Dominione cast an uncomprehending and worried eye over the shattered remnants of the "Black Tank", keeping an equally watchful eye on Sarah Smith. Eventually he had the woman detained and the tank destroyed.
The attack on Mersa Martubah had been entirely successful. Of the much-reduced garrison, only a Lieutenant and a couple of enlisted men remained. His own Camionista's suffered only a few superficial wounds, just revenge for their humiliation earlier that year.
One of the drivers, bringing a Sahariana along the main route amongst the vast supply pyramids, had discovered a small, recently-dug graveyard behind a cluster of mud huts. British and Italians buried alongside each other.
Then, more worryingly, smashed remnants of the bizarre vehicles that mad Englishwoman had ranted on about were discovered. A hectare of black glass fragments, surrounding a knocked-out British tank; a very badly-damaged vehicle amongst the supply stacks; a mostly-intact black tankette on the main track.
Dominione frowned deeply when he examined the latter. The British had shot it with armour-piercing bullets, smashing the hull armour, and battering the insides to bits, yet enough remained for him to realise it definitely wasn't from the Regio Esercito, nor the Wehrmacht, nor the British either. Given the complexity of the vehicle's interior, with what might well be an advanced electric-brain, - given that, Dominione's skin crawled when he wondered if the whole wretched device was even the product of human ingenuity.
Sarah Smith, obviously, pointed out the Martian origins of the Black Tanks. Dominione, sighing, had her put in one of the mud huts with plenty of water and an examination by the medical orderly. He regretted removing her gag, out of gentlemanly regard.
The surviving British soldiers were equally demented. The officer, Lieutenant Llewellyn, whose name none of the Italians could pronounce properly, vigorously endorsed Sarah Smith's story: black glass vehicles that killed with a single touch and could only be defeated by armour-piercing ammunition. Corporal Mickleborough only gave his name, unit and number, and thanks to his peculiar accent the Tenente felt grateful that was all they got from him. Private Menzies might as well have been from Mars, since his Scottish accent prevented anyone from understanding him. Caporale Balduccio merely smiled and shrugged when the Tenente asked for a translation.Still, their stories all tallied once written down. Peculiar black vehicles had emerged from the desert and attacked the Mersa Martuba garrison and prisoners, and J Force too. The pocket cemetery proved their point.
Very well. Here the Camionistas were, masters of the land. Avengers of Tenth Army's humiliation the previous month. The big question was, what to do next?
Dominione knew that the Germans were liable to sweep across this stretch of the desert in a few weeks, if that long. The temptation to make sure they understood that the Regio Esercito had been this way already, successfully, was hard to resist.
Then, as if all this was not enough, one of the scouts sent word to him that there was a strange light in the sky off to the south-east. The Tenente left his command car with bad grace, cursing a look-out who didn't know one desert phenomenon from another. He needed to climb a ladder that led to the upper reaches of one of the mud huts that gave this dismal place it's name. Once up there the silent sentry pointed out over the desert.
Over to the south-east, many kilometres away in the unlit, unoccupied depths of the desert, a pale light shone into the sky. Pearly, diffuse and unvarying in intensity, it had the quality of a city's lights seen after dark.
'There's no town out there, is there, sir?' asked the worried sentry.
Dominione paused before answering.
'Of course not! Merely a trick of the light. A mirage or static discharge.' He hoped his voice didn't mirror the confusion and alarm he felt.
Damn! That madwoman Smith claimed the killer infernal devices came from the direction of those lights. She simply could not be right.
Feeling only very slightly foolish, the Tenente gave orders for three of the big desert cars to patrol around Mersa Martuba. His orders were to maintain strict radio silence at all times; under no circumstances was he to call Tenth Army HQ, unless he came across General Wavell and captured him! A reconaissance flight would confirm that the Camionista had taken Mersa Martuba by noon the following day.
