Part Five
The alarm was followed by an urgent call over ship-board communications: captain to main exit, emergency. Salamar lost interest in Harry at once, snapping a curt, "Stay with him," at Utoblo before sprinting away.
Harry stared after him, torn, then cast frantic eyes toward his comatose patient. She shouldn't be left untended, and yet…
And yet he couldn't just stand here, simply had to find out what was going on out there – it could be the Doctor and Sarah, perhaps they were in trouble, even injured…
He was running almost before he knew the decision had been made, young Utoblo hot on his heels squawking, "Wait – no – you're not supposed to," and sprinted through the featureless hallways that led back to the probe's main entrance, where consternation appeared to be reigning.
Pushing through the clustered crewmembers, Harry saw the cause of the disturbance and murmured a dismayed, "Oh, I say."
Harlow Ponti was dead, just inside the entranceway, his body dried-up and wizened in the same way as all the others. There was a chill in the air and a sort of thrumming sensation that reverberated through the teeth, just like outside in the clearing – but if it could be felt here, if Ponti had been killed here, inside the ship, then surely that meant…
"What have you done?" Salamar turned on him, white with rage.
"Me?" Harry's jaw dropped. What kind of magician did the man think he was, to kill someone from the other side of the ship?
"But he was all right when we came aboard, I spoke to him," said Utoblo, wide-eyed and upset, but very definite about what he knew. "I told you, sir, we saw a thing – an invisible thing! It attacked de Haan – and B-Bartrum…" his voice hitched and trailed off, but he received no sympathy from his captain.
"You accused the female stranger earlier." Although Salamar addressed Utoblo, his cold blue eyes remained fixed on Harry, who was too exasperated to be alarmed.
Utoblo swallowed hard but stood his ground. "I was wrong, sir. I hadn't seen it then. I've seen it now – I saw what happened to de Haan. It wasn't the strangers; it was something else, like they've been saying. I never saw anything like it –"
"And with such vast experience you would surely know," Salamar sarcastically snapped.
The lad flushed.
"Sir, I know what I saw," he stoically insisted.
Salamar unexpectedly relented, just a little.
"And I also spoke to Ponti, after you accompanied Sullivan aboard – but the other strangers remain unaccounted for, along with three members of my crew, so I want an armed guard on this one," he jabbed a finger in Harry's direction, "And –"
A sudden jolt sent everyone reeling, accompanied by a noticeable drop in temperature. The lights flickered again, before dying completely, and a crewman shouted for them all to look.
At the door, the air seemed to be shimmering, flickering in electric reds and blues, as if something intangible were out there – trying to get in.
"Crikey!" Harry stared at it, clutching at a stanchion to steady himself. He'd seen and felt nothing at all when Sarah was attacked that first time, had been aware of intense cold and a crackling sound when they found de Haan, but this… "It's getting stronger," he realised, astounded.
Salamar and his men, meanwhile, reacted in time-honoured military fashion, whipping out their guns and firing, with absolutely no effect, all the while yelling at one another, orders and such, until someone finally managed to hit the button that would close the door – an effort that cost the man his life, as he was dragged out of the ship by an unseen force even as the door closed.
The lights and temperature returned to normal, for one blessed moment of absolute silence and stillness in which everyone seemed to be holding their breath, just waiting to see what would happen next.
It wasn't over. The lights began to flicker again. There was another jolt – and another, as if something were buffeting the sides of the ship trying to get inside, again and again, the assembled crewmembers lurching and reeling.
Harry hung onto that stanchion to maintain his footing, and, looking at Salamar's frozen expression of shock and bewilderment, couldn't quite resist a sour jibe of, "Well, Captain – do you believe me now?"
dwdwdwdw
The Doctor's mouth opened, and a voice that wasn't his rang out, echoing unnaturally. "You seek communication."
Sarah didn't have even a second to react, as three guns were instantly trained on him. Too furious and frightened for caution, she whirled around to block them, reaching out to catch at the weapons and thrust them down and aside.
"No, don't you dare! Don't you dare!"
