Doctor Who: The Invasion (17 page)

9

Vaughn and Packer were poring over a vast map of the world.

Outside the wide windows behind them everything was unnaturally quiet and still, except for the pigeons flapping over the rooftops and the odd car horn sounding under the slumped body of the driver.

'All main communication centres are now in the hands of our people,' Vaughn announced with smug satisfaction.

Packer looked unconvinced. 'But we can't do any more without the rest of the Cyber force,' he objected obstinately.

'They'll arrive, Packer, never fear. And when they do, there won't be a city in the entire world that we don't control,' Vaughn assured him in a strange singsong voice. 'Think of it, Packer... the entire world!'

A whooping alarm sounded from the video bank and the screens flickered automatically into life.

'Security alert,' Packer whined with a haunted look. 'The UNIT

mob must have got through somehow.'

Vaughn glared at his Deputy and then punched a hold button as the screens flashed up a continuously changing sequence of views of the headquarters buildings. On one of the screens the Doctor's bulbous features loomed like a mischievous gargoyle.

'Good morning, Mr Vaughn, can you hear me?'

'Yes,' Vaughn hissed into the desk microphone, his eyes burning with hatred.

The gargoyle grinned. 'Oh, jolly good. Hope I haven't dropped in... or rather popped up at an awkward moment, but I'd rather like a word with you,' the Doctor said breezily, straightening his rumpled collar and brushing his lapels.

Vaughn smiled acidly at the microphone. 'Clever of you to outwit the coercion beam, Doctor.'

The Doctor shrugged modestly. 'Well, to tell you the truth it's been a bit of a pain in the neck,' he quipped cheekily. 'Shall I come up? I do know the way.'

The mocking face vanished from the screen.

'He must be out of his mind,' Packer exploded.

'Far from it, Packer. Make a security check in case he's brought any friends with him again,' Vaughn ordered calmly.

Packer spoke tersely into his wrist radio.

'We'll kill the bastard this time,' Packer resolved, his beady eyes glinting.

Vaughn sighed with infinite patience. 'No, Packer, we will do no such thing. You forget the Doctor's travel machine. He's our insurance.'

The whine of the Hercules's turboprops faded as the UNIT

Airborne Operations Unit touched down at Henlow Flats Missile Base north-east of London.

'Stand by, raiding party. Defensive stance. Attack only if necessary,' snapped the Brigadier, buckling on his pistol.

At that moment, the Doctor's voice came through again on the polyvox receiver. 'Just about to enter the lion's den,' he reported. 'I'll leave this thing switched on now...'

The Brigadier wished him luck. Then he ordered the Signals Desk to keep the channel open. 'Get the whole lot on tape. If he needs help throw in everything we've got in Blue Sector.'

Zoe hurried in carrying a box of depolarisers which she and the Professor had managed to cobble together. 'Hope there'll be enough to go round,' she said.

The Brigadier complimented her warmly.

They froze as a cultured voice purred silkily from the polyvox speaker. 'Ah... Doctor... What an unexpected pleasure... Come in and sit down...'

Zoe wanted to stay and listen, but the Brigadier took her firmly by the arm. 'Come along, Miss Zoe, and keep close to me. We've got work to do,' he ordered.

Seated in a comfortable chair, the Doctor had listened to Vaughan's arrogant story with inward contempt but with a smile of respectful admiration playing on his mild features. As his host fell silent, the Doctor studied him with thinly veiled incredulity.

'And you trust these Cybermen?' he exclaimed.

'I know them' Vaughn boasted, dramatically silhouetted against the panoramic windows. 'I know the way they think... their single-minded purpose...'

'Then you must realise that they are ruthless inhuman destroyers.'

'Naturally, Doctor. I have worked with them for five years on this project. They are my allies, not my enemies,' Vaughn purred.

The Doctor raised his dark eyebrows. 'You actually believe they'll honour the bargain you have made with them?'

Vaughn squinted imperiously down at the small, hunched figure sitting opposite. 'I planned this whole operation, Doctor,' he claimed with smouldering passion. 'It was I who contacted them far out in the Solar System. They are merely providing their strength and technological skill to fulfil my vision.'

The Doctor leaned forward, his eyes like gimlets as they searched into Vaughn's. 'In return for what? What do the Cybermen gain from it all?' he demanded.