Dejected and sad, Sarah sat on the warped wooden desk that Captain Dobie had used, only able to see the three garrison survivors by the light of passing vehicles traversing the main path outside. They came by regularly, headlights shining through the slatted blinds, illuminating the dusty, musty room for half a minute at a time.
Still no sign of the Doctor. Gone for hours, without a trace. Surely nothing serious had happened to him? After all, the dig was now safe.
Safe! So was she, here, here and now. The bodies of the dead British soldiers were lying outside, behind this very hut, Captain Dobie amongst them. He had been shot down after refusing to surrender, taking on two Saharianas with his pistol. Caporale Balduccio, the fluent English-speaker, had escorted Sarah past the Captain's body, tutting and sighing.
'Are ye alright, Miss?' asked Davey, his Scottish accent full of perceptible worry on Sarah's behalf. 'I can hear you greeting, lass.'
Sarah bit her tongue, ashamed that her worry had been apparent and obvious. How dare she be so self-obsessed! These men had seen their comrades killed in front of them, and instead of self-pity, they were worrying about her!
'I – I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, thanks. I'm alright now. Just worried about what might have happened to the Doctor. Doctor John Smith.'
'Oh, he's safely out of the way,' assured Roger. 'Entirely out of harm's way at the dig. There's no Italians there.'
The Italian sentry at the door opened it, leaned in and ordered "Silencio!" loudly, before darting back outside again.
'Hey! He's worried about something,' whispered Tam Mickleborough.
Sarah, comprehending thanks to her TARDIS-inherited ability to understand Italian, rapidly understood that there were enemies approaching the depot from the direction of Makin Al Jinni.
Tenente Dominione wondered if the whole God-forsaken world wasn't going mad whilst he alone stayed sane. One of the cars on patrol had intercepted a British army lorry driving towards the depot. Except this lorry wasn't driving along normally with it's lights on, not expecting trouble. No. Nor was it sneaking along with lights extinguished, expecting trouble. Oh no. Instead it was flashing headlights as if it wanted to attract attention.
Now he had the drivers in front of him, a big middle-aged academic and a twitchy undergraduate. They told a story, different this time to the tales related by the Martuba garrison, of monsters emerging from the archaeological dig at Makin Al Jinni.
Monsters! He jumped down from the command car, stretching his legs and working off some of the frustration he felt.
'Summon Balduccio!' snarled the Tenente. 'I need this nonsense made clear for what it is – nonsense!'
When Caporale Balduccio completed the interrogation nobody felt any the wiser. The British undergraduate, Albert, displayed considerable vehemence in his insistence that the aliens were going to come and attack the garrison – for their blood, from what Dominione could make out. Albert put across the idea that everyone should declare a truce and bond together as allies. The big academic, Templeman, haltingly told how his fellow-academic Bourgebus had been killed by one of the Black Tanks.
Dominione shrugged his shoulders and felt his flesh creep at the dispassionate recounting by the older man. A companion shrivelled into nothingness.
Which, recalled Dominione, is just what the British survivors and Sarah Smith had said.
'You are lying!' he accused, via Balduccio.
'You are merely picking on me because of my Hebrew ancestry,' replied Templeman, with enormous assumed dignity and hurt.
'He thinks you're a Nazi, sir,' translated Balduccio. 'You know, hate the Jews, blame them, everything's their fault.'
'I am picking on you, sir, because you are a complete raving lunatic!' barked Dominione. 'Blood of the saints, get them into that hut with the other madmen. And madwoman.'
He plucked a sledgehammer from the side of the Sahariana and strode over to the wrecked Black Tank, taking his annoyance out on the friable vehicle until he stood ankle deep in black fragments.
The three British soldiers and Sarah were hugely pleased to meet other British survivors, less pleased to hear about the resurgent aliens at Makin Al Jinni, and both alarmed and inspired by the Doctor's declared intent.
'Doctor Smith seems both headstrong and – I don't know how to put this – excessively well-informed? about these monsters, Miss Smith,' observed Roger.
