14.

The laser bolts exploded around Jack, Katherine and the others with terrifying noise and light. One soldier was hit directly in the chest and instantly killed in a burst of intense energy. Before he could move his skeleton was briefly visible before being completely vaporised.

"Take cover!" yelled Jack urgently as the Cybermen advanced even closer, their deadly firepower raining down on their opponents.

The remaining soldiers took cover next to the army truck and started to fire their rifles at the robotic invaders, but their bullets just bounced off their impervious metallic chest with sparks that danced in the air. Meanwhile, Sgt. Harris rallied the other three unarmed policemen into a defensive cordon.

Katherine screamed in terror as the aim of the Cybermen improved with deadly results. Almost simultaneously, two of the police and another soldier were cut down by their fire, falling to the ground with cries and screams.

"This is useless!" yelled Jack to a shocked and shaken Harris. "We've got to get out of here now!"

Harris nodded silently in agreement, his eyes still fixed on his fallen men, their bodies twisted and still smoking on the ground.

"Get into the truck!" yelled Jack. He took a deep breath, grabbed Katherine's hand and then ran desperately towards the army vehicle at full pelt. The Cybermen's laser bolts exploded all around them but luckily they made it to the truck and jumped in. Harris, the remaining policeman and the last soldier also managed to reach the back of it without injury and threw themselves inside. Gritting his teeth, the adrenaline pumping through his body, Jack turned the keys in the ignition and the engine roared into life.

Jack pulled at a screeching gearbox and pressed his foot hard on the accelerator. With a screech of brakes, the truck shot backwards at full speed. Katherine screamed again as the windscreen shattered into a million shards and showered them in glass as it was hit by the Cybermens' energy weapons.

Jack swung the wheel around hard and wrenched the gears again, so that the truck skidded across the ground and turned to face the other way. With another squeal of the brakes, the truck accelerated away, leaving the Cybermen firing powerlessly after it.

15.

The Cybermen made no attempt to follow the fleeing truck, but simply regrouped. One Cyberman regarded the others. "The signal has been received," it stated flatly. "It must be located and retrieved."

The Cybermen swung around and, after a moment's pause as they orientated themselves in the correct direction, began to march away in precise unison, their heavy mechanical footsteps resonating on the ground.

*****************

Harris dared to look behind them as they drove away. "They're not following us!" he shouted jubilantly from the back of the truck.

Jack checked the wing mirror, but could see the backs of the Cybermen retreating into the distance. "That could be a bad thing!" he muttered grimly as he pressed on the brakes and brought the truck to a halt.

"What do you mean?" asked Katherine, relieved that they had escaped the terrible creatures.

"Well for one thing," explained Jack, "imagine the destruction if anything tries to get in their way. Not to mention the deaths they could cause."

Harris paled. "Oh my God!" he stammered, all victory forgotten.

Jack nodded. "Exactly, you have to contact the rest of the force and clear their way."

"Clear what way?" asked Katherine.

"That's the second thing. Those Cybermen are tracking some kind of signal, that's why they didn't follow us. Just clear a way to wherever they're heading."

Harris nodded and looked at the surviving young PC next to him. "Come on Davies," he instructed, jumping down from the truck. "We've got work to do!"

Jack turned around to face the remaining soldier. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Private Martin, sir!" saluted the nervous recruit.

"Right Private Martin," continued Jack urgently, "your job is to round up some bazookas and destroy the pod we found in the railway siding. Understand? Quick as you can now, hurry!"

"Yes, sir! Right away sir!" The young soldier hurriedly saluted again and jumped out of the truck, dashing away on his mission.

Jack took a breath and caught Katherine's eyes. She was actually smiling at him. "Seems like you've taken charge Captain Harkness!" she said wryly. "And what do we do?"

Jack grinned ruefully. "We head back to the TARDIS!"

16.

