Doctor Who: War Games (10 page)

Jamie said, ‘You expect one of your transports to come and save you?’

Von Weich nodded. ‘That’s right. You will be overwhelmed.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ Lady Jennifer asked. ‘Who are you and where do you come from?’

‘That would take a lot of explaining,’ von Weich replied.

‘Most of it would be impossible for you to understand.’

She bridled. ‘Because I’m a woman?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Because you are a human—’

The sound of a materialising sidrat filled the barn.

‘What’s that?’ said Sergeant Russell. Already the sound was increasing in intensity.

‘Quick,’ said Jamie, ‘everyone hide! A box is going to appear right there,’ he said, pointing to the centre of the barn. ‘Someone’ll come out of it. We’ve got to grab them.

First grab him!’ He pointed at von Weich.

The sound was striking terror into the soldiers, all except Sergeant Russell. He alone acted on Jamie’s advice and grabbed von Weich.

‘All right, I’ve got him!’

Jamie joined the sergeant in throwing von Weich to the ground in the stall. Together they sat on him and hid themselves and the struggling von Weich behind a mound of straw.

‘What now?’ asked the sergeant.

Jamie kept his eyes on the centre of the barn. ‘You watch.’

The sound was deafening now. Everyone had hid-den, not so much as a tactic but through sheer terror. Quite suddenly the sidrat materialised in exactly the same spot as before. Once it was totally visible, the sound ceased. The American Negro soldier raised his head on the other side of the barn.

‘Glory be! It ain’t possible! ‘

Jamie waved to him to keep down. ‘Shut up.’

They waited. Below Jamie, von Weich lay quite still. A full half minute passed before the sidrat’s door opened.

Two guards in silvery uniforms stepped out carrying stun-guns. They looked around but saw no one. One of them noticed the revealed telecommunications unit and walked over to it. Silently, Sergeant Russell drew his revolver.

The Negro looked up again, holding his old-fashioned rifle. ‘Halt! You’re our prisoners now—’

The guard at the door of the sidrat wheeled round and fired his stun gun. The Negro fell. At the same moment Sergeant Russell fired his revolver up through the straw at the guard approaching the video screen. The guard stumbled backwards, dead before he hit the ground. The Frenchman raised his head for a moment to draw the other guard’s fire. As the stun-gun
zinged
, the German private shot the guard dead. Everyone looked up from their hiding places.

‘Be careful,’ Jamie warned. ‘There could be hundreds of them in there.’

The soldiers took no heed. To them the sidrat looked only large enough to carry two people—and both lay dead on the barn floor. Cautiously they moved forward to inspect the mysterious black box.

‘
Le noir
,’ said the French soldier, looking at the Negro’s body, ‘’e is dead but no mark.’

Sergeant Russell picked up one of the stun-guns. ‘A gun without bullets,’ he said, finding no hole at the end of the snout.

‘This thing,’ said Jamie, indicating the sidrat, ‘we’ve got to get into it before the door closes. It’ll take us to the place where all the trouble starts from.’

‘I quite agree,’ said Lady Jennifer. ‘We must take the battle into the enemy’s camp.’ She stood by the open door, ready to step into the sidrat.

The sergeant smiled. ‘I admire your courage, ma’am, but ladies don’t fight.’

‘Why not? I believe in votes for women, so why shouldn’t we fight if necessary?’

‘Because,’ he said, trying to think of a reason, ‘because you’re a nurse. In our camp we have plenty of wounded men. You’re more use to them alive than dead.’

‘I don’t know the way to your camp,’ she protested.

He pointed to the Chinese soldier. ‘He’ll take you.’ He looked at her appealingly. ‘Some of our boys are badly hurt, ma’am. They need you.’

‘Yes, but...’

‘He’s right,’ said Jamie. ‘England will be proud of you, Lady Jennifer.’ Inwardly he bit his lip. As a 1745

Highlander his enemy was England.

‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘I hope we meet again, Jamie.’

‘Vot about him?’ The German soldier aimed his rifle at von Weich.

‘He comes with us,’ said Jamie. ‘He could be useful making this thing work.’

‘On your feet, the sergeant shouted at von Weich. ‘Over here.’

Von Weich obeyed the command submissively.

‘He’s being too good to be true,’ Jamie warned. ‘We’ll have to watch him. Let’s get into this thing before the door closes.’