Only when she was sure the Morestrans weren't going to shoot the Doctor out of hand did she turn back to him – or whatever was speaking through him.
"What have you done to the Doctor?" Her heart was pounding and there was a tremor in her voice. She'd seen what these creatures could do to a body, had felt the chill of their touch. And now they had the Doctor.
His mouth opened again, but the lips did not move to frame the repeated words, "You seek communication."
Was it just repetition – or was it also an answer to the question? Sarah tried to understand.
"Yes," she warily replied. "Yes, we seek communication with the…the beings who live here. That's why the Doctor went into the pool – he wanted to talk to you." She remembered what the Doctor had said, that they might not even know the effect of their touch, and asked again, "What have you done to him?"
"We have no form on this plane," was the reply, spoken through the Doctor but not by him, his mouth opening and closing in a grotesque parody of speech without ever even coming close to actually shaping the words spoken. "This one gives us voice."
"Do you mean the Doctor agreed to this, agreed to be your mouthpiece?" Would he do that, when it removed him from the negotiation he'd wanted? Had he understood what would happen? Had there simply been no other way?
"We seek communication," said the alien voice through the Doctor's mouth. Sarah could hardly bring herself to look at him, those staring, sightless eyes with no trace of the keen mind that should lie behind them. The Doctor couldn't negotiate like this, a puppet for the aliens to speak through, so it was up to the rest of them, he was relying on them. She tried to think. What did they need to know? What could they say that would resolve this?
Vishinsky pushed forward to stand at her side, gun in hand still.
"You've been killing our people," he shouted.
"Intruders come, take, despoil," was the reply. "We feel them come, awakening to danger. They see us not. We cannot talk."
"The survey team," Sarah murmured, realising for the first time that their arrival must have felt like an invasion. How many times had she helped fight off alien attacks on Earth? These creatures had just as much right to defend their world, surely, and yet…she remembered the suffocating chill of their touch and shivered.
Vishinsky was in no mood for either diplomacy or understanding, his tone bitter and accusatory. "You couldn't talk to them, so you killed them?"
The response was vehement. "We feel them, see them, taking. It is not theirs! We seek communication, reach out – touch the aliens."
"When you touch us, we die," said Sarah, remembering again what the Doctor had said. Was it possible they didn't realise? "Did you know that?"
There was a slight hesitation before the reply came, slowly and carefully enunciated, like someone struggling to find the right words in an unfamiliar language.
"So far to reach, the divide must be bridged. We try, we reach – contact! So strange – so warm, so moist. We must know more. We draw strength. Send the emissary." The voice became stronger, fiercer, its passion strangely juxtaposed with the impassive blank of the Doctor's face. "The aliens take, destroy. We draw strength. Reach. Act. The aliens will be stopped."
Sarah struggled to make sense of this garbled speech.
"But they didn't know," she desperately argued. "They didn't know they were stealing – they didn't know you were here."
"They will not heed. Disturbance at the place of beginnings. The aliens take," that intense voice continued. "Ravage and destroy. Beginnings will end. This cannot be allowed. The aliens must be stopped. Already we act."
"Already?" Sarah didn't like the sound of that.
Alongside her, Vishinsky sounded horrified. "The probe – what have you done to the probe?"
dwdwdwdw
The probe shook again, more violently than ever, and this time Harry really did lose his footing, sent sprawling across the cold mesh flooring with Salamar and Utoblo in a heap on top of him, other crewmen strewn all around.
Salamar was frantic and furious. Clawing his way upright, he staggered toward a wall-mounted communication unit and bellowed urgent orders into it.
"Red alert, red alert, we are under attack – operate forcefield barrier, full power! All crew report to assembly point immediately and prepare for immediate take-off –"
"Wait – no, you can't!" Appalled, Harry scrambled to his feet and lurched toward him, clutching at the walls for support as the probe shook again. "Sarah and the Doctor are out there – your own people!"
"They are gone!" Salamar's face was white and drawn, eyes wide, pupils blown. Shock, Harry rather distantly diagnosed: the chap really hadn't believed. "You saw that thing. Anyone still out there is gone. I must protect my command."
