed it for the day. Now, don’t change the subject. It’ll be weird not having you here. We’re better friends than we ever were husband and wife.’ And she reached up and stroked his cheek, tenderly. ‘I’ll miss you.’

  ‘If we go.’

  ‘Of course you’ll go,’ Chrissie retorted. ‘You live for your work. Always did.’

  Alan sighed. ‘You see, that’s what you never understood. I live for Maria. I lived for Maria and you. That’s all work was ever about. Looking after the two of you.’

  He stopped. It was an old argument, and one Chrissie would never understand. Or choose not to anyway. And anyway, she had Ivan now. And he smiled — poor Ivan. ‘That’s why whatever I do, Chrissie, it has to be right for our daughter.’

  At which point his mobile rang, and he saw it was Maria calling. He answered.

  ‘Dad! You’ve got to help us!’

  And Alan’s heart sank. Not because it was Maria, not really even because of the alarm in her voice, but because he knew she’d gone off with Sarah Jane. And that probably meant danger. Aliens. Invasions.

  And he couldn’t talk, not while Chrissie was standing beside him.

  ‘Slow down, Maria. What’s happened?’ He tried to sound neutral, hoping Maria would sense he couldn’t talk, but Chrissie was at his shoulder already.

  ‘Is she all right? Has she had an accident?’

  Alan shook his head as Maria explained that they had gone to Goblin’s Copse, to the Tycho Radio Telescope, that Sarah Jane was the prisoner of a Sontaran and that they had forty-five minutes to save Earth. ‘You have to let me talk to Mr Smith,’ was her final point.

  Alan took a deep breath and glanced over at Sarah Jane’s house, then at Chrissie. This was going to be really difficult, but he told Maria he’d call her straight back, hung up and started crossing the road.

  ‘Where are you going now?’ Chrissie demanded. ‘Oh, not to Mary Jane’s?’

  Alan shrugged. ‘I have to do something for Maria. Look, get back in Ivan’s car and go home before he finds out you’ve “borrowed” it.’

  ‘What about Maria?’

  ‘Maria’s fine. She’s just left a library book at Sarah Jane’s and it has to go back today. No panic, that’s all, okay?’

  Chrissie stared at him then after a few seconds nodded and wandered over to the sports car. As she started it up, she called back to Alan as he walked up the drive opposite. ‘We’ve still got to talk this American thing through, properly. Like a family.’

  ‘Of course,’ Alan replied, giving a little wave as she drove off.

  Blowing air out of his cheeks, Alan hurried to the grand front door and moved a flowerpot.

  Maria had shown him the spare key there some weeks back and he let himself in.

  What Alan failed to see as he closed the front door behind him was Ivan’s red car slowly reversing in front of the drive. And Chrissie staring at the house, a frown on her face as she turned the engine off.

  Trying not to make too much noise on her posh high heels as they clacked over the paved driveway, she remembered breaking in here once before. A little window by the foot of the stairs, accessible from the garden, if she remembered correctly.

  Sure enough, the window wasn’t locked. ‘Some people never learn,’ she murmured as, heels clacking, she hoisted herself through and into the hallway of Sarah Jane’s huge house.

  Upstairs in the attic room, Alan stood, feeling very self-conscious. He’d been here a number of times now, since he had discovered the truth behind Sarah Jane’s work. And Mr Smith, the computer in the chimney stack was very well known to him — after all, it’d been his computer skills that had erased the evil side of his Xylok inheritance a few months back and saved Earth. Then he’d reprogrammed the thing.

  ‘Mr Smith?’ he called tentatively.

  Nothing.

  Then louder. ‘Mr Smith?’

  Nothing still.

  Then he remembered the phrase. He cleared his throat. It sounded so naff in his ears. ‘Mr Smith, I need you.’

  And with a bit too much noise for Alan’s liking and some steam, the chimney stack opened up, revealing the computer screen and controls, which slid forward, almost as if in greeting.

  ‘Mr Jackson,’ Mr Smith’s soft voice said. ‘This is a surprise.’

  ‘It’s that sort of day,’ Alan muttered, and he called Maria back. ‘I have Mr Smith for you,’ he said.

  ‘Hello Maria,’ called Mr Smith, and Maria once again told her story.

  After a moment, a picture appeared on Mr Smith’s sc
reen, a wireframe image of what Alan guessed was a Sontaran.

  ‘Sontarans are a clone species,’ the computer explained to both Alan and the kids on the end of the mobile. ‘They originate from the planet Sontar, part of the Sontara system in the southern spiral arm of the Metasaran Galaxy. They are fearless, well-trained, strategically intellectual and immensely strong.’