'You don't need to worry about him betraying or selling you out,' replied Sarah snappily. 'He would never do that. Never!'
Her insistence came from long experience, in the most dire situations imaginable. How easy it would have been for the Doctor – and her and Harry - to simply have abandoned Space Station Nerva and left it to the Wirrn. Instead he had put his life in mortal peril, repeatedly, to help humans. And why did the Doctor exist in this particular incarnation? Because he had helped the humans of Metebelis Three escape the thrall of their arachnid slave-masters, at the cost of his own life. Nearly.
'I quite agree,' said Albert. 'Even if nobody asked me. I trust him.'
'So, you warned the Eyeties about what's going to happen, and they didn't belive you?' asked Roger. Both Albert and the Professor shook their heads.
'They are pretty nervous,' concluded Albert. 'Considering they've captured the depot with hardly a casualty, no British nearby and no alarm raised. There are three armoured cars patrolling the perimeter at all times, and sentries on all the high points.'
Sarah drew her legs up under her, thinking.Maybe the Italian lieutenant didn't believe what he'd been told, maybe he did. Whatever, he knew that strange events were afoot in the desert.
'We have to be ready,' declared Sarah, trying to sound determined whilst remaining quiet. 'Because those aliens will attack us here. The Italians might not believe it, but I do, and you ought to, too.'
Roger looked up at the ferociously determined young woman and felt a smile spread over his features, despite the seriousness of his circumstances.
'Very well, Miss Smith, what do you suggest we do?'
Sarah picked up a divider from the desk and brandished it like a baton.
'We start with this!'
Sitting inside the mud hut allowed them the luxury of watching the desert dawn arrive. The uniform blackness outside became uniformly grey. Major objects and landscape contours began to differentiate, slowly. A sliver of sun poked above the horizon and initiated dawn, a brief display of fantastic golds, yellows, fawns, tan and browns that lasted until daylight, abrupt and radiant, arrived. In the mud hut darkness became greyness, which became daylight, all in the space of seconds.
'Fiat lux,' muttered Albert, both arms and hands aching after his stint with the divider. Now they could see more clearly the damage done, and he had to admit, the hours of quiet, patient work had made a big impression.
'Let there be light,' agreed Roger. 'So far, Miss Smith, we have a big fat nothing to report. No aliens, no black tanks, no attack.'
Outside, a siren began to shriek, the one previously used by the British garrison to announce unwelcome intruders.
Sarah looked at Lieutenant Llewellyn, raising her eyebrows.
'You were saying?'
From outside came the shouting of alarmed voices in Italian, engines revving, sporadic gunfire and running footsteps.
Dominione was roused from a well-deserved sleep by the urgent hand of a sentry, shaking him. For an instant he lunged at the man, seeking to grasp and crush the windpipe to prevent the alarm being raised –
'What's going on?' he asked, thickly, regaining his sense of place and realising that the siren overhead was being cranked.
'Sir!' blurted the sentry. 'Enemy motor transport approaching!'
The Tenente lurched upright from his seat, rubbing his eyes. He leaned over the back of his seat and threw open the old ammunition box that held his flare gun, cocked it and fired a red flare.
Crews came out of the few huts where they had sheltered from the chilly desert night, whilst drivers started and revved engines. The Tenente raced up the ladder to the observation platform he'd been watching from last night, seeing a dozen black vehicles heading over the desert gravel directly at Mersa Martuba. Motor transport? They looked more like tanks, tracked vehicles at least.
'Binoculars – and you can stop making that hideous noise!' he snapped at the sentry, who sheepishly stopped cranking and passed over binoculars looted from the British. 'Get down to your Section.'
These vehicles were much larger than their destroyed relatives lying around the depot, and sported a large, shallow turret on top of a big, boxy hull, the whole thing easily as big as a Fiat 10-tonne truck. Because of the angle they were approaching from, he couldn't see if there were any gun barrels projecting from the turrets.