"Now wait just a minute, Captain Salamar." As Salamar charged off down the corridor, bellowing orders, Harry hurried after him. "You can't abandon them!"
"They are already dead!"
"You don't know that." Harry wasn't about to believe the worst until he had good reason; they'd all been fine when he left them. The ship lurched again and the lights were still flickering, he had absolutely no idea how they could possibly hope to stave off this attack, still less make it past the alien creature in search of the others, but he was certain that, "The Doctor's the best chance of survival any of us have got."
"I disagree," snapped Salamar, charging around a corner and through a high, wide doorway onto the upper deck of a spacious split-level room, stuffed full of control panels and screens, all fully manned and positively buzzing with activity. It was the bridge – the command centre of the vessel.
As Salamar swiftly strode across the deck, a tall young woman, olive-skinned with a thick braid of dark hair reaching almost to her waist, hurried to meet him with a status update. Harry strained to make sense of the technical jargon. Power levels were low, that much was plain, and the forcefield barrier was only partially repelling the alien attack, weakening rapidly.
"Activate cyclostimulators, Morelli," Salamar brusquely ordered. "Power jets to lock in positions."
The woman, Morelli, swiftly carried out these commands, hands moving across a control panel with practiced ease. "Activated and locked, Captain."
The ship shook again, a view-screen showing the shimmering red-blue form of the alien outside – or aliens, perhaps. It looked like a swarm, buffeting and bouncing against the forcefield barrier.
"Activate gyrostabilisers and prepare for final ignition," Salamar ordered.
Morelli's hands moved across the panel again. "Activated. Launch in ten, nine…"
"Captain Salamar, please," Harry desperately pleaded. "You can't just abandon them."
Morelli reacted with surprise, her head turning sharply to flick worried side eyes at the captain – she hadn't known that members of the crew were still outside…but her inexorable countdown continued: "…seven, six…"
"The mission is complete. I must protect my ship, my crew," Salamar stubbornly insisted.
"You're leaving members of your crew out there to die!" Harry shouted, frantic with fear for Sarah and the Doctor. They couldn't even retreat to the safety of the TARDIS because it was here, on board the probe – once it took off, they'd be completely stranded, at the mercy of the alien creatures.
"…four, three…"
The lights faded and an alarm abruptly began to sound, the ship shuddering and juddering in a way that was completely different to the shaking and buffeting of the alien attack.
"Pressurisation failing, Captain," Morelli called out, her close-set eyes wide with alarm, startlingly blue against her dusky complexion. "Cyclostimulators are not responding."
"Activate secondary launch units," Salamar bellowed. "Get us away from that thing!"
On the view-screen, the shimmering form of the alien swarm was no longer bouncing off the forcefield barrier but wrapped around it, as if squeezing it tight, a blazing glow of energy, growing brighter by the second.
"Incredible," breathed a new voice. "It's energy – pure energy in physical form!"
Harry turned to see Sorenson standing in the doorway staring at the screen in rapt fascination, bloodshot eyes rimmed with unhealthy shadows, his dishevelled appearance a stark contrast to Salamar's spick-and-span crew.
The ship was bucking wildly now, engines groaning, crew panicking.
"I don't understand," shouted Morelli.
"Increase power," Salamar ordered.
"The Doctor warned you, Captain Salamar," Harry remembered. "He said you wouldn't be allowed to leave with those crystals on board."
Sorenson caught at his shoulder angrily, a curious glint in his eyes.
"The crystals are essential. It was the whole purpose of my mission – a new fuel source, light and power for billions."
"We could do with some of that now! Emergency power units inoperative," Morelli called out. "Main and secondary units are failing."
"Captain, we must make it back, my mission depends on it," Sorenson fervently insisted, as if his mission were all that mattered, as if there weren't countless lives at stake here.
"Divert power from other systems," Salamar ordered.
"It's not working," Morelli shouted, and the ship was now rattling so violently it seemed almost on the verge of shaking apart completely.
"We must break free!" Salamar insisted. "We must."