One of the figures in the doorway reached out and flicked a switch on the wall. The room beyond was suddenly illuminated by a single bare light bulb to reveal a makeshift laboratory. There were several wooden tables covered with microscopes, test tubes and Bunsen burners. On one bench lay rather sophisticated electronic equipment. Lining the walls were shelves that held biological specimens in jars of various sizes. A large operating table with several leather restraining straps dominated the centre of the room.

The figure nearest the Doctor and Emily was revealed to be an older man wearing a brown suit and bow tie. He had thinning grey hair, heavy jowls and watery blue eyes.

The Doctor regarded him carefully. "Professor Clark I presume?" he asked, pursing his lips in curiosity.

Emily rushed towards her father. "Dad!" she cried with relief, throwing herself into his arms, but pulled away with a shocked gasp as the figure behind him shambled forward. It was a travesty of a man combined with Cyber-technology. Half of his face had been replaced with a metal plate, complete with a blank, staring eye socket. The familiar square handles of a Cyberhead were attached to a metal skull cap. One arm had been completely replaced with Cyber technology and sported a huge metal fist. Around the torso and legs, implants had tubes that had been attached to pump vital fluids to the decaying flesh of the human body.

The Doctor regarded the cyborg with a mixture of fear, disgust and scientific interest. "My, my," he said lightly, "you have been busy tinkering down here!" He grinned. "I'm the Doctor by the way!"

Clark ignored the introduction and looked at his daughter, his face a picture of remorse and misery. "Emily," he implored, reaching out to her, "I did this for research; for science; to help Britain win this terrible war!"

"Bravo!" clapped the Doctor sarcastically. "I don't think your 'friend' here would agree with your noble motives!"

"He was dead anyway!" snapped Clark. "Any scientist needs test subjects to experiment on."

"But Dad," gasped Emily, "these are human beings!"

Clark's expression softened as he regarded his daughter. "I know Emily, but this War will claim thousands of innocent lives. This project could save them; this is such a small price to pay for that!"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, yes it is," he agreed. "But you don't know what you're meddling with here! This is alien technology, and you're playing with fire!"

17.

Clark nodded at the Doctor's warning. "I know Doctor, but I have to risk it. I can't let you stop me now. I've passed the point of no return!" A small gun appeared in his hand, pointed at the Doctor and Emily.

Emily's eye's widened in fear and shock. "Dad?" she stammered.

"I'm sorry Emily," Clark said quietly. "I know you would never hurt me, but your friend here would." He gestured to the operating table with the gun. "Lie down on there Doctor and Emily will strap you down."

Emily started to sob. "I can't believe you're doing this to us!"

"Emily, please don't argue!" shouted Clark, his voice beginning to crack. "It's either that or this creature will kill him where he stands!"

The Doctor started to walk towards the operating table. "It's alright Emily," he said soothingly. "I don't mind. Better that than end up the victim of that poor monstrosity." He climbed onto the table and lay down as Emily started to strap him down, still blinking back the tears. The Doctor looked at Clark. "That's what happened before with all those murders wasn't it? It got out……..or you let it out!"

After a moment's hesitation, Clark nodded silently. The Doctor looked over to the collection of alien electronic equipment that littered one of the workbenches. "Where did you find all that?"

"One night when I was out walking near the railway line," replied Clark. "Something had crashed; the poor devils inside were dead, but the technology………"

"The technology is alien Professor Clark!" interrupted the Doctor. Emily had finished strapping him to the table and had stepped back, wiping the tears from her face.

Suddenly there was a crash from somewhere upstairs in the house. Clark looked up nervously, the gun wavering in his hand. "Don't make a sound; if your friends have come to save you, I don't want to hurt them too!"

The Doctor shook his head as he heard heavy, marching footsteps approaching the cellar. "That's not our friends Professor. We're in terrible danger. Emily you must release me now!"

Suddenly the cellar door was smashed into splinters as four Cybermen strode into the room.

18.

