Doctor Who: Earthshock (11 page)

Suddenly the outline of a Cyberman pressed against the molten metal and started to force itself through the softened material. 'Now!' yelled the Doctor, lunging forward and thrusting the end of the cable against the shutter.

Adric operated the switches and Berger shrieked in terror as the huge invader tore at the shutter, shredding it like toffee. All at once the metal went cold, instantly solidifying and trapping the Cyberman like a fly in a block of amber. The cable was welded into the hard metal, connecting it permanently to the stabiliser unit.

'Bravo, Doctor!' Briggs cried delightedly, her severe features breaking into a radiant smile as she leapt to her feet.

Ringway crouched by the console, alert once more and quietly awaiting his opportunity...

On the other side of the shutter the Cyberleader and the Deputy surveyed the result of the Doctor's experiment with menacing calm.

'The Doctor is a formidable opponent,' rasped the Deputy, directing the sonic-lance unit to disconnect themselves.

'I anticipated as much,' the Leader hissed, striding across to the second shutter sealing the other entrance to the bridge. 'Attach diffusion charges,' he ordered, indicating the heavy shield. The Deputy began supervising the attachment of small magnetic discs in a circle round the centre of the second shield.

There was a sudden dragging sound and the Cyberman wounded by Scott and his troopers on the stairway staggered slowly round the corner from the direction of

the main hold. Black smoke and steam poured out of its ventilator grille and a thick gluey fluid was oozing from its joints. A desperate rattling and whining noise emerged with each movement of its wildly jerking body.

'This unit has been damaged by laser fire!' the Deputy rasped.

'There is still resistance then,' the Leader boomed, watching the doomed Cyberman collapse in a heap and fall silent.

'The Earthling informed us that the crew totalled twenty, Leader. They have all been accounted for.'

'Then he has deceived us,' the Cyberleader hissed. 'Order the activation of reinforcements.'

The Deputy hesitated. 'But the consequences of yet further power-drains could be dangerous.'

'At once!' the Leader boomed.

The Deputy obediently tapped instructions into the communications panel on his abdomen.

'Charges primed, Leader,' announced one of the Cybermen assigned to prepare the ring of magnetic explosives.

'Activate!'

There was a rapid sequence of powerful blasts and the second shield burst inward like a paper hoop. Immediately the Cybermen raised their weapons and smashed their way onto the bridge.

Seizing his chance, Ringway knocked Briggs flying and grabbed the laser pistol.

A wry smile spread over the Doctor's face as the Cyberleader strode up to him.

'Well, at least you knocked first,' he joked, 'but I should have realised that you'd sneak in the back way.' He shot a meaningful glance at Ringway who was levelling the pistol at him, his thin face a mask of triumph.

'So we meet again, Doctor,' the Cyberleader boomed, signalling to the Deputy.

The Doctor's smile instantly faded and he swallowed hard as the Deputy raised his blaster at point-blank range. Adric tried to protest, but his mouth had dried up and he managed only a bizarre kind of croak. Desperately the Doctor racked his brain for something to say to delay the awful fate only seconds away.

Slowly the Deputy turned and Ringway's victorious smile dissolved into a look of abject terror as the deadly blaster was aimed at him instead. The laser slipped from his bony hands and he started to whimper and make incoherent pleading sounds as he glanced wildly round the semicircle of impassive silver masks surrounding him.

A sudden devastating bolt of energy sent him reeling against the console and his broken body slid to the deck, his face fixed in horror.

'He deceived us,' the Cyberleader explained dispassionately.

The Cyberleader contemplated his arch-enemy in silence for a moment. 'Our records state that you have a fondness for Earth and for Earthlings,' he rasped.

'Fondness!' exclaimed the Doctor. 'I'm surprised your emotionless brain understands the word.'

'It is a word like any other, Doctor. Like "destruction". We intend to destroy your planet.

The Doctor snorted with laughter. 'I've heard that before,' he said with a shrug.