Sections One, Two and Three were already heading away to spread out over the desert, making a less obvious target than if they had been concentrated together in Mersa Martuba. Caporale Pontecorvo's Sahariana in Section One lagged behind the other three cars of the section, indicating the engine trouble the vehicle experienced whilst they crossed the desert earlier was not repaired.
Dominione chewed anxiously at a fingernail, wishing that they had brought along heavier weapons than the Breda cannon. Those black tank-like vehicles might be armoured.
'Keep moving,' muttered the officer, knowing that his men's survival lay in remaining mobile and presenting difficult-to-hit targets. 'Keep moving, keep moving.'
Section One collectively stopped moving, one car driving round in a circle and hitting a boulder that stopped it, the other two slowing down and halting. A soldier fell out of one car.
The laggardly fourth vehicle stopped, too, except that in it's case caution dictated the halt. Dominione could see the flash of it's twin machine guns firing, and the streak of tracers zipping towards one of the approaching tanks. Several rounds hit, until the rounds suddenly went up vertically and stopped, and the gunner fell backwards into his seat.
Dominione looked back at the slowly advancing tanks, realising that the turrets did indeed mount a short barrelled weapon, which were now pointing at Section One. Not a sound of firing, yet his men were – dead? Unconscious?
Section Two made a flank attack, which managed to immobilise one black tank when twenty-millimetre cannon rounds hit the tracks, shattering them apart. Once again the silent weaponry of the black tanks turned against the Camionista, and Section Two fell senseless in their cars.
Discretion bettering valour, Section Three reversed out of trouble, one car firing non-stop as they left at speed, throwing up dust clouds that concealed the oncoming enemy. Despite retreating so quickly, one car still drifted away from the depot, the driver leaning over the wheel and nearly falling out, until the Sahariana stalled.
The remaining three cars from Section Three roared into the main route of the depot, the crews ashen-faced.
'What's happening!' asked a driver, bewildered.
The officer worked out what forces he had left: seven cars and twenty two men including himself. Eleven of the big hostile vehicles approaching, armed with weapons he didn't understand. Given their size, probably carrying either more, smaller machines or – or monstrous crewmen.
'We ambush them,' ordered Dominione. 'Back your vehicles into the aisles here and over there. Driver, get your car over behind that stack of crates.'
He positioned the other three cars along more of the axes amongst the supply piles, reasoning that the physical obstructions would prevent the ambushers from being seen.
The last car, his own, would be the bait, positioned at the end of the beaten path, daring the enemy to advance.
'Heave!' whispered Sarah, trying to keep quiet in the silence left when the nearby siren stopped wailing. The five men holding up the weighty wooden desk glared at her, then swung their burden back again. Professor Templeman, less fit that the other four, pushed from the back and the desk connected with the rear wall of the hut, making a dull thud and shaking the wall. Lumps of mud fell from the deeply-incised circle and cross that the prisoners had scraped away with the divider.
'Again!' whispered Sarah, drawing more glares. 'Put a bit of effort into it, Professor!'
This time an inch-wide crack appeared in the wall, and the next blow to land dislodged a great fragmented mass of mud and straw. Not big enough to escape by, so they enlarged it with well-aimed kicks. The wall was friable, ancient and untended, and it split apart once it's integrity had gone.
Dusty, tired and now free in daylight, Roger led them across the depot, dodging amongst piles of supplies, aiming for the truck park. A distant crackle of gunfire came to them, spurring them on.
Sarah felt conflicting emotions: gratitude at having escaped, worry that the Doctor still hadn't returned.
'That Bedford,' whispered Roger. 'I've got keys for it.' Before climbing in, he sent them to scrounge in the other trucks. Pickings were poor: two canteens of water, a four gallon flimsy nearly full of petrol, a tin of stew and a tin of sardines in oil.
'We could make soup,' joked Sarah, climbing in the cab beside Roger. 'I know, I know,' she admitted. 'But I can guide you to cover.'
