A/N I've decided this story need filling out more. I'm working on this from now on. As an Aspie, I've always found it difficult to express myself in words. I'll probably go back to earlier chapters and flesh them out eventually.
Chapter Six
The Doctor runs into the school with his gizmo, followed by Mike and some soldiers.
"Exterminate. Exterminate."
The turns on the gizmo and it works. Nita watched sparks flying everywhere and she sighed in relief. She'd thought she was going to die there without her family even knowing where she was. But part of her had known that the Doctor would save her. He always did.
The Daleks start groaning.
"You, move in," Mike orders.
Mike and two soldiers stick some explosives on the Daleks and pull the pins on the detonators, as Ace and Nita get out from in between.
"Fall back. Fall back!" cries Mike.
Mike and the soldiers run outside.
"It works. It works!" cries the Doctor, excitedly.
"Fall back! Three, two, one, down!" orders Mike.
The three Daleks get their heads blown off. Gilmore, Rachel and Allison join the men as they reenter.
"There were living beings in there," says the Doctor.
"Not any more," says Mike.
"Come on, Sergeant," says Gilmore. "We'll search upstairs."
"Yes, sir," says Mike. "Doctor, may I?"
"Yes, Sergeant," agrees the Doctor.
The Doctor hands over his gizmo.
"Right," says Gilmore.
"Stay sharp. Follow me," Mike orders.
The military head out, leaving the scientists behind.
"Doctor?" Rachel turns to him.
"Hmm?"
"This one's still active."
"Oh? Let's see, Professor."
A claw comes up from the third Dalek casing and grabs the Doctor round the throat. The Doctor's face screws up in pain. Nita grabs Ace's abandoned baseball bat and starts hitting it. Finally it lets him go, and she keeps on hitting the squealing thing until it shuts up, and beyond. The Doctor is coughing violently into his red paisley handkerchief.
"Nita, it's dead," says the Doctor, gruffly. He places his hands on her arms, stilling them. He looks at her intently. "Thank you."
"What was that?" asks Rachel.
"They've mutated again," says the Doctor, looking into the casing and waving away smoke. "Here, come and have a look." Rachel comes up close to the Dalek and looks inside. Nita looks on from a distance, feeling disgusted by what she sees.
"Compare that to the destroyed Dalek at Totter's Lane," continues the Doctor. "Note the difference."
"The other Dalek was underdeveloped, with vestigial limbs and sensory organs almost amoeboid. Allison, look. This is altogether different." Allison comes over to look.
"It has functional appendages and some kind of mechanical prosthesis grafted into its very body," continues Rachel. She screws up her face and turns away. "I think I'm going to be sick."
There is an explosion outside.
"Sergeant Smith must have found some more Daleks," the Doctor remarks.
Ace is still lying on the ground. "Don't anyone give me a hand."
"Ace, you're hurt," cries Nita, walking over to her and crouching down next to her.
"I had an argument with a window."
"You two go down and check the cellar, but don't touch anything," the Doctor tells Allison and Rachel. "I'll look after Ace." He leans down, placing his hand on Ace's shoulder.
Rachel and Allison leave. The Doctor crouches down next to Ace, placing his umbrella on the ground. He begins checking Ace's leg.
"When I say stay put, I mean stay put, not take on an entire Dalek assault squad single-handed," The Doctor grumps at Ace and Nita. "What were you doing here, anyway?"
"We came to get my tape deck," Ace explains.
"Where is it?" asks the Doctor.
"It's in little bits," moans Ace.
"Good," says the Doctor.
"Good?" Ace exclaims, and then grimaces as the Doctor lifts her leg and bends her knee sharply. "Ow! What do you mean, good. Where am I going to get another one?"
The Doctor crosses his arms. "That tape deck was a dangerous anachronism. If someone had found it and discovered the principles of its function, the whole microchip revolution would take place now, twenty years too early, with incalculable damage to the time line."
"So?"
"So? Ace, the Daleks have a mothership up there," says the Doctor, pointing at the sky. "Capable of eradicating this planet from space, but even they, ruthless though they are, would think twice before making such a radical alteration to the time line."
The Doctor checks Ace's leg then tweaks her ear. "There, you ought to be able to get up and walk about now."
"Cheers, Professor."
On the Dalek Mothership:
"Bridge reporting. Mothership will maintain Earth geostationary orbit. All systems fully operational. Attack squad Delta prepare to enter transmat."
