Now, you've all been trained in procedures involved in dealing with hostile aliens but I want you all to remember that there's no need for heroics, okay? The base is equipped with a more than adequate defence shield to keep any unwanted visitors out, so make sure that no-one gets hurt. Just find out what the hell's up with Sam and we'll get some photos and then we'll all go home.'
The squad all replied with an affirmative in their own way. 'Okay, check your weapons and prepare to move out in pairs.'
Looking out of the front window, Harry could see the rock wall ahead. These strange formations just sprang up all over the planet, just standing there for no apparent reason. The truck stopped a mile short, no point in taking chances, and the squad leapt out dispersing into pairs and moving slowly they continued carefully onwards.
'So, remind me, why didn't we land inside the base?' Ace asked really wanting to moan about the amount of unnecessary walking they always seemed to do.
'Well, I didn't want to startle anyone by popping up in front of them. Ah look, here's a door.' He said, pulling it open.
They both entered into what appeared to be an airlock, strange lights flashed around them. 'Decontamination process.' the Doctor explained as he pulled off the breathing apparatus he'd insisted that they both wore on the walk to the base.
They stepped through a second door into a corridor bumping into a hurrying medic who said: 'Who the hell are you?'
'No need to be startled. I'm the Doctor and this is Ace. Jane will be expecting us.'
'Oh,' replied the medic obviously shocked at the sudden appearance of two off-worlders. 'You'd best follow me then.'
They followed the medic down a maze of corridors before they reached what Ace concluded was obviously the colony's infirmary due to the fact that the word "Infirmary" was printed on the door in bright and cheery letters. Ace also noted the door across the corridor had the word "Control" printed on it.
They entered a room to find what appeared to be the remnants of a party. The medic asked them to wait by the door while he walked over to a senior looking doctor working at a computer terminal. The man turned when the medic was part way through his tale. He stood and strode over to the Doctor looking at him curiously.
'Bates,' the Doctor cried and grabbed his arm and pumping it furiously. 'This is the doctor who diagnosed Jane's pregnancy, Ace. Oh don't look so surprised old chap, I thought I'd explained last time that I'm an alien and Jane told you that I'd changed my appearance since first meeting her. Well, I've done it again!'
The poor man looked genuinely baffled, Ace thought, but he rallied marvellously and said, 'Doctor, it's good to see you. I presume you're here to see Jane, I'll just go and make sure she's up to seeing visitors.' He hurried off into an adjourning room.
He reappeared a moment later and asked them to enter. Ace followed the Doctor into the room and then spent the next few minutes trying to inconspicuously sit in the corner of the room whilst the Doctor and Jane reminisced rather excitedly about old times and the Doctor made silly cooing noises. Ace had never understood people's fascination with small children. After a while, Bates walked back into the room with a man she hadn't seen before.
'Doctor?' the man asked obviously puzzled.
'Ah, Commander Dwight. Ace, meet the Commander of the Minardi colony. How are things, Dwight?'
The Commander looked puzzled questioningly at Jane who nodded and said, 'Yes, Dwight, it really is the Doctor.'
Dwight looked only a little suspicious as he went on to ask, 'When did you arrive, Doctor? You could have signalled ahead and we would have prepared a proper welcome.'
'Ah, Commander, surely you're not suspicious of me? We only arrived a few moments ago. My ship wouldn't have shown up on your scanners and if you remember our last encounter it doesn't exactly travel in a conventional way so we didn't have the time to radio on ahead.'
'Okay, Doctor. I'll accept that you are the same man I met six months ago if Jane is so sure of your identity. Besides, I've never known anyone else to be as persuasive as she or you anyway.'
'Ah, delightful. Well in that case, perhaps a cup of tea could be found.' the Doctor replied with a big grin on his face.
~~~
Billy White had been a member of the Marine Corp until she had retired a few years ago. The reason that she'd given to the company founding the colony was that she'd grown tired with all of the travelling and wanted to settle down on a new colony world that could provide her with some of the challenge her life had been lacking recently.
The real reason was that she was fed up seeing all of her friends getting wiped out on bug hunts. She and Sarah, the woman she was teamed with in the search for Sam, were all that was left of an entire squadron that had been dispatched to investigate alleged Dalek sightings on the lush green research world of Corbet Sigma.