Nobody tried to stop them leaving the depot. Sarah assumed the Italians were too busy dealing with the approaching aliens to bother about five unarmed prisoners. Unexpectedly, she found herself hoping the Italians survived. Yes, they were the enemy, had taken her prisoner, and gagged her, and practically undressed her with their eyes, but they were still human beings.
Sixteen: The Battle LostDominione stood on the bonnet of his Sahariana, on top of the spare tyre, peering down the beaten path. Yes, there sat one of the sinister – that word sprang to mind, "sinister" – black vehicles. The depot blocked the rest from view.
Standing out here in the open was a calculated risk, of course. The range of those silent, invisible ray guns was unknown.
Ah! Now a second black tank drew up behind the first, and a third behind the second.
'An embarassment of riches,' he muttered to himself. Curious muted clinkings came from the rear of the Sahariana, making the officer turn and frown.
'Sergente, are you drinking beer?' he asked, angrily. The swarthy NCO shook his head, flipped the cap off another bottle of liberated British beer and poured it over the side of the car, into the sands.
'No, sir.' Capriccio picked up a petrol can and poured the liquid into four empty beer bottles, which were already partly-filled with axle grease. 'These are special cocktails.' Using rags, he plugged the top of each bottle, leaving a long dangling strip of rag, then shook them, creating a nasty chemical slurry. 'Molotov cocktails. Learnt to make 'em in Spain, sir.'
Petrol bombs! realised Dominione.
'We won't be close enough to use those. I hope.'
He strode backwards over the car, giving a nod to the gunner, who sternly fired at the lead black vehicle. As if aggravated by such insolence, the huge glassy thing began to move slowly forward.
Soldato Pretoro, sweating so much he didn't think there was any liquid left in his body, squinted down the sights of the Breda twenty-millimetre cannon. The combination of sweat and sand made him feel as if his uniform was composed of sandpaper; the slightest movement grated on his skin Every few seconds he brushed his brow, preventing perspiration from getting into his eyes.
Who and what were they fighting! The First and Second Sections had been wiped out without so much as a single shot being fired.
Pretoro wiped his left temple again, listening intently. Yes, a heavy crunching sound came from the left. The kind of sound tanks made on desert ground when travelling slowly. Across the beaten path of the supply depot's main road he saw another Sahariana, from the reserve unit, Fourth Section. Only armed with a Fiat machine gun. The driver looked pale and anxious.
Pretoro darted a look at Bartolomei, his assistant. Bartolomei held two magazines of ammunition for the cannon, and displayed an idiotic grin.
Stupid Neapolitan peasant! raged Pretoro, for all of a second. Then the glossy glassy hull of the enemy tank moved across his field of vision, fractionally later than that of the crew opposite him. The hammering of a machine gun sounded, with the high-pitched crack and whine of ricochets.
Atop the enemy hull, a turret rotated to point at the firing Sahariana from Fourth Section, and the machine gun fell silent.
Closing one eye, Pretoro aimed slightly under the half-way mark of the featureless massive vehicle hull, starting at the rear, swivelling the Breda to follow his point of view, hearing the ill-oiled bearings squeak in protest. Thin wisps of dust blew up around the strange, squashed tracks that the vehicle use to move about on. He could see individual pebbles in the path, about to be crushed –
He pulled the trigger, shuddering at the noise and recoil, dragging the cannon around to the right and seeing the rounds smack into the target without bouncing off.
'Ammo!' he yelled as the bolt fell on an empty chamber. Bartolomei yanked the empty magazine out, put a new on in place and slammed it home with the heel of his palm. Pretoro cocked the cannon again, firing the rounds at the front of the vehicle. It didn't move again.
'Reverse!' he shouted at the driver, banging on the man's helmet. The big desert car jerked into motion, but too slowly. The second black tank smashed into the rear of the first, shoving it forward brutally, allowing enough room for the silent and deadly ray gun to do it's work.
Tenente Dominione bit his thumb longwise, squeezing it hard and making blood run onto the front of his uniform without noticing.