He led the way, followed by the Frenchman and the German and the two British soldiers from the Boer War.

The door closed the moment they were inside and the barn filled with the sound of the sidrat dematerialising.

The Doctor’s luck had held very well. With Zoe and Lieutenant Carstairs he had retraced his steps to the sidrat bay. No sidrats were present when the trio arrived.

‘What is this place?’ Carstairs asked.

‘Machines like the TARDIS arrive here,’ Zoe explained.

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I see.’ He did not understand at all.

But now his mind was overflowing with technical innovations that were beyond him.

‘We should wait here,’ said the Doctor. ‘One of these boxes will materialise and we shall all get into it. Then we can get back to the time zones.’ He had found a suitable vantage point where they were not too obvious but could see the bay.

A loud ding rang through the metal corridors. Carstairs said, ‘They’ve found the man we tied up.’ ‘Or the guard you knocked out,’ added Zoe.

A troop of silver-uniformed guards came running down a corridor, carrying stun-guns. Carstairs reached for his revolver.

‘Wait,’ said the Doctor. The guards had seen them but kept running. ‘They’re not for us, I think.’

The guards stopped within hearing. A senior guard addressed the others. ‘A sidrat’s coming in. It hasn’t given the correct signal. Pirates may be aboard. Take up positions.’

While the Doctor watched helplessly, the guards ran to positions of hiding.

‘Pirates?’ said Zoe. ‘But how?’

‘I don’t know, Zoe,’ said the Doctor. ‘I only hope...’

His words were drowned by the materialisation sound.

A black box appeared in the bay and the sound stopped.

‘By jingo,’ said Carstairs. ‘That’s jolly clever.’

‘Shhh,’ said the Doctor.

The sidrat’s door opened. Jamie stepped out, immediately followed by the resistance fighters and von Weich. Zoe was about to cry out a warning but the Doctor put his hand over her mouth.

‘Which way?’ asked Sergeant Russell.

‘I don’t know,’ said Jamie. ‘Maybe it doesn’t matter—’

All the guards fired at once.

‘Not me! ‘von Weich screamed. ‘I’m one of you—’ He reeled over as a stun-gun hit him.

The Doctor, Zoe and Carstairs watched silently as the guards emerged from their hiding places and came forward to drag away the lifeless bodies.

7

The scientist approached the black door nervously. No one relished being summoned by the Security Chief. His fears increased as he went inside and saw the Chief’s stormy expression.

‘Sit down,’ said the Security Chief.

The scientist sat. Two of the Chief’s guards were tending a guard lying on the floor.

‘Is his neck broken?’ asked the Chief.

‘No, sir,’ said one of the guards. ‘Bruised but not broken.’

‘Then remove him.’

They dragged the guard out.

The Security Chief stood behind his desk. He was a small man who enjoyed immense power; he did not like people to see how short he was, so often he remained standing. Different from the War Chief, the Security Chief wore a simple black uniform without braid or piping. It made him look very sinister.

‘I understand you were overpowered and tied up?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ replied the scientist.

‘I believe some of the resistance group who infiltrated this base arrived on the planet without being brought here by us.’

‘Impossible!’

‘Is it? The girl I questioned spoke of a space-time machine. The man who tricked you understood our mental processing equipment. Wasn’t that odd?’

‘I suppose so,’ said the scientist, who hadn’t really thought about it. ‘But time and space travel—who else in the entire galaxy knows about that?’

‘The people whose knowledge we are using,’ saidthe Security Chief. ‘Remember how we obtained that knowledge...’

‘Through the War Chief.’

‘Exactly! He is a traitor to his own people, the Time Lords.’ The Security Chief looked at the scientist, awaiting a response.

‘Are you... are you suggesting he’s bringing in his own people?’

‘He joined us because he wanted power. Perhaps there are others of his people who have the same ambition. For instance, this person the girl spoke of as the Doctor.’

‘Can you prove any of this?’

‘I am simply giving an opinion,’ the Security Chief said honestly.

‘I wish you wouldn’t give your opinions to me,’ said the scientist. ‘If you have these ideas you should tell the War Lord on the home planet.’

‘When I have proof.’ The Security Chief placed a hand on the scientist’s shoulder. ‘You can help me. Before you re-process those stupid soldiers whom we ambushed and stunned, study them carefully. If you find any of them who have never been processed, send them to me for questioning. And don’t mention it to the War Chief.’