Vaughn chuckled throatily. 'What they want and what they get are two very different things, Doctor.'

The Doctor was not impressed. 'Two can play at that game.

Once the invasion is completed they'll just toss you aside like a spent cartridge.'

Vaughn leaned forward in turn. 'All Cybermen are programmed to obey my orders, Doctor,' he smirked.

'Oh, your bunch of silver sewage workers might be. But what about the ones sitting out there around the Moon?' challenged the Doctor. 'Will they do as they're told, Vaughn?'

Vaughn hesitated. For the first time his eyes betrayed a shifty uncertainty. There was a tense pause. 'If they do not, I shall destroy them with the Professor's machine,' Vaughn retorted.

The Doctor snorted. 'With one single solitary device?'

'More will be made.'

'Not without the Professor's help. And we have the Professor.'

Again Vaughn hesitated, deeply troubled but still smiling smugly. 'I have no reason to doubt my allies,' he murmured.

The Doctor stood up. 'You can't possibly take such a gamble!'

he cried earnestly. 'If the Cybermen do take control of the Earth, they will destroy all life as we know it.'

Vaughn walked round the desk, smiling malevolently. 'You're just playing for time,' he sneered. 'You presumably managed to protect your UNIT cronies from the coercion signals. What exactly are they up to now?'

'You are living in a fantasy world,' the Doctor shrugged calmly.

Vaughn flicked a switch on the desk. Packer appeared on a monitor screen. 'Are the ion beam transmitters aligned?' he demanded.

'Affirmative. The fault's just been rectified,' Packer replied.

Vaughn switched Packer off and took out his fountain pen.

'Your friends are too late, whatever they're trying to do,' he crowed triumphantly, twisting the pen top.

The astonished Doctor watched in horrified fascination as the wall opened to reveal the Cyber Module spitting and sparking in its lair.

'Your delays must cease forthwith,' rasped the machine.

'Transporters are prepared to launch.'

'We are locking on now,' Vaughn confirmed.

'Confirmation Invasion Fleet First Stage completed,' the machine croaked. 'Second Stage initiating now...'

The Doctor shielded his eyes as he tried to study the sinister alien apparatus from the other side of the office. 'This is madness, Vaughn. You must stop now!' he burst out, gazing momentarily at the brilliant, flashing crystal and covering his seared eyes again.

But Tobias Vaughn was trembling with fanatical determination. 'You don't understand...' he whispered. 'I can't see all those years of work wasted. I must go on!'

In the small concrete control block set within a massive bunker buried in the middle of the Henlow Flats Missile Base, teleprinters clicked quietly and radar sweeps silently tracked round and round and back and forth. A dozen Air Force personnel lay slumped over the computer guidance and radar terminals, apparently dead. At the Controller's desk mounted on a raised central dais, a young Squadron Leader was hanging over the arm of his revolving chair, a red telephone receiver still tightly gripped in his nerveless hand.

Suddenly the door flew open. Lethbridge-Stewart quickly appraised the situation and strode in followed by Zoe and four troopers.

'Get these chaps fitted up with depolarisers,' he ordered, after checking one or two pulses.

While Zoe and the troopers set about taping the neuristor assemblies to the backs of the airmen's necks, the Brigadier called the Operations Room on his polyvox unit.

'What's the state of play, Walters?'

'Captain Turner reports that he's just crossed the Russian border, sir.'

'What about the Doctor?'

'So far, so good. We're getting it all on tape, sir.'

The Squadron Leader moaned and stirred into consciousness.

'Excellent, Sergeant. Stand by...'

The Squadron Leader stared up at the hazy figure and blinked dizzily. 'I'm... I'm Bradwell, sir...' he stammered, trying to get to his feet and collapsing back into the chair. '... Were we attacked...?' he mumbled, attempting a salute.

The Brigadier waved away formality. 'Just you relax and try to clear your head, Squadron Leader,' he ordered gently. "Then I'll fill you in.'

Twenty minutes later most of the bunker personnel had revived and Bradwell was gazing incredulously at the Brigadier.

'But it's utterly fantastic...' he gasped as Lethbridge-Stewart finished the hurried briefing.

'But true I'm afraid, Bradwell. We're expecting the invasion fleet at any moment. If they get here intact we've all had it.'