Pretoro and Costanzo between them had forced the first enemy tank to a halt. In fact, Pretoro's cannon seemed to have done damage to the monsters and their sinister carriage. It no longer moved.
On the debit side of the exchange, neither of the two car's occupants were still conscious.
Movement at the side of the stalled enemy vehicle caught his eye and attention. Big figures, bigger than any human, filed out of the motionless tank. Three metres tall, at least.
Soldiers. Hung about with that amount of gear, harnessed like that, moving in disciplined columns, they had to be soldiers. Several were obviously wounded, victims of gunfire that had penetrated the side of their transport. Good!
Alongside one of the stacks of supplies, Dominione also caught another flurry of movement. What in the name of the Holy Virgin was that?
Sergente Cappricio! Twisting to look at the rear of the command car revealed a lack of Cappricio.
Briefly and absurdly Dominione wondered if the NCO hadn't gone to the aliens to surrender to them and betray the plan, for what it was.
No, of course not. A small fiery spark soared into the air from where the NCO stood, arcing over piles of supplies to land in the depot's stores, followed by another, which broke on the immobilised first tank, and another and the last one, which broke on an alien, who shrieked and writhed – the axle grease stuck to the monster's skin, Dominione was glad to notice, and burnt it badly, before it's comrades put the flames out.
Where were the other Sahariana's?
Sergente Cappriccio started to jog away from the depot, casting a backwards look over his shoulder every few seconds. He deserved to make it, thought Dominione. Where were the other cars? Had they been stopped?
The last car, driven by Caporale Britoli alone, lay under a camouflage netting stripped from the British truck park. When the second black tank powered past, to move the static first tank by pushing it, Britoli fired the engine, revved it to a screech, jammed the accelerator with a stick and let the clutch in before jumping clear. The car shot forward, bounced off a pile of crates and into the low rear end of the enemy vehicle, creating an enormous smashing explosion of glass.
Britoli rolled to his feet, only looking back long enough to witness more monsters emerging from the black tank, which had been physically shoved into a mud hut. They moved in an almost comical manner, bobbing as they ran, the monsters, but they carried weapons.
A red flare soared into the rippling desert air, the signal from the Tenente for all vehicles to fall back. Britoli saw it, and then nothing else as a great, thundering wave of blackness rolled over him.
Dominione scanned the depot with his binoculars. The longer they delayed pulling-back the greater the chance of being caught by the remaining eight black tanks, which must be flanking the depot.
The only movement was Sergente Capriccio, who came stumbling away from his hiding place amongst the crates, one arm dangling limply, running in peculiar hopping fashion.
'Pick him up!' ordered the officer, sending the car darting forward. Between himself and the gunner, they hauled Capriccio into the rear compartment; the sergeant's right arm and leg were numb and useless.
'Head for the rendezvous,' called Dominione, feeling a macabre chill run down his back – nobody else had survived the encounter?
Under a sky shading into a purple dusk, Sorbusa rolled the body of the Warrior sentry into the sludgy, clotted waters at the beach edge. Great ripples intermingled with the incoming waves, sending the algae cultures bobbing about, reflecting patches of purple and gold. The body vanished into the sea, hidden by the algae blanket, weighted down by the equipment it carried.
Sorbusa now had a shard-thrower and stunner, weapons the sentry had carried. He offered one to Thedoctor, who refused. Well enough, thought the leader. Two weapons for me.
The Doctor paused to make some off-the-cuff calculations. The sentry Sorbusa killed had been keeping watch at the beach, from where it was only a few hundred metres up a shallow escarpment to the trans-mat platform. The gigantic pylons were clearly visible from here, on the weedy green sands. During the slow wade across the shallows they had seen the warning lights and sirens sound half a dozen times, at different intervals. Despatches to or from Earth.
'Once you get back to the Infiltration Complex, head for the Factory unit. One of the programmes there is to produce Transport Cars. If you get on one of those you can make it back to the supply depot,' instructed Sorbusa.
'You sound as if you aren't coming,' commented the Doctor slowly, and with emphasis.
'I am coming with you, Thedoctor, most certainly.'
'Then we need a way to get onto the platform and off at the other end without being killed. Any ideas?'
'Certainly,' replied Sorbusa. 'What sources of biomorphic energy are there at the Infiltration Complex? None. The Warriors sent there need bottled algae to survive. The greater the numbers of Warriors, the more algae.'
Impressed with this extrapolation, the Time Lord grinned broadly.
'Well done!'
'Can you not bare your teeth?' asked Sorbusa. 'It is a sign of aggression in our culture.'
'I apologise,' said the Doctor contritely. 'Remember that Lord Excellency Bloodsucker Sur will be after us, so time is an issue.'
Having crawled undetected up the beach to the sandy plain beyond, the escapees watched for traffic to the trans-mat platform. Their hypothesis was that a towing team of convict bio-vores would, sooner or later, drag a sledge of bottled algae nearby. The suns set on Delta Pavonis, creating a fantastic violet twilight of harsh beauty, enough to make the Doctor reflect on how the universe could embody paradoxes of both beauty and horror in the same scene –
'There,' pointed Sorbusa. A big sledge, dragged by six bio-vores, slowly made it's grating way over the well-worn road. The pair sneaked up behind it, hidden by night and the practiced swearing of the towing team's cadence. Sorbusa silently picked off several full bottles, drained them of their energy and tossed the empties away.
With a nod of informed readiness, the Doctor gingerly climbed aboard the rear of the sledge, realising that Sorbusa had removed roughly enough bottles to compensate for the new passenger's weight. Bowing low, the alien leader pretended to be pushing the sledge, another punished farmer acting out his penance.
Their masquerade lasted until the sledge reached the trans-mat platform. Few bio-vores were around, and those Technicians and Overseers busy around the platform ignored the Farmers, or at least until Sorbusa straightened up from behind the sledge. Without any warning he began to stun any bio-vore he deemed a threat, including the six towing the sledge. A lone Warrior on sentry duty was the first to get sent into oblivion.
Maintaining a much lower profile, the Doctor sneaked from the uncomfortable bottle-strewn interior of the cargo-sledge, over the side and over to the edge of the platform, to a point where he overlooked the trans-mat's ready-use control console. He steeled himself to ignore the whining sound of deadly glass darts, leaning above the instrument panels arrayed below. Simple, logical, easily comprehensible. He punched in a ten-second delay and pressed the enormous green "Go" button, before jumping back into the sledge, ignoring the collapsed technicians lying around the console.
'Ready!' he shouted to Sorbusa. The big alien threw a storm of darts at the duty team of Warriors coming up the approach ramp, then pushed the sledge to the edge of the trans-mat platform, then partly over the platform.
Precariously balanced on bottles, the Doctor wondered in a second of panic what his fellow escapee was doing.
'Quick! Get in!' he shouted. That was the plan – they both went back in the sledge, concealed from prying eyes at the other end of the materialisation.
'Get up to this end,' wheezed Sorbusa, straining at keeping the mass of the sledge balanced.
'Why –
- should I do – OH!' began and finished the Doctor. The end of the sledge, a good six feet in length, together with hundreds of bottles, had vanished. Without any restricting barrier to hold them back, the bottles he lay upon collectively slid out of the cargo section, carrying the Doctor with them. The fall was both painful and embarassing, cushioned only by the fact that he was now on Earth, off the trans-mat platform, and un-noticed in the hubbub taking place over his head.
Yes. Earth. That was the Moon overhead, and that was Ursa Major. They had made the transfer successfully, even if Sorbusa was missing.
Missing? No, not missing, not if that fracas was anything to go by.
'Thedoctor!' came a plaintive bellow. 'Flee!'
Sorbusa had decided, long before making the transition, that a sacrifice was necessary. A sacrifice, and a willing one. A prisoner and escapee just about fulfilled the description.
When the pair of them arrived at the platform on Earth, Thedoctor would be spotted, tracked and killed within seconds. Concealment in the sledge kept the human out of harm's way for a little while. A minor brainstorm on the leader's part meant he used the sledge's mass to deliver the other escapee over the side of the trans-mat; when the field was activated anything outside it would not get sent, so when the end of the sledge vanished Thedoctor would slide out. At the same time, the abruptly-separated end of the sledge would fall on the trans-mat console.
Elegant, he felt. Keeping the sledge horizontal with part of it projecting beyong the platform took a huge effort, which was less elegant. Nor could he tell Thedoctor what his plan was. Sharing a cell with the small alien meant Sorbusa knew what the small alien would approve of, and a glorious last stand would not be approved of.
What would be approved? That might was not right. It was not, and never would be, and never had been, and he had to make up for the fact that he had practiced the creed utterly ruthlessly. He had Thedoctor to thank for that, a view into the world beyond the narrow boundaries his upbringing imposed, where fear and suffering had been commonplace.
If might was not right, then his race had no right to export their miserable ecological blight to other worlds, no right to plunder and murder endlessly, no right to degrade and despoil. This planet Earth ought not to be reduced to a million miles of desert slab.
So, when he materialised on the platform, Sorbusa deliberately attracted as much attention as possible, shrieking loudly, threatening nearby Warriors with the stunner and shard-thrower, warning Thedoctor to flee. He leaped from the platform, still shouting, and went for the nearest bio-vores, who simply stood, frozen with disbelief. Five of them died before the remainder scattered.
After a brief exchange of darts with encroaching Warriors, Sorbusa felt a dozen daggerlike impacts hit him as the Warriors regained their wits. Painful, and debilitating. He staggered sideways, falling against the massive base of the HQ Building.
No stunners. They must not send him into unconsciousness. Pretending to be battered into senselessness, he allowed the enemy to close in on him, suffering several shards shot into him just to test.
A last adrenaline surge allowed him to press the shard-thrower against the energy-cell of the stunner, pulling the trigger hard, and feeling a sudden wash of heat over him, his dying senses not registering the full blast of the ruptured weapon, which sent explosive echoes rolling around the complex, and scattered Warrior bodies like leaves in the wind.
Scrabbling away from the clinking pile of bottles, the Doctor realised Sorbusa had deliberately given up his life to allow the Time Lord to escape. The confusion, fighting and explosion managed just that, with the Doctor sneaking away to the south of Makin Al-Jinni.
For a pensive minute he looked back over the site. Scores of Warriors congregated around the skirmish site, where the heretic had died.
Probably come to feed off the life energy of their wounded comrades, the ghouls! How can they do that? Lack of positive role model, perhaps. Sorbusa managed to develop a conscience in a surprisingly short time, given the sterling example of me.
Another realisation hit the Doctor. The sledge on Wasteworld (the nickname he now gave to Delta Pavonis) had been stuck beyond the trans-mat platform. When he got sent through with the rest of the sledge, that overhanging remnant would fall to the ground – right on top of the control console. About a tonne of metal. Was it too much to hope that the control console on Wasteworld had been damaged? At any rate, there had been no further materialisations on the platform.
Assault Leader Icono could hardly believe his eyes as he surveyed the conquered depot at Mersa Martuba. The sprawling site they now ruled contained more minerals and metals than he had ever seen in one hundred and fifty years of life! Incredible profligacy in their use of metals. Why, there were whole vehicles constructed of metal, and a strange malleable substance made in circles that they travelled upon. Prismatic containers constructed of what surely could not be wood? That amount of frivilous use would have guaranteed several death sentences back home.
Minerals and metals in abundance, yet no great pickings of biomorphic energy. A faint trace off to the west, not big enough to hunt down. Very well then, they would order up scanning equipment from the Infiltration Complex, and use that to see who was where.