The Cyberleader moved closer and the Doctor could not help recoiling slightly from the sweet, oily vapour that came from the ventilator grille. 'This time we shall succeed, Doctor. You will live just long enough to witness our success...'

Out of the corner of her eye, First Officer Berger had been watching disturbing fluctuations on the ship's instruments. 'Another power loss,' she murmured, glancing across at Briggs, who was still winded after Ringway's attack.

'Reactivation of second taskforce completed,' the Deputy announced, as a curious bleeping code sounded from his communications unit.

'Excellent,' the Leader hissed. 'Now, Doctor, you will see our strength...'

One of the Cybermen had been working at the controls of the bank of surveillance monitors and suddenly they flickered back into operation one after another. The Doctor, Adric, Briggs and Berger watched helplessly as the screens showed one of the silos bulging and shaking and finally tearing asunder in a twisted mass of razor-sharp slivers, like an enormous steel egg.

Out of the wrecked shell emerged more and more monstrous figures, slashing their way out of their wispy cocoons and gaining strength with each stride as they formed into a nightmare cohort of silver warriors...

Down in the hold, Lieutenant Scott, Tegan and the troopers shrank into the shadows and held their breath as the shriek of slicing metal echoed around them.

'Whatever it is, it's between us and the TARDIS,' Tegan muttered, hoping that this would persuade the Lieutenant to continue the search for the Doctor and Adric, instead of retreating to the TARDIS without them.

At that moment the casing of the silo next to them started to shudder mysteriously. They scattered in all directions and hid in the niches of the neighbouring silos, watching in disbelief as the throbbing metal walls suddenly shredded and were trampled flat by the emerging Cybermen. Tegan stuffed her fist into her mouth to stifle a scream as a long wisp of plastic floated down and settled over her face like a fragment of some gigantic gossamer web. She thought she was witnessing the emergence of a swarm of loathsome silver insects, as the Cybermen flailed into life.

Clutching the captured blaster, she watched as the Cybermen formed into pairs and then dispersed along the hundreds of alleyways, their weapons poised and their deceptively blank eyes scanning the shadows relentlessly. When the juddering rhythm of their strides had subsided, she tore the clammy plastic film from her face and peered around her. Scott and the troopers had disappeared. She was quite alone.

Trying hard not to panic, Tegan cautiously began working her way along the endless rows of identical silos, darting from niche to niche in confusion, utterly unable to get her bearings. There was no sign of her friends and all around her she could hear the faint hissing and the regular tread of the Cybermen. Glancing over her shoulder she suddenly saw two of them approaching rapidly behind her. In desperation she crouched down, trying to bury herself in the floor and staring into the Cybermen's eye-pods in a vain attempt to discover whether or not they had seen her.

As they drew level she thought she was safe. Then one of them stopped and turned on her with a savage hiss. Instantly Tegan raised the blaster and fired. The Cyberman exploded and the blast sent her staggering back across the alleyway. She crashed against a silo and slumped in a daze, while the second Cyberman wrenched the blaster out of her hands and seized her arm in an unfeeling vice-like grip.

Whimpering with pain, she stared mesmerised into the creature's expressionless eyes, her stomach heaving at the damp oily breath blowing into her face. For a moment nothing happened.

Then the Cyberman strode rapidly away, dragging Tegan along like a broken rag-doll...

As soon as the newly activated Cybermen had marched away, Scott mustered his squad and searched all around the wrecked silo for Tegan, but she was nowhere to be found.

'She must have been caught...' Scott muttered angrily. 'I'm to blame. I should have insisted on returning at once to the TARDIS.' He tugged his moustache nervously and hesitated.

'Perhaps the young lady's making her way there now, sir,' suggested one of the troopers.

Scott listened a moment to the eerie sounds of the Cybermen as they infiltrated the hold. 'I hope so,' he murmured. 'At least she's better armed than we are... but she's so headstrong.'

With every nerve alert, Scott led the squad away from the burst silo and towards the TARDIS. As they crept along, two pairs of eyeless faces began to follow them at a distance...