Inside the TARDIS, Katherine watched Jack as he pressed some controls on the console and a sequence of symbols started to appear on the monitor screen. "There you go," explained Jack with a triumphant grin, "some kind of distress signal the Cybermen are homing in on. Now if I can just get these co-ordinates….." He frowned in concentration as he tapped away at the keyboard beneath the monitor.

Katherine shrugged. "Why didn't we just follow them in the truck?" she asked Jack.

"Too dangerous," said Jack, shaking his head. "They might've decided we were a threat and turned on us. This is a much safer bet." He punched in a final piece of data. "Got it! Pretty close to here actually." Jack started down the metal ramp that led to the TARDIS doors. "Come on, back in the truck!"

Katherine followed after him. "What do you think has happened to the Doctor?"

Jack paused in the doorway of the TARDIS and shot Katherine a knowing look. "Best guess? I reckon we're going there right now!"

**********************************

Emily screamed in terror at the four steel giants that marched into the cellar. The Doctor regarded the Cybermen carefully. He had encountered this version of them recently on an alternate version of Earth when the TARDIS had jumped a dimensional barrier. He tried to put on cheerful smile. "Looks like the cavalry have arrived Professor!" he called. He nodded to the restraining straps around him. "Don't mind if I don't get up!"

Clark gasped as he saw the Cybermen for the first time. "What are they?" he croaked, his mouth dry.

The steel giant regarded him impassively. "We are Cybermen," it intoned flatly.

"Always stating the obvious," muttered the Doctor. "What are you doing here?" he asked the lead Cyberman curiously. "I thought it would have been impossible to cross the Void after I closed it?"

The Doctor was struck dumb by the Cyberman's reply. "The Void has not been closed," it buzzed. "We are the advance guard for the invasion of this dimension!" It gestured to the cyborg with a massive arm. "You have stolen our technology and abducted us." It swung back to regard Clark. "You will be deleted!"

19.

Private Martin watched nervously as the bazookas were unloaded from the back of an army truck. He had a terrible time back at the barracks convincing his CO but fortunately Sgt. Harris had phoned from the police station and backed up his incredible story. Now at least the responsibility for the destruction of that thing in the railway siding had been lifted from him.

The Colonel talked to another serious looking man dressed in a trench coat that Martin had not seen before, presumably a government official. Meanwhile, the soldiers lined up the bazookas and took careful aim at the object from where the Cybermen had emerged.

*********************

The Doctor's mind raced at the Cybermen's revelation. "Of course!" he almost shouted. "You're the originals! This is how you sneaked through in the first place!"

Emily struggled with the straps that held the Doctor to the table as Professor Clark raised his gun and fired at the Cyberman closest to him, but the bullets ricocheted harmlessly off its chest.

The Cyberman glanced across at the cyborg that swayed back and fore, as if torn between loyalties. "Delete him!" it ordered.

Suddenly, there was the sound of running footsteps coming down the cellar steps and Jack and Katherine burst into the room.

"Get down both of you!" yelled the Doctor as two Cybermen swung around, ready to destroy them.

************************

"Fire!" shouted the Colonel.

The four bazookas loosed their missiles as one. They streaked towards the alien target and hit it directly. It exploded in an enormous fireball of flame and smoke.

************************

The Cybermen advanced towards Jack and Katherine, but then suddenly staggered, like puppets whose strings had been cut. With a high pitched electronic groan, they crashed unmoving to the floor.

The cyborg however was not affected and grabbed Professor Clark by the throat and started to throttle him.

The Doctor leapt from the table now that Emily had released the straps and grabbed a large jar of chemicals from a nearby shelf. He jumped across the cellar and smashed the jar over the cyborg's back, shattering the glass and emptying the chemicals over the creature. It gave a terrible roar of anger, but released Clark who dropped gasping to the floor as Emily rushed to pull him from danger. The cyborg staggered across to attack the Doctor, but then with an almost human whimper, fell to the floor and lay still.

20.

The Doctor, Jack and Katherine walked through a darkening London. The street lights were just coming on and there was a light fog in the air.