‘Alleged' - huh. There were Daleks alright, and they'd managed to overrun the entire planet. The handful of survivors had to evacuate the planet which was then sterilised from orbit wiping out the Daleks and taking out everything else, making the planet geologically unstable and unfit to support life for the next two thousand years. She and Sarah were the only survivors from the squadron on that hunt. They had decided to make a fresh start together and when the positions for security jobs had come up on a new colony world they'd both applied. They had both been accepted which was hardly surprising considering all of their training and experience. And now here they were with the threat of alien encounters once again.
'You alright, Billy?' Sarah asked. Sarah was aware of Billy's feelings towards aliens, her own were not as strong although she had had a healthy dislike of any bug that got in her way. She left the Marines to be with Billy, they'd been lovers for a long time and had married shortly before coming to Minardi Prime.
'Yeah, sure Sarah.' Billy replied but Sarah could hear uncertainty in her voice, even over the environmental suit's radio.
'Stop chattering you lot and concentrate on the task we're here to do.' Harry's voice said over the radio. Billy smiled at the face Sarah pulled behind her face-plate and mouthed the word 'bossy' at Sarah who smiled back easing the tension she was feeling.
The squad had now moved around most of the wall and Billy gasped when she saw the ship in the distance. It was big and sleek, not a design that she recognised. Harry's voice came over the radio telling everyone to keep an eye out and then she heard him reporting back to base what they'd found.
As she was doing so, Billy caught a flicker of movement off to her right and as she turned towards it, she saw the flash and heard the crack of a disrupter as three of the squad collapsed, lifeless. Her mind reeled with terror but years of training and experience kicked in and she dived behind what little cover the landscape offered landing heavily beside Sarah. Billy felt herself tremble as a sob escaped from her mouth. She felt Sarah's hand grasp her own and heard her soothing voice say, 'We've got to keep it together, Billy!'
Billy nodded as she heard the peel of the squad's laser rifles and that same crack of the enemy's disrupters that had accompanied the deaths she had just witnessed. She heard one of the squad scream in dying agony as Sarah leapt to her feet, rifle at the ready.
Billy followed Sarah's actions and found herself confronted by what appeared to be six robots or aliens in strange environmental suits. She however did not recognise the two metre tall creatures. Again, her training kicked in and her rifle snapped up and pointed at one of the creatures. She fired instinctively not knowing how unlikely it was that her rifle would cause any damage to their enemy. One of the creatures raised its weapon in slow and precise movements and aiming towards her and Sarah fired.
Billy felt an overwhelming burning sensation rip throughout her body as each of her cells caught fire. her soulless body collapsed heavily to the floor.
'Billy! Nooo!' screamed Sarah, a fearsome rage filled her as she fired shot after shot against the murders of the woman she loved so much. As her body spasmed with the shock from the disrupter burst that smashed into her, she smiled knowingly that Billy's killer had just exploded under the barrage from her rifle.
'Harry, what the hell's going on out there?!' Jim screamed into his microphone. The control room was filled with the agonising death screams of the squad and their pleas for help. The monitors on the opposite wall showed the life signs of the squad, too many bearing the flat lines that signalled death. Two of the monitors showed the picture from helmet-mounted cameras worn by some of the squad, one of those now showed only a burst of static.
Jim heard the door to his right open and saw Dwight, who he'd frantically called to the control centre only a few seconds ago, enter along with a stranger. Harry's desperate voice burst through the sounds made by the rest of the squad.
'Help us! We're being slaughtered! Our guns are no good, they're too strong!!'
Jim saw the stranger staring at the picture from the surviving camera as he said, in a voice filled with dread, 'Cybermen.' The stranger turned to Jim and said, 'Get them out of there immediately, they don't stand a chance.'
Jim flipped on is transmitter and said, 'Harry? Harry, are you there? This is control to all squad members, pull back, I said pull back!'
Harry's voice again cut over the agonised sounds from the rest of the squad. 'Jim, they'll all around us, there's so many of them! We can't retreat, we've got to fight!'
Jim looked up into the eyes of the stranger which seemed to be full of a deep sadness. The stranger said in a chocked voice, 'Then they're all dead.'
END OF PART ONE
written by
STUART BROWN
copyright 2009
artwork by
COLIN JOHN
JOE McINTYRE
copyright 2009