The scientist’s throat had gone dry. ‘But I... I don’t want to get mixed up in intrigue. The War Chief has total authority here.’

‘And I,’ said the Security Chief, ‘have power of life and death. You are my friend, are you not? As friends we should work together.’

The Security Chief squeezed the scientist’s shoulder and gave a smile that sent shivers down the scientist’s spine.

Lieutenant Carstairs looked along the rows of different coloured jackets hanging on racks.

‘A uniform for all occasions, what?’

‘We’re in the wardrobe,’ said the Doctor, delighted.

He held out the sleeve of a jacket with a row of tiny buttons. ‘I’d say that’s the Russian Army of the 18th Century. Catherine the Great had the buttons put on to stop her soldiers from wiping their noses on their sleeves.’

Zoe called from across the vast room. ‘There are metal suits over here.’

The Doctor looked up. ‘Suits of armour, Zoe. Very impractical. If the wearer fell over he was too heavy ever to get up again.’

‘Why did you want to come in here?’ Carstairs asked.

‘This is next to the place where that scientist was going to re-process you.’ The Doctor moved over to the wall. ‘If we were able to see into there...’ He got out his sonic screwdriver, made an adjustment and held it to the wall. A small hole appeared.

Carstairs was astonished. ‘How did you do that?’

‘I disintegrated that part of the wall’s molecular structure. Now let us see what we can see.’ The Doctor peered through the hole.

The resistance fighters stun-gunned in the ambush lay on the floor. Two silver-uniformed guards were lifting the young French soldier onto an inspection table. The scientist put a headset on the man, touched a button and watched a little screen.

‘Put him in the re-processing chair,’ he ordered.

The guards sat the Frenchman in the chair that Carstairs had once occupied, clamping his wrists and ankles.

‘The one in the skirt,’ said the scientist. ‘Put him on the table.’

The Doctor turned to Zoe and Carstairs. ‘I can see Jamie,’ he said excitedly. ‘He’s unconscious but he’s alive.’

Carstairs was puzzled. ‘The guns didn’t kill?’

‘Apparently not. They were adjusted to stun.’ The Doctor returned his attention to the hole. ‘Now let’s see...’

The headset was on Jamie. The scientist was looking at the little screen, puzzled.

‘Something wrong?’ asked a guard.

‘Yes,’ said the scientist. ‘Very wrong. Take this specimen to the Security Chief. Tell him that this skirted man was never processed in the first place.’

‘How is that possible?’ said the guard.

‘Have your Chief explain. He has an opinion.’

The two guards lifted up Jamie to carry him out. As they approachd the door, it opened. The War Chief stepped into the processing room with his two personal bodyguards. The scientist paled at the sight of him.

‘Have you commenced re-processing yet?’ asked the War Chief, pleasantly.

‘Er, I was just going to start with this one.’ The scientist indicated the Frenchman strapped in the chair.

‘And this one? Where is he going?’ The War Chief looked at the two guards carrying out Jamie.

‘The Security Chief,’ mumbled the scientist. ‘He wanted to question one of them before re-processing.’

‘Why did you select that one?’

‘He... His brain patterns are different, sir.’

‘How different?’

Through the hole the Doctor could clearly see the scientist’s Adam’s apple working up and down in his throat. ‘How is he different, sir?’

‘At least you are not deaf,’ said the War Chief. ‘Yes, I clearly asked how are his brain patterns different.’

The scientist’s mouth opened but no speech came out.

‘Come now,’ said the War Chief in a friendly way. ‘We have no secrets, do we?’

‘He... I mean, I think... Well, it’s possible that he hasn’t been processed before.’

For a moment the War Chief said nothing. Then he smiled. ‘How extraordinary. Well, I suggest you keep me informed of any such... unusual developments.’ He turned to go and paused in the doorway. ‘We are very proud of your work, you know. The War Lord remarked only yesterday that without your genius none of this would have been possible.’

The scientist glowed with delight. ‘Oh, thank you.’

‘Thank
you
,’ said the War Chief and left the processing room with his two bodyguards.

Alone, the scientist turned to the unconscious Frenchman strapped in the chair. ‘Did you hear that? The War Lord says I’m a genius!’

The Doctor turned to Carstairs. ‘We’ve got to get in there before the guards come back.’ He studied the wall. ‘If I could change its entire molecular structure...’