PART 3."They Say Hello..."

"Dustbin? What's he mean by a dustbin, Doctor?" the Buffybot asked quietly.

"It's what you Americans call a trashcan," he whispered back. "If he means what I think he means, it would be a very good description of them. Trashcans with a permanent bad temper - not a pretty sight, as I think we're about to find out!"

There was the sound of a heavy impact, and they all staggered as the entire space station shook, reverberating like a giant bell. Suddenly, brilliant yellow light flared out from the equipment room doorway, silhouetting a strange, dark, conical shape about five feet tall, covered in rows of large bumps.

"Jumping Jets!" exclaimed the Colonel. "What the devil is that?"

"That's one of them things as took a pot shot at us, Colonel Dan," Digby responded. "See those two things on the front of it, pointing in our direction like guns?"

"Yes, I do. What are they?"

"Guns, sir!" said Digby. "I think we should take cover."

"Sounds like a thoroughly sensible idea to me," muttered Marvin so only the Doctor and the Buffybot could hear him.

"How many of them did you see?" asked one of the security officers, drawing his paralysing pistol.

"A few... well, several... actually quite a lot, Colonel Dan, sir," said Digby unhappily.

"Enough, and more than enough - in fact altogether too many," Marvin agreed, "and I'm now detecting more which are entering the station through the opening they've just blown in the hull. Unfortunately, I doubt that your paralysing gas pistols will have much effect on them - I imagine they would be about as effective as a chocolate sword."

As the robot spoke a siren began to wail and warning lights started to flash on and off repeatedly. Confused, everyone turned to look anxiously at Major Lafayette.

"Mon dieu! It is ze air leak warning alarm!" he exclaimed. "Ze station is beginning to depressurise. Look, all ze airtight bulkhead doors are shutting automatically to seal off ze damage."

"So now we're going to be trapped down here in the hangar with these things, whatever they are, and we're beginning to lose our air," said the Colonel. "I think the most sensible thing would be for everyone to get aboard the 'Annie' as quickly as possible."

"Not us, surely, Colonel," said the Doctor. "I know these creatures - I've met them before on a number of previous occasions. They are called Daleks. Nasty dangerous things, more than a little mad - and they have this irritating habit of following me around the Space-Time Continuum. In fact the reason they're here now is probably that they're looking for me.

"Therefore," he continued, "I suggest instead that we all get into the TARDIS. There's more than enough room inside for everybody, and of course it has its own protective force field - we should be perfectly safe in there."

All the Space Fleet people unanimously looked at him for a few seconds as if he was completely out of his mind. They were, of course, totally ignorant of the true nature of the device, despite the earlier evidence of their own eyes when they had seen him and his two robotic companions come out of it on arrival.

"I think you should get into the spaceship with them, Doctor," said the Buffybot quietly. "Leave me and Marvin to deal with these things - this is the sort of situation I am programmed and trained for. Quickly now!" and without warning she picked up Professor Peabody and effortlessly boosted her up the ladder onto the top of the little spacecraft.

"Get inside, quickly!" she told the young woman. "Everyone else, up you go. Air is leaking away - the pressure is falling as we speak. You have very little time! Go on! Marvin and I will be fine - we don't need air." The two robots turned away and started to sprint back towards the engineering bay on the far side of the hangar, where the Daleks were now appearing in small groups of two or three.

Dan Dare and Pierre Lafayette looked at each other briefly, shrugged, and then there was a hurried scramble to get everybody squeezed into the Anastasia. A moment later the hatch swung down with a thump and was locked shut.

Almost immediately a head appeared in the cockpit bubble. The Buffybot paused and glanced back over her shoulder, making the universal gesture for 'phone me', hoping the Colonel would understand she wanted him to switch on the ship's radio.

"Oh, look - there are more of these things. How very disheartening," Marvin said.

The Buffybot looked ahead again quickly, as her senses suddenly detected a rise in the electrical field in their vicinity.

#Marvin, duck!# she said, switching to her own internal radio.

#Quack!# replied Marvin, clumsily diving out of the way of a violent blast beam from the leading pepper pot, which was still well over a hundred feet away. He landed heavily, with a noise like a scrapyard, and rolled into cover behind the landing gear of the nearest spaceship in the row, where the Buffybot joined him a few seconds later, having paused briefly to grab a heavy box that was out in the open.