Allison and Rachel are in the School cellar.
"The subject obviously is placed on that dais," says Allison, looking at the transmat. "Then what?"
"The Doctor called it a transmat," Rachel replies. "What's that imply to you?"
"Matter transmission? But that's impossible."
"Impossible. You know, after this is over I'm going to retire and raise begonias."
"Lovely flowers, begonias," remarks the Doctor, coming down the steps with Ace's baseball bat over one shoulder and his umbrella over the other.
"Doctor, how exactly does this thing work?" asks Allison.
"Don't bother," says Rachel.
"It's a link for the Daleks, allowing them to beam death squads onto Earth without anybody knowing," the Doctor explains, handing Allison his umbrella. "And I don't want them here just yet."
The Doctor sets about the transmat with the baseball bat, sparks flying everywhere. Rachel hides her face in Allison's shoulder, while Allison flinches. Eventually the baseball bat breaks in half. He looks at it. "Weapons. Always useless in the end." He tosses the bat into the now broken transmat and wipes his hands together. He turns to the women, whose jaws had dropped in astonishment, wiping his face with his handkerchief. "Oh, you look hungry. How about lunch?" He closes the women's mouths for them.
At the cemetery, Ratcliffe marches up to the new grave, which now sports a lovely black marble headstone by A Tomes of Acton, with a lower case Omega in gold.
Everyone is at the café. Lollipop is playing on the jukebox as the whole party is eating. The Doctor and the girls are sitting at their own table. The Doctor has his elbows on the table, his hands clasped together with his chin resting on them. Ace and Nita are watching him.
"Professor, what are you doing?"
"Concentrating."
Ace rolls her eyes and sighs, placing her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her palm.
Nita gets up and walks over to the counter, where Harry is rushing around. "Harry, I wanted some toast," she reminds him quietly. She knows Harry is very busy but she is hungry!
"Coming, coming!"
Nita sits back down with the Doctor.
Ace gets up and goes to Rachel and Allison's table. "May I?" Ace asks, indicating a spare chair. They nod and Ace takes the chair and joins Mike and his friends at their table.
"Hello, Ace," says Mike.
"Hi," Ace replies as she sits down.
"You've met Paul, John."
"Hello," says Ace.
Nita is watching the Doctor. She wonders what is going on in that big brain of his.
At the cemetery, Ratcliffe takes a metal bar from a nearby grave and inserts it into the Omega grave. When it reaches the casket he gets an electric shock that throws him back. "Argh!"
On the Dalek Mothership:
"Power source detected. Alert! Power source detected. Full alert!"
Two more cream and gold Daleks enter.
"It is the Hand of Omega."
"Inform the Emperor Dalek."
"I obey."
Everyone is still at the Café. Ace is smiling, enjoying the attention of the soldiers. The Doctor is still staring moodily at nothing. Nita is eating her toast, wishing the Doctor would open up to her.
"I just feel we should be doing something," says Gilmore, who is now sitting with Allison and Rachel.
Rachel puts down her coffee. "Frankly, I wouldn't advise it, Group Captain." She wipes her mouth with a napkin. "We're in way over our heads."
"You were hired as a Chief Scientific Advisor. One tends to expect advice from one's advisors," Gilmore replies.
Rachel stares at him in disbelief. She crosses her arms on the table and leans on them. "For one thing, Group Captain, I was not hired, I was drafted. And for another, do you think I am enjoying having some space vagrant come along and tell me that the painstaking research I've devoted my life to has been superceded by a bunch of tin plated pepperpots?"
"Steady on," Gilmore attempts to calm Rachel.
She sits up straight and bangs her hand on the table for emphasis. "Steady on? You drag me down from Cambridge, you quote the Peace Time Emergency Powers Act at me, and then you expect me to advise on something outside the realm of human experience. Bluntly, Group Captain, we're reliant on the Doctor because only the Doctor knows what is going on."
The Doctor overheard her and raised his eyebrows at Nita.
At the cemetery, the little schoolgirl skips up to Ratcliffe's lorry, parked by the grave. His men are exhuming the casket.
"Get on with it," Ratcliffe orders the men. "I want that coffin back at the warehouse."
"Guv."
Ratcliffe goes over to the girl. "What are you staring at?"
She looks at the grave, then up at the sky.