  ‘As well as short?’ Clyde interrupted.

  Luke’s voice broke across him. ‘But can they be beaten? They must have a weakness.’

  ‘Sontarans do not eat food as you understand it,’ Mr Smith replied. ‘They have adapted themselves over the years so that they normally intake pure energy by means of a Probic Vent at the base of their necks. This point is connected to the Sontaran’s nervous system, and is their sole weakness. Unfortunately, it is the Sontaran mantra never to turn their backs on an enemy so —’

  ‘What on earth is going on?’

  Alan froze, staring at Mr Smith in horror, but knowing who must be stood at the attic door behind him.

  Maria’s voice on the phone said it all.

  ‘Mum? What are you doing there?’

  ‘I think I get first dibs on the questions,’ Chrissie Jackson said, tottering on her heels across the wooden floor to look at Mr Smith close up. ‘Sontar Whats? Probic Hows? Alan, what’s going on?’

  Alan just took a deep breath and put the phone to his ear. ‘Maria, I think I’m going to have to call you back.’

  In the woods, some way from the bunker doorway, Maria, Clyde and Luke stared at one another.

  Clyde tried to make a joke of it. ‘Well, Sarah Jane’s going to be so happy with this development.’

  But Luke was practical. ‘That’s not important now. Saving Mum is.’

  And Maria smiled for the first time in ages. ‘I’ve got an idea about that…’

  In the Rec Room, Sarah Jane was throwing bits of equipment onto the pool table, anything she could find that had wires and batteries in it. Or could be connected to the same.

  Lucy was helping, although with markedly less enthusiasm, but that was because firstly, she could see the green baize of the pool table getting torn and dirty and secondly, she hadn’t got a clue why they were doing this.

  ‘I told you,’ Sarah Jane said, yanking something else out of a cupboard, ‘we need to build a jamming device. Something that will interfere with the radio telescope.’

  ‘Well, if we went to the Operating System Room, you could just take out the Transponder Unit.’

  Sarah Jane sighed. ‘The locked door rather prevents that. What’s up, didn’t you inherit any of your father’s aptitude for science?’

  ‘Yeah, a bit. He wants me to do astronomy, mum thinks I should be a biochemist like her. I’m more into computer science, cyber technology and stuff.’ Lucy laughed slightly. ‘My future is about the only thing they talk to each other about, even if it is through lawyers.’

  And Sarah Jane stopped and looked at Lucy realising for the first time just how lonely and scared this poor girl had to be. And she suddenly thought of Maria and how she must be feeling about her father’s American job. And how she had reacted when Maria had told her.

  Unfairly. Aggressively. Because Sarah Jane was a little scared of being alone again.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Lucy. ‘It’s always sad when a family breaks up.’

  But Lucy was attacking some things on the pool table with a screwdriver now, threading wires between two objects. ‘At the end of the day, I know they’ll both be there for me, however far away one or the other is.’ She stopped, and glanced at the locked door. Outside which, was her father. ‘Or so I thought.’

  And that spurred Sarah Jane on. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get out and help your father get better.’

  Lucy tapped at the electronic stuff with her screwdriver. ‘If we jam the telescope, won’t Dad be able to trace the source to us? In here?’

  And Sarah Jane grinned. ‘Oh yes.’

  Chapter Mine

  Gambit

  Outside Number 13 Bannerman Road, Alan was standing at Ivan’s car, trying to put Chrissie back into the driving seat. She was having none of it. ‘A role playing game?’ It’d been the best and quickest thing Alan could come up with as he’d all but dragged her down Sarah Jane’s stairs. And it sounded as unconvincing to him as it clearly did her.

  ‘It’s an internet thing. Only some of it’s in the real world. Looking for clues, solving puzzles.’ Chrissie smiled briefly. ‘Like a treasure hunt? Like when we were dating? All afternoon running around back lanes and plodding across fields looking for a golden rabbit?’

  Alan tried to suppress the memories — mainly because whilst it ought to have been fun, most of it consisted of Chrissie moaning about how her shoes/trousers/coat/hair were being wrecked by the elements!

  ‘That’s right,’ he lied.

  And Chrissie had him. Because for all her flighty ways and apparent materialistic concerns and “oh- I’m-a-bit-thick-me” ways, Chrissie Jackson was no fool. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said quietly.

  And Alan stopped still. Because he also recognised that tone.

  ‘I always know when you’re lying, Alan. I’ve always known. So, Maria’s in danger, isn’t she. And it’s got something to do with Calamity Jane.’

  ‘Sarah Jane,’ Alan corrected her instinctively. And now there was no way back. ‘She fights aliens. And Maria helps her.’

  Chrissie looked like she’d swallowed a wasp. ‘Aliens? From space?’

  And Alan nodded. Slowly. ‘Believe me.’

  ‘Oh I do,’ Chrissie said without hesitating. ‘Your mouth, it didn’t twitch. It always twitched when you told a fib. “I forgot it was your birthday” or “We won’t do something special” or… “No I don’t mind if you stay out late”. But it didn’t move at all.’

  And she was in the driving seat of the car, opening the door for Alan. ‘Well, get in then. We’ve got to help our daughter!’

  And before Alan Jackson knew what was happening, he was off with his ex-wife, breaking quite a few speed laws as she sped away from Ealing.

  Maria, Clyde and Luke stood outside Kaagh’s space pod. Staring at it.

  ‘And this is your great idea is it?’ Clyde said, shaking his head.

  ‘Kaagh won’t be here,’ Maria explained. ‘He’s already said, he’s got everything he needs to destroy the world at the telescope. But there could be something we can use against him.’

  Clyde nodded, coming round to the idea. ‘Yeah, he said he was in the Sontaran Special Assault Squad, so he’s gonna have all sorts of weapons in there. Oh yeah, this time the bad guy’s getting Schwarzeneggered! ’

  Maria and Luke exchanged a sigh. ‘I wasn’t talking about guns,’ she said.

  On the side of the ship was a small round indentation, with space for three stubby Sontaran fingers. Maria reached for it, her own small fingers easily filling the space and sure enough, a door slid open, pulled upwards, a small stairway coming down to the ground. ‘Kaagh said he had a laboratory, right?’ Maria went in. ‘The Sontarans might be soldiers, but from his interest in you, they’ve got scientific curiosity, too.’

  ‘So if Luke can synthesise a knockout gas, we could use it on Kaagh!’

  Luke started looking at the phials of coloured liquid.

  ‘Only problem is,’ Clyde said, ‘these are alien chemicals. We don’t know what any of them are.’

  Luke picked a few up and counted them off. ‘Dylixium chloride. Horazic acid. Lyzirium phosphate. Coronic alkaline solution.’ He grinned at Clyde, happy to be in his element. ‘Chemistry lessons with Mr Smith are so much more fun than at school.’

  Maria looked at the clock on her mobile. ‘We’re running out of time.’

  Back at the Control Room in the Tycho Building, Kaagh was leaning over Professor Skinner’s shoulder, a long globule of black oily drool hanging from his twisted lip, until it plopped onto the Professor’s white coat.

  The Professor examined the data, a co
untdown on one screen, a red strip of words on another, reading TRANSMITTING SIGNAL.

  ‘The program is enabled, Commander,’ he said coldly, as he prepared to help destroy himself and his world. ‘The dish will align on schedule and the link-up will begin.’

  ‘Good,’ the Sontaran spat. ‘Twenty-five more minutes and the Tenth Fleet shall be avenged. My name shall be purged of shame. Kaagh the Avenger will return to —’

  He stopped as his arm controller began bleeping furiously.

  ‘Intruders on my ship,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘Of course, the Half-Forms. And like bugs in a battle-trench, it is time to crush them!’

  And he stomped out.

  Back at the pod, a similar noise distracted Maria. ‘What’s that?’

  Clyde looked at a flashing yellow light. ‘I think we tripped an alarm system.’

  ‘Kaagh will be coming! Luke, you have got to get a move on!’ Maria said as she glanced outside.

  ‘I can’t rush this,’ Luke said.

  Clyde made a decision and pushed past Maria. ‘Where are you going?’ she cried.

  ‘If I can spot Kaagh coming, I can draw him off. Buy Luke more time.’

  And Maria stared at him. It was the bravest thing she’d ever heard. And possibly the stupidest. But all she could say was, ‘Be careful.’

  ‘I’m always careful. That’s my motto.’ He winked at her. ‘See you back at the telescope.’

  And he shot off into the woods.

  In the Rec Room, the bizarre mish mash of electronic spares suddenly began flashing.

  ‘We’ve done it,’ Sarah Jane exclaimed. ‘Now, we wait…’

  Outside, back in the Control Room, Professor Skinner stared at his computer screen. TRANSMITTING SIGNAL suddenly flickered and read SIGNAL INTERRUPTED. He tapped on keys and triangulated where the problem was coming from.

  The Rec Room, apparently, so he got up and walked through the Control Room, down the corridor and unlocked the door.

  As he walked in, he caught sight of the pile of electronic gubbins on the pool table, but wasn’t quick enough to see Sarah Jane and Lucy creep out from behind the door, nip into the corridor and lock him inside the Rec Room.