"The engines can't take it, Captain," Morelli frantically reported. "They'll blow!"
Salamar stared out at the brilliant red-blue glow of the alien, holding the ship in place however wildly it bucked and shook.
"It doesn't make sense," he snarled through gritted teeth, the ship jerking and juddering, its engines shrieking. "All right!" he shouted at last. "Cancel ignition!"
dwdwdwdw
"You have to give us time," Sarah pleaded, but the alien speaking through the Doctor seemed utterly implacable.
"Time is past. The aliens are ours." There was real venom in the voice now.
"But we've spoken to you now – we can explain to the others, make them understand."
"Don't be so sure," Vishinsky muttered under his breath. Sarah shot exasperated side eyes at him.
"We'll make them understand," she firmly repeated, hearing desperation in her own voice. They simply had no defence. The aliens had been drawing power for a purpose, the Doctor had said – if that purpose was to attack the probe, maybe even destroy the probe…Harry was on board – and the TARDIS.
Salamar's entire crew, come to that.
"If the crystals are left behind," she offered. "Will you allow us to leave safely? If we promise not to take anything, not to come back, will you let us go?"
Silence. The Doctor's rigid body hung over the nexus, sightless eyes staring past her shoulder at nothing.
Then, "Where do they go? Other worlds, alien worlds, so many worlds. They came to us, now we must act," the voice spoke through him, leaden tones like a death knell, and Sarah didn't know what more she could do, what more she could say to convince.
"We're sorry." Landa suddenly pushed past Vishinsky to stand at her side, shoulder to shoulder, back straight, chin held high, voice low-pitched and clear. "We're sorry that we came. We're sorry that we took from you. We ask you to allow us to make it right."
"Please," Sarah added. "Let the Doctor go. Leave the ship alone – we'll make sure your crystals are returned. We promise."
"You'll never get them back if you destroy the ship," Wijaya drawled over her shoulder.
She waited as the alien fell silent again, her heart pounding so fiercely she was sure everyone else must be able to hear it.
At last the response came. "The aliens will be released. Return what is ours and we –"
The voice cut off abruptly as a brilliant beam of light fell across it. Wijaya had turned on a flashlight to counter the growing dark of night.
In the same instant, the Doctor sagged, fell – Sarah dived forward to catch at him before he sank back into the nexus, knowing she couldn't hold him, and was grateful for the reflexes of Vishinsky and Landa who reacted likewise, their combined strength sufficient to bear his weight and haul him back to the relative safety of solid ground, unconscious and deathly pale.
Was he breathing? Sarah couldn't tell.
"Quickly," snapped Vishinsky, hauling the Doctor's limp body into his arms. "Take his legs, Wijaya. Back to the probe, double-time!"
dwdwdwdw
"Why?" Captain Salamar demanded, rounding on Harry with flashing eyes and bright pink spots in the middle of his pallid cheeks. "Why can't we take the crystals? What does that thing want?"
"Well, I don't rightly know," Harry admitted, wishing the Doctor were here to explain himself. "But it's what the Doctor said."
"And if the Doctor said it, it must be true," Salamar scoffed. Well, he could mock all he liked, but he didn't know the Doctor.
"Yes," said Harry with as much dignity as he could muster, ignoring Professor Sorenson's disgruntled mutterings behind him. "Captain Salamar, I've known the Doctor for quite some time now, long enough to know that he knows what he's about, even when he sounds completely potty…well, especially when he sounds completely potty, in fact. His theory was –"
"His theory is unimportant," Sorenson interrupted, his voice breathless and intense, staring meaningfully at the captain. "Remember what we spoke of, Salamar, the importance of my mission."
Whatever they'd spoken of, Salamar was clearly in no mood for it now. "Your assurances mean nothing, Professor, if your mineral samples are jeopardising the safety of my command –"
"The whole purpose of your command was to get me and my work back to the Federation," Sorenson indignantly protested, but Salamar shook his head.
"We were diverted to find out what happened to your team, Professor, nothing more. Not if it endangers my ship."
