"Exterminate! Exterminate!"

The Daleks swung toward the Doctor and the others. Gritting her teeth, Leela sprang to her feet, shield up.

The Daleks fired. Two blue beams slammed into the shield. A quake blasted through Leela's body. The air exploded from her lungs as she flew backwards. She crashed onto someone. The Doctor.

Tupper and Iniya brought up their weapons and fired. Energy beams tore through both Daleks. Flames burst from their mechanical bodies.

"Are you okay, Doctor?" Leela slid off him, grimacing. A vise crushed her left arm.

"I will be." He sucked down a breath and rubbed his lower back.

"Guards!" Lamia shouted. "Guards, help me!"

Leela turned to the Taran, eyes narrowed. She started to bring up her laser shield, and noticed it was bent in the middle. Smoke and sparks spewed from the barrel.

"Dammit!" She tore it off her throbbing arm.

"Don't move!"

She swung her head to the right. Four of Grendel's gray-clad rushed them, crossbows up.

Tupper sighed and looked at Iniya. "I guess this won't be the eighteen percent of the time everything goes according to plan." He dropped his modified Thompson submachine gun.

"You fools." The Doctor pushed himself up on all fours. "You have more serious problems than us."

"Shut up," said one of the guards.

"The Daleks are -"

"I said shut up." The guard thrust his crossbow at the Doctor for emphasis.

The old Time Lord shook his head. "Guards. All the same. All devotion to duty, no damn common sense."

"I've had enough of your tongue. Maybe I'll cut it out before -"

The guard glowed blue. He screamed and crumpled to the floor.

Four more Daleks appeared in the corridor. Lasers flashed over Leela and her friends. Blue auras formed around the three remaining guards. They cried out in agony and collapsed.

The Daleks started forward. The one in front stopped, its eyestalk aimed at the Doctor.

"It is the Doctor!" it grated. "Logic suggests he must have the segment to the Key to Time."

The Dalek slid forward. "Surrender the segment or you and your companions will be exterminated."

"And if I do give you the segment to the Key – that is, if I had it – you'd exterminate us anyway."

"Surrender the segment. Obey! You will obey the Daleks!"

"I'll die before I ever obey you." Leela glared at the Dalek, rubbing her throbbing arm.

"Then you will be the first of the Doctor's companions to be exterminated."

The gun slewed toward Leela.

"No." The Doctor reached for her.

"Bastard garbage cans." Tupper went for his gun.

"What are you?" someone hollered from down the corridor.

The Daleks spun around. Leela looked around the machines. A hawkish, dark-haired man with a goatee and maroon tunic stood in the corridor. Count Grendel of Gracht, she assumed.

"How dare you attack Castle Gracht? You shall pay a dear price for your transgression."

Grendel drew his rapier. "Have at thee!"

He charged the Daleks.

"Exterminate! Exterminate!"

Two beams struck Grendel. He yelled, stumbled backwards, and fell.

"NO!" Madam Lamia shrieked.

"Run! Run!" shouted the Doctor.

Everyone dashed down the corridor. Leela scooped up a crossbow from one of the dead guards.

"C'mon, lady." Tupper yanked Lamia off the floor. "Move your ass."

"Exterminate!" The Daleks screeched. "Exterminate!"

Laser blasts flew down the corridor. Leela and the others turned at the intersection. Sparks and smoke burst from the brick walls as the beams hit.

"Where do we go now?" asked Romana.

"The TARDIS," answered the Doctor. "My TARDIS. We need . . . need . . ." He grimaced and stumbled.

"Doctor," Leela blurted. "Are you all right?"

"F-Fine." He stiffened his jaw and kept running.

Electric whistles came from around the corner. Two guards backed into the intersection, then four. All fired their electric crossbows.

"Exterminate!" The word echoed through the corridors. "Exterminate!"

Blue glows lit up two of the guards. They screamed and crumpled to the floor.

"This way." The Doctor pointed to an arched doorway. Leela and the others followed him through, charging down a flight of stone steps. They stopped when they reached the stairwell. Clutching her crossbow, Leela peeked into the corridor. Distant thumps and crackles sounded from the floors above.

"Clear," she reported.

"So what now?" asked Romana.

The Doctor's face scrunched. He rubbed his forehead before answering. "We . . . We need to get out of the castle and make for the TARDIS. Your TARDIS." he looked at Romana. "If we can get the Key segment inside, the Daleks won't be able to get it."

"The castle is surrounded by a moat," Romana pointed out. "And I imagine the Daleks have posted guards at the drawbridge."

"Then we swim across. You don't have a problem with that, do you?"

Romana shrugged. "I suppose I don't have a choice."

"You do. You can stay here and let the Daleks kill you."

The lady Time Lord drew her head back, apparently stunned by the Doctor's retort. Even Leela found it unnecessarily harsh.

"Let's go." The Doctor strode into the corridor.

Leela was about to follow when she heard Iniya say, "Madam Lamia, come on."

The Taran engineer leaned against the wall, hands over her face, body shaking with sobs. "Count Grendel . . . oh, Count Grendel."

"Madam Lamia, please. You must come," Iniya urged.

Lamia cried louder.

"We do not have time for this." Leela stomped over to the Taran woman. She hooked her sore arm around Lamia's wrists, yanked them down, and slapped her.

"You have two choices. Come with us and live, or stay here and blubber until the Daleks find you and kill you. What will it be?"

Lamia gaped at her. She blinked a couple of times, then hurried into the corridor. Leela followed, with Romana gazing at her.

"Was that necessary?"

"It got her moving." Unlike the Doctor's words to Romana, what she had said to Lamia was not unnecessarily harsh. Who was to say if they left her here, the Daleks wouldn't interrogate her about their whereabouts before exterminating her?

They dashed down the corridor, nearing an intersection.

"Locate the Doctor and his companions," a Dalek croaked from around the corner. "They must have the Key to Time segment. Exterminate them and secure the segment."

The group skidded to a halt. The Doctor waved them into a nearby room. He slammed the door shut and dropped down the wooden latch.

Leela scanned around her. There were tables, cupboards, refrigerators, ovens, sinks. They had taken refuge in a kitchen.

Tupper overturned a table and dropped behind it.

"That table will not withstand a Dalek laser blast," said Iniya.

"Better this than no cover at all."

The Indian woman sighed, then dropped next to Tupper, pistol out.

"There's a window." Romana ran toward it. "We can get out through here."

She stopped a couple of feet from it, then backed up. "On second thought, this isn't an option. There are six airborne Daleks outside."

"And likely more around the castle," said the Doctor. Jaw set, he scanned the kitchen. His gaze halted on the oven. He stepped toward it, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

Leela's brow furrowed. What's wrong with him?

He looked over the oven, opened it, and stuck his head inside. He withdrew and turned to Lamia. "This oven is solar-powered."

Lamia nodded.

"Good, good, good." The Doctor ducked back inside the oven. His sonic screwdriver buzzed. A minute later, he emerged with a circular object connected to colorful wires.

"What are you doing?" asked Leela.

"Remodifying the solar heater. If I can channel enough energy through it, I can turn this into a heat ray."

"A heat ray?" uttered Lamia. "But . . . but the solar heater couldn't possibly emit that much power. It will overload within seconds."

"Not if I can . . . can . . ." The Doctor swayed from side-to-side.

"Doctor?" Leela moved toward him. "Doctor, are you all right?"

The Doctor looked up at her . . . then toppled over.

TO BE CONTINUED