For Nyssa and Professor Kyle, still stranded inside the TARDIS, the endless waiting had become unbearable.

'I just wish there was something positive we could do,' said Kyle, walking uncomfortably up and down in the extremely ill-fitting clothes Tegan had lent her, her arms tightly folded across her ample bosom.

Nyssa continued to fiddle with the instruments without speaking.

The Professor picked up the small radio left on the console by Scott. 'Shall we just call them... just to check?' she suggested in frustration for the umpteenth time.

'No,' said Nyssa, frowning at the magnetic-field indicators which were showing yet another increase. 'Try not to worry, I'm sure everything is all right.' Her voice was hollow with doubt.

Kyle glanced up at the viewer screen. 'What happens to us if the Doctor doesn't come back?' she asked quietly.

Nyssa looked up, tried to smile and shrugged.

The Professor walked slowly towards her. 'You can operate this TARDIS

thing, can't you?' she demanded in a voice tinged with hysteria.

'Oh I understand most of the principles,' Nyssa replied evasively.

'But you could get us back to Earth?'

There was a pause like a chasm between them.

'Not without great difficulty,' Nyssa admitted at last, 'and even then not necessarily in the correct century.'

Professor Kyle clutched her head with bloodless fingers and gaped at Nyssa, unable to speak.

Just then, something silver emerged from the shadows on the viewer and then disappeared again.

'What was that?' Professor Kyle shrieked, pointing wildly.

Nyssa adjusted the viewer controls and zoomed in on a Cyberman motionless in the shadows. 'Those empty eyes!' she exclaimed with a shudder, staring at the huge impassive mask.

At that moment Scott and his tiny force ran into view, unaware of the alien presence lurking in the gloom.

'They'll be caught!' Professor Kyle cried, snatching up the radio again and trying to select the appropriate channel in order to warn them.

Abruptly the Cyberman turned and strode away. Seconds later there was an urgent hammering on the door of the TARDIS.

'They're safe now,' Nyssa murmured, operating the exterior door lever.

Scott burst in, followed by the troopers. Just as the last man was entering, a silver fist sliced through the open door and shattered his skull like an egg. The other troopers swung round and poured laser fire into the Cyberman's chest. After a few seconds it collapsed in a cloud of smoke. Nyssa dived at the door control just too late to prevent a second Cyberman from squeezing half-way through. Trapped by the

closing door, the Cyberman discharged its blaster several times before succumbing to the concentrated laser fire burning into its ventilator unit.

Catching the full force of the blaster, Professor Kyle was hurled across the control chamber like a sack of wet sand. Her limp body hit the wall and slid to the floor with a ghastly thud. The Cyberman melted rapidly in a sparking heap.

Scott knelt beside the Professor's crumpled body. 'Professor Kyle is dead,' he said in a voice tremulous with shock.

For a moment no one moved. Then Scott pulled himself together. 'At least we've got a chance of destroying some of those things,' he cried encouragingly, snatching up the Cybermen's discarded weapons and tossing one to one of the three surviving troopers.

'You're not going back out there?' Nyssa cried, locking the door control in the shut position.

'Earth is in grave danger,' Scott snapped resolutely. 'I have no choice. Open the door, please.'

Nyssa glanced at Professor Kyle's cruelly mangled remains. 'There has been enough bloodshed,' she murmured. 'The Doctor will not thank you for throwing away your lives.'

'Open the door!' Scott ordered.

'But the magnetic field...' Nyssa protested feebly.

'We've got to find the Doctor,' Scott shouted.

As the three young troopers stepped forward behind their commander, Nyssa realised that it was useless to argue. Reluctantly she opened the door. 'Good luck,' she said quietly as they hurried outside...

'This is sheer piracy!' Captain Briggs protested, stamping up and down her bridge in reckless indifference to the awesome presence of the Cyberleader and his forces.

'No, it is war,' the Cyberleader retorted mechanically.