There was something rather brittle, almost menacing about Sorenson's single-minded focus. Thwarted, he turned fiercely on Harry, who was rather taken aback by the manic glint in his eye.
"Who is this man? What does he know?" he demanded, flecks of spittle flying from his mouth. "I am the expert here and my mission takes precedence, you agreed that, Salamar."
"The situation has changed," Salamar snapped, angrily jabbing a finger at the view-screen on which the alien form shone livid, maintaining its iron grip on the probe. "I'm well aware of your position, Professor, but I am in command of this probe and my decision will be final. If we can take your cargo we will, but I will not risk my ship."
"Then you'd best get shot of those crystals, pronto – the Doctor was certain they're at the root of all this," Harry repeated, suddenly hopeful that Salamar might be swaying to the right way of thinking at last. If he'd only agree to jettison the cargo, perhaps the aliens might leave them alone and they could get a search team out for the others.
Sorenson twisted his hands in distress. "If you abandon that material, you destroy everything I've worked for – the future of our civilisation!"
"Captain, look!" Morelli suddenly broke in, pointing at the view-screen. "It's gone – that thing's gone!"
Harry stared at the screen in surprise. Just a moment ago that blazing energy creature had been out there, lighting up the night sky, yet now there was no sign of it, the ship suddenly still, no longer so much as a quiver to indicate resistance of any kind.
Why? Why had it stopped now?
"Then we're free," Salamar said in a breathy, disbelieving voice.
"More to the point," Harry enthused, deciding that explanations could be the Doctor's department, once they found him – first things first. "We can get out there now and start looking for the others."
Salamar stared at him and for an all-too brief moment he dared to hope that the man would agree – that common sense and basic decency might prevail.
But panic was flickering in the captain's eyes and he shook his head.
"Can't take the risk," he muttered under his breath, and turned back to Morelli, suddenly all business once more. "Morelli, activate compression units and prepare for immediate take-off."
It was Harry's turn to stare, speechless with disbelief.
"No!" he managed to vocalise at last, the alarm that had only just subsided flooding back in full measure. "Captain, our people are still out there, we can go after them now, bring them to safety –"
"It is regrettable," Salamar insisted in tones that brooked no refusal, but he avoided Harry's eyes as he said it. "But I maintain that anyone still out there must surely be dead already –"
"You don't know that!"
"…and I cannot risk this ship or any more members of its crew on a wild goose chase. We must get away while we can. Activate cyclostimulators."
"You'd just leave them?" Harry couldn't believe it.
"And my cargo, my work?" Sorenson eagerly enquired.
Salamar's expression was set like stone.
"Your mission was commissioned at the highest level of Federal Government, Professor," he conceded, and Sorenson preened like the cat that had the cream. "With the alien gone, it takes absolute precedence –"
"Poppycock!" Harry had never in his life spoken to a ranking officer in this manner – but then again, he'd also never been so disgusted and furious with anyone in this position.
"Power jets locked in position, Captain," said Morelli, her expression worried and her tone uncertain. "Ready to activate gyrostabilisers – unless…"
"Unless what?" Salamar snarled. "Would you wait while our enemy regroups for another attack? Send more of your shipmates out to their deaths? No, I cannot risk further delays, the manual says –"
"And what does your judgement say?" Harry demanded. "How can you possibly justify abandoning innocent people – your own crew?"
Salamar glared at him, absolutely unyielding, still with that flicker of panic behind his cold blue eyes.
"Activate gyrostabilisers, Morelli," he ordered, rather feebly adding, "Another ship will be sent to search for survivors, one better equipped to respond to the alien menace."
"Gyrostabilisers activated. Ignition in ten, nine…" Morelli began the countdown, a slight wobble to her voice.
"Well how long will that take?" Harry protested, scanning the control panels around him in despair. Even if he could get near, he'd never find the right buttons to stop the launch now – blow the whole ship up, more like. "Do you really believe they can last that long out there? They need our help now, Captain, while we have the chance."
"…seven, six…"
Salamar huffed a little and still wouldn't meet his eyes.