The Squadron Leader stumbled groggily over to the radar screens. 'See anything, Peters?'

'Not a glimmer so far, sir,' responded the Flight Lieutenant manning the main scanner, rubbing his temples tenderly.

'We could be too late,' murmured the Brigadier.

Zoe joined them. 'What's the maximum radar range?' she asked.

'Pretty accurate to about ten thousand miles, miss. Dodgy outside that,' Peters replied.

'Then we won't see them until they're almost on top of us,' she sighed downheartedly.

'All the same, we can certainly arrange a little reception committee for them,' Bradwell muttered, turning briskly to his team.

'Begin fuel priming and countdown prelims...' he ordered.

While the pre-launch procedures were smoothly completed, the Brigadier called the Ops Room on the polyvox again.

'Has Turner reached Nykortny Base yet?' he demanded impatiently.

'No word yet, sir.' Walters smartly replied. 'Something now!'

shouted Flight Lieutenant Peters.

'Just on range limit, sir. Faint but closing very fast.' The Brigadier rushed over to the radar display. 'This it?' he asked curtly.

'Looks like it, sir...' said Bradwell, pointing out a dim group of white dots near the edge of the main screen.

Peters keyed in a command and a complex of symbols was superimposed on the display. 'They're on a ballistic trajectory, sir... in range approximately five minutes from now.'

'Where are we on prelims?' snapped Bradwell.

'T minus forty five seconds, sir,' called a voice from the launching section.

'
Hold
!' rapped Bradwell.

There was a rapid succession of shouts and acknowledgements.

'Holding at T minus forty-five, sir.'

'Prepare fuse locks and run arming code...' Bradwell ordered, going to his desk on the dais.

Zoe peered at the radar. 'Look! There are more of the things now.'

'Arming codes running..

There's hundreds of them now!' shouted Peters.

Squadron Leader Bradwell turned to the Brigadier. 'We can't possibly take out all of them, sir.'

Lethbridge-Stewart nodded stoically. 'Just get as many as you can...' he said quietly.

Behind Bradwell the computer discs and spools whirred busily.

'Link programme to telemetry guidance,' he commanded.

Zoe had been carefully studying the host of invasion craft on the screen. 'I think you could knock out a good ninety percent of these things,' she announced unexpectedly.

'Nowhere near enough Taktiks,' snapped Bradwell, absorbed in his checking schedule.

Zoe bridled at his dismissive manner. 'It's no use just blowing up half a dozen or so,' she persisted. 'Those things are in tight formation patterns. If you guide each missile carefully I'm sure you could set up a chain reaction.'

Bradwell considered for a moment, and then shook his head.

'There isn't time to compute all the variables, miss. The things will be on us any minute now.'

Zoe grabbed the Brigadier by the arm. 'I know I can do it. Just give me thirty seconds,' she begged.

Bradwell looked at her as if she were mad. He glanced at the Brigadier who looked unhappy and undecided.

Then Lethbridge-Stewart remembered the Doctor's words about the girl's extraordinary capabilities with computers. 'All right,'

he sighed. 'Give her thirty seconds.'

Flight Lieutenant Peters swung round in alarm. 'Sir, doesn't give us much time to...'

'Revised countdown to begin at T minus forty five in thirty seconds from...
now
!' Bradwell interrupted.

Zoe was already at the Guidance Programme VDU, calling up data and scribbling feverishly on a notepad. Bradwell tapped his fingers impatiently on his console and the Brigadier fiddled anxiously with the polyvox unit while they waited for the outcome of Zoe's calculations. At last she ripped a sheet off the pad and thrust it at Bradwell.

'Enter this into the guidance programme!' she urged him confidently.

Bradwell glanced at the list of numbers The had scribbled and then handed it to the Guidance Programmer. 'You'd better be right, miss.... he frowned, as the man began furiously typing at the keyboard.

'T minus forty five seconds from...
Now
!' Bradwell ordered, returning to his console.

Once again the systems buzzed into life and the discs and tapes spun madly back and forth. The Squadron Leader inserted a key into his console. 'T minus thirty seconds... No hold-ups now, please,' he prayed, his eyes flicking over the check panels. 'T minus ten.... He turned the key decisively.

'Data accepted, sir!' someone reported.