"We were lucky that the Cybermen were still reliant on their craft for energy" said the Doctor, his hands in the pockets of his long brown coat.

"But why should they be?" asked Jack.

"Because they crossed a dimensional barrier to get here," the Doctor explained. "That's not like just hopping between planets y'know! They would've needed to remain linked to save energy until they found a new source that would be modulated to their correct energy signatures. Standard stuff really."

"Why wasn't that other thing affected then?" asked Katherine, shuddering at the horrific memory of the cyborg as it lay dead on the cellar floor.

The Doctor sighed. He didn't mind explaining details to his companions, but this was getting beyond a joke. Fortunately Jack had already figured it out. "That's what was killing the people we heard about. I guess Professor Clark found another Dimension Ship a bit earlier, one that hadn't quite made it. He took some of the technology and grafted it onto that poor devil. The augmentation would've broken the link."

"Exactly, well done Captain!" grinned the Doctor, then he frowned and sighed. "They become the advance guard in what will be called the Battle of Canary Wharf in about, oh, seventy years time."

"Why didn't you destroy them then?" asked Jack. "You'd stop the battle ever happening!"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no. It's far too dangerous to go mucking about with Time. Don't know what would happen!"

They crossed the road and walked into the park where the TARDIS had landed.

"Do you think the Professor and his daughter will be safe now?" asked Katherine as the Doctor opened the door of the police box.

"I just don't know Katherine," the Doctor replied sadly. "This city will soon enter a war that will change the face of the world forever!"

"Then we'd better get out of here!" said Jack, and a look passed between him and the Doctor.

"Before Volcano day Captain?" the Doctor said, raising an eyebrow.

Jack looked guilty and pushed a confused Katherine into the TARDIS. The Doctor gave a last look around and then followed them inside. A few moments later, the lamp on the top of the police box began to flash as the TARDIS engines started and it slowly dematerialised.

Across the street, a shadowy figure wearing a trench coat watched it vanish. He raised his arm and pressed something concealed under his sleeve. His body was bathed in a shimmering golden glow before he too vanished, leaving the street empty and silent.

Next Time: The start of a two part adventure for the Doctor when he lands back on Earth in rural Wales in 'Whispers from the Shadows'.

Splinter of Steel – Confidential

When I wrote this story I knew it would be a bit of a challenge on several levels. In many ways this is possibly the most 'formulaic' of the stories in the season – using an old enemy in the very established setting of World War II London. I knew it would be very hard going to keep it original and readers not to draw comparisons with TV shows like 'The Empty Child'. But it was a deliberate challenge as I wanted a 'familiar' story that the audience could identify with after a completely original adventure in 'Prison of Ice'.

In a very early brainstorm, the enemy was going to be a Werewolf and continue the 'Queen Victoria was bitten' plot thread from 'Tooth and Claw', but Cybermen won through as they seem to fit in so well with this period. I also wanted the challenge of writing for Cybermen (after all, werewolves just go 'roar' and 'grr'!) and it's a lot more difficult than you may think! Finally, I was a little baffled about how the original Cybermen snuck through the Void in 'Army of Ghosts' and set up shop in Torchwood Tower. Well, now you know!

There are also some tried and tested science fiction cliché characters here – the misguided Professor Clark and his feisty daughter Emily (do professors and scientists never have strapping sons?) – being great examples. It is very difficult to break the mould however and Emily is a particular cliché as 'companion of the week' that happens so many times in the TV show! I did deliberately have her break out her cigarettes to try to show that she was from another time to our usual heroines like Martha or Rose. The other cliché is 'fairly thick copper asking a lot of questions', so take a bow Sgt Harris! Harris filled the other niche of 'ally of the week'.

Funnily enough, casting for this one proved very difficult as I went on 'autopilot' on these character stereotypes and reverted to the Classic series whenever I thought about them. Having said that, Philip Glennister might be good fun as Harris!

Finally, this story gave me the opportunity to start a small plot arc as by now I had started to think about the shape of the rest of the season. But more on that next time.............