"Anwar, send out an occuloid to monitor the planet, transmission on maximum beam. Any data gathered will be of use to the return mission, and if there are survivors it will locate them for retrieval – will that satisfy you, Sullivan?" he querulously demanded. "This world will be conquered, you mark my words."
Harry did mark his words, and was not the slightest bit reassured, glumly certain both that no one out there could possibly survive until another mission was sent and that all these colonial ambitions of the Morestrans would only end in further disaster.
What could he do to stop it?
"Can't leave with the crystals aboard, you said," Sorenson gloated.
"…two, one – lift off!"
dwdwdwdw
"What's that sound?" Sarah asked, alarmed at the sudden roar ringing through the forest, knowing deep down what it was but not wanting to believe it.
From the shocked looks on their faces, her little band of allies didn't want to believe it either.
"The probe's taking off." Landa looked and sounded stunned. "Commander, they're leaving us!"
That was it. That was what Sarah had suspected, what she hadn't wanted to believe. The probe couldn't leave without them, it couldn't…
"Keep moving," Vishinsky growled, adjusting his grip on the unconscious Doctor.
They kept moving, reaching the edge of the glade in time to feel the residual heat of the launch, the probe itself already high in the sky and ascending fast, gleaming brightly in the starlight.
"They've gone, they left us," Wijaya dumbly, redundantly said, while Landa tremulously asked, "Commander? What do we do now?" and Sarah simply stared, feeling as if someone had punched her in the stomach, knocking the breath clean out of her lungs. The Doctor was unconscious, injured, he needed medical help which was even now moving further and further beyond them – and with the TARDIS on the probe, out of reach, they were completely stranded here, no way of escape, and…
"But we promised," she recalled, an ice-cold trickle of dread running down her spine. "We told them we'd return the crystals – they trusted us…"
The four of them stared at one another, and Sarah realised she was holding her breath, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"Is it just me," drawled Wijaya with a very deliberate and determined attempt at his old cynical nonchalance, "Or is it starting to get cold?"
"Into the base, quickly," Vishinsky promptly ordered.
As Sarah ran ahead to hold the door for Vishinsky and Wijaya, hampered as they were by the Doctor's dead-weight, she felt again that by now familiar freezing sensation, heard the dread crackle in the air.
"They're here!" she managed to shout, throat constricting, limbs seizing…too late, too late, she couldn't escape, breath freezing in her lungs…and then suddenly, in a blinding blaze of light, she was free again, gasping but free; the cold and the crackling were still there, all around, but that dreadful grip on her had gone.
The beam from Landa's flashlight had fallen across her. And the aliens had let her go.
"Get inside, now!" snapped Vishinsky, coming up behind her with the others. "Seal the door, Landa!"
As the men carefully set the Doctor down on the floor, Sarah dropped to her knees to press her ear to his chest, the way she'd seen Harry do it, first one side and then the other. It was the first chance she'd had – they'd come so far, delayed so long, it may be too late…but no. No. She could hear his hearts beating, both of them. He was breathing steadily.
A shuddering sigh escaped. She raised a shaking hand to push windswept hair out of her face, pressed it to her mouth and tried to compose herself.
"Will it hold them?" Wijaya was asking.
"I doubt it," the commander grimly admitted. "But what else can we do? There's nowhere else to go."
Sarah sat back on her haunches. It was bitterly cold even inside the building and she could still hear that crackling sound.
"They're all around us," she realised, fearful. "And they know we broke our promise – they're angry…"
"We didn't break any promise," Vishinsky snapped. "We just didn't get here in time."
"Same difference," Wijaya pointed out, quickly adding, without sounding the slightest bit apologetic, "With all due respect, of course, Commander."
But the aliens weren't actually attacking – and Sarah thought she knew why.
"The lights," she said. There was no power for the main lights in here, but they had three flashlights between them – would that be enough? "Sorenson said that daytime was safe, they come at night. They let go of the Doctor when the light came on. They don't like light – do we have more?"
"Search the cupboards," Vishinsky immediately ordered.
The search turned up four lamps, small but bright, which made seven lights in total, enough to make a small and very ineