She cast about her, and seized a discarded length of metal pipe. It wasn't heavy, but the closest thing to a weapon available. Biting her lip, she closed her eyes and with a wild swipe felt it connect, glancing harmlessly off the man's helmet, the vibration rattling her more than it did him.
The helmet, then. She dropped the pipe to one side, and as the pinned Doctor gritted his teeth at the onset of asphyxiation, she grabbed on just above the man's ears, pulled, felt a deadening resistance, dragged with all her strength, and then stumbled back to clutch desperately for the support of the nearest cable, the helmet still clutched in one hand.
The man reared up, hand pressed against his temple and mouth gaping open, then sank slowly to his knees and rolled over, curled like a foetus, glassy eyes seeming to stare at her accusingly.
"Oh, God," she moaned, chills rippling through her. "What have I done now?"
"It's all right," said the Doctor hoarsely, regaining his feet while rubbing his bruised throat. "He was dead already."
He stepped carefully past the fallen soldier, who drooled and pawed at the floor like a baby, and took the helmet from Jasmine, flipping it over to show her the four inch needles on the inside, bloodied and bent where she had torn them free from the man's skull.
"He's been converted to what's known as a Roboman. The process leaves reflexes like blinking and breathing intact, but kills the higher thought centres of the brain and replaces them with simple instructions relayed via the helmet. They're effectively animated corpses." His face twisted bitterly as he looked down at the helmet, and in a sudden, violent move he flung the thing clattering away into the darkness. He hissed out the word: "Daleks!"
Jasmine glanced around anxiously, aware of the noise they had just made, but for now the poor, brain-dead trooper was their only company. The Doctor led the way through the tangle of machinery to a square hatch in the roof, which he knocked open with the heel of his palm. The weak, brownish sunlight of this planet came as a relief.
"One moment," he said quietly. "We just need a little diversion."
He set to work knotting together a selection of different cables, holding up each one as he grabbed it and turning it this way and that before deciding on its use. Jasmine moved back to give him room, and found herself looking down through the pinholes in the ceiling plates under their feet. There was something moving down there, and she knelt to place her eye close up to the holes.
It was a laboratory, much like the ones she had seen elsewhere on the base, but she also recognised the machine the Daleks had brought down from the cave. It was an arch of gleaming steel, seven feet high, encrusted with protruding spikes, wheels and clamps. An evil looking thing. Also in the room were two more Robomen and three Daleks. As she watched, the door slid open and, prompted by another Dalek which remained outside, in walked Max Strole.
He looked tired, his hair sticking up in tufts, and one side of his suit was thick with grime as if he had fallen heavily in the dirt, but he carried himself straight and looked around the room with a challenge in his eye.
"Are you in charge here?" he barked at the nearest Dalek.
The machine creature wheeled to face him.
"Step into the arch."
"This attack on a peaceful settlement is an act of war against the Terran Republic. In flagrant violation of all interplanetary treaties and galactic law. I demand the immediate release of myself and my men, I demand full compensation for this terrorist outrage, I demand..."
"Step into the arch or you will be exterminated."
Strole paused, looking furious at the Daleks' obduracy as one by one they levelled their weapons.
"I will accede to your request, but I warn you that any disrespect shown to my person will have serious consequences."
He walked stiffly over to the arch, turned, and took a step back so that he was between the two upright supports, facing out into the room and looking round suspiciously at the contraption now looming above his head.
Two clamps on stiff metal rods sprang out from either side and snapped shut about his throat, locking him into place.
"What?" Strole roared, struggling. "How dare you? Release me at once!"
The Daleks ignored him. One of them had plugged itself into the arch's control box via the hemispherical attachment on the end of its metal arm:
"Conversion process commencing," it reported.
Jasmine gasped, wanting to look away, but not doing so, as square metal plates emerged from the sides of the arch on multiple flexible steel supports and moved in to press against the sides of Strole's head, trapping it immoveably in position. The muscles of his jaw shifted and bulged with the effort as he continued to talk.
"Shtop." His words were muffled by the remorseless pressure. "Shtop immediately."
Gleaming, slender pins on the outside of the plates began to revolve, and then to sink millimetre by millimetre through the plates themselves, and on into the victim's skull. Strole's scream penetrated every fibre of Jasmine's consciousness. Her knuckles whitened, her lips stretched and parted, her muscles locked as if she were the one being tortured. The process was not quick. The pins made their slow, careful progress into the man's brain, and still he screamed and screamed and screamed.
The Doctor touched Jasmine on the shoulder.
"Nothing we can do," he whispered. "Time to go."