#What's that toolkit for?# he asked. #I'm not damaged yet, though if this goes on I can see I'm likely to be in serious need of a complete overhaul before too long. Oh dear, what a depressing thought.#

#Shut up, Marvin. Try to contact the Colonel, while I distract these things,# the Buffybot replied, hastily grabbing handfuls of items from the box. She took aim with a spanner and flung it hard across the hanger at the nearest approaching Dalek. The humans peering out of the Anastasia saw a blurred silver streak go sailing across the intervening space, and the top of the 'thing' explode in a shower of fragments. Greasy smoke began to rise and disperse in the thinning air, but more of the things were approaching, emerging into the hanger from the intense yellow glare beyond.

#Interesting!# said Marvin. #It seems to be a remarkable combination of living creature, and an electromechanical transport and weapons platform.#

#Keep your head down, or you'll suddenly become a remarkably interesting collection of spare parts!# said the Buffybot tersely.

Just then another voice came into her head - the Colonel on the Anastasia's radio.

#The Doctor says these things he calls Daleks are very aggressive, and tend to shoot on sight with little or no warning. Are you all right?#

#Yes, we are, Colonel Dare. We've already observed that feature, thank you very much. I actually remember him mentioning it to me on an earlier occasion. I think I know how to deal with them.#

#Good. We're going to try and launch the 'Annie'. These Daleks have obviously crashed their ship into the lower levels of the station like pirates ramming and boarding a galleon, though how they avoided being spotted on their approach I don't know.#

#They were probably 'cloaked', Colonel Dare - electronically made invisible to your radar detection. Does you have any weapons? Is your ship armed?#

#The Anastasia is, but not the space station. Once we get outside we'll try to sneak round on their blind side and attack them from behind.#

#Good thinking. Meanwhile, Marvin and I will try to keep them pinned down here in the hangar. Unfortunately we have no real weapons to match their blast beams. Luckily for us they don't seem to be very good shots!#

#Be careful, Buffybot!#

#You be careful, too, Colonel! Don't worry about Marvin and me - remember, we can operate in zero atmosphere.#

She broke off quickly to hurl several more items in rapid succession in the direction of the Daleks, scoring a direct hit almost every time. Unfortunately, faster than she could knock them out, more were appearing through the doorway and trundling determinedly across the open spaces of the hangar deck towards them, spreading out as they came. The Buffybot scrabbled among the remaining, depleted contents of the toolkit, looking for something, anything to slow them down. Then Marvin tapped her on the shoulder and pushed a large box towards her that he'd just discovered among a pile of components stacked by the wall, waiting for use. She glanced briefly at the stencilling on the lid, grinned, and enthusiastically ripped it open.

---

"Start her up, Digby. We're going to get out of here and show these Daleks what human beings are really made of!" said Colonel Dare firmly.

"Not literally, I hope," Albert Fitzwilliam Digby, space pilot First Class, thought to himself, but he just said "Aye, aye, Sir," and pressed the button which started the Anastasia's taxiing motor. The crowded little ship began to trundle slowly towards the enormous inner door of the launching airlock, gently nudging the TARDIS, which was standing next to it, out of its way.

Colonel Dare looked out as they approached the airlock, which had of course been closed when the pressure alarm had gone off, and realised that someone would have to go back outside and open it.

"Dig," he said. "You shift over here and take the pilot's seat. Pierre, old chum, do you mind being Digby's co-pilot for a few minutes? He's already had a certain amount of practice at the controls - she's all-new, and there are certain features about her that are different from Earth designed Space Fleet ships."

"But naturellement, my dear Dan. It will be a pleasure. She is a beautiful little craft. In fact I am quite jealous of you," the Frenchman added with a smile.

"Right, then. I'll just nip outside again and sprint over to the airlock manual over-ride control lever to let the 'Annie' into the launching bay tube. If all goes well, it won't take more than half a tick. I'll be back in a minute, or even less," he said optimistically.

"Do be careful, Dan," said Professor Peabody anxiously, as he took his pressure suit out of the storage locker under the starboard bunk.

"Don't worry, Prof. It really will only take a moment or two. The two robots seem to be doing a pretty good job holding off these Dalek things. We'll be through the airlock, out of the station, and safely back in space again, in two shakes of a lambs tail. Then we'll show them a thing or two!" he added grimly as he finished pulling on his spacesuit and sealed up the helmet. A couple of moments later he was out of the hatch, down the ladder and running across the metal floor of the hangar towards the manual over-ride lever by the great airlock door, which was big enough to allow a far larger spacecraft than the Anastasia through into the launch chamber.

When he reached it, he grabbed the handle with both hands and tugged as hard as he could, expecting it to swing up easily into the open position, but to his dismay nothing happened. He took a firmer grip and tried again. Again it didn't budge, not an inch, not even a tiny fraction. If he'd not been sealed inside his pressure suit he would have spat on his hands before taking a new grip to try once more, on the principle of 'third time lucky', but still there was absolutely no movement at all. It was stuck, completely and solidly seized.

#Dig, it's not moving - it seems to be jammed shut and I'm just not strong enough to force it. Can you see anything I can use as a hammer?#

#Can't the robots help, sir? That Buffybot is a mighty strong young lady.#

#Yes, of course! Good thinking, that man!# the Colonel exclaimed.

He turned towards where Marvin and the Buffybot, half way down the length of the hangar, were seemingly throwing handfuls of objects too small for him to identify onto the floor in front of the Daleks, many of which had come to a complete halt for some strange, unfathomable reason. He wondered what they were using that was so effective, but there really wasn't time to find out.

#Buffybot!# He waved his hands above his head to attract her attention.

#Miss Buffybot? We seem to need your help here too. I can't open the airlock. For some reason it seems to be completely stuck fast.#

#Colonel Dare? Yes, I see you. It may be that the drop in pressure has reduced the temperature, and the metal has freeze-welded shut.#

#Ah! I think you're probably right. Can you or Marvin help, Buffybot? Otherwise we are trapped, because there's no other way to get the Anastasia out.#

---

#These small nuts and bolts and ball bearings seem to be remarkably effective in slowing down these Daleks, Marvin. Clever old you! However did you think of it?#

#Oh, it's nothing really,# Marvin replied gloomily. #I just happened to notice that they have an extremely low clearance, that's all. Perhaps they originally came from some sort of totally mechanized world where the ground was absolutely flat, like a floor indoors. They seemed to be just high enough off the ground for them to drive over very small items but for them to get stuck in their wheels once they were on top of them.

#I knew a hooverbot once that had the same problem - the children of the house used to amuse themselves by dropping cutlery on the floor in front of it, and it would get wedged trying to drive over the handles. All rather obvious really, you would think, but then it was a very stupid machine,# he added despondently.

#Cheer up! It seems to be working - look, some of them are completely stuck, and most of the others are only moving very slowly.# The Buffybot grinned. #It makes it even simpler for me to hit them - they're easier targets! Watch this!# and she stood up with a long metal bar in her hand, balancing it like a spear or harpoon. The next instant it went flying across the hanger to impale one of the pepperpots, going straight through it and plunging into the next one behind.

#Yay! Two birds with one stone! Pretty neat, huh?#

Then they both had to hastily dive back into cover as a dazzling electric-blue flash passed close between them.

#Woo! That was close!# exclaimed the Buffybot, grinning happily, her face flushed with excitement.

#So are the Daleks!# Marvin replied soberly. #Just take a look behind you!#

The Buffybot hastily did as he suggested, and said something very rude. The second wave of Daleks had seen that their comrades were stuck in the middle of the hangar and being picked off one by one, so on coming through the door they were now dividing into two groups, turning sharp left and right and attempting to get round behind the two androids in a classic pincer movement.

Just then, the voice of Colonel Dare came through to them over the radio.

#Can you or Marvin help, Buffybot? Otherwise we are trapped, because there's no other way to get the Anastasia out.#

Quickly the Buffybot surveyed the scene at the end of the hangar where the Anastasia stood waiting patiently in front of the airlock. She realised that they had a serious problem, but before she could reply to the Colonel there was a tap on her shoulder.

#Don't look now,# said Marvin quietly, #but I think we're surrounded.#

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END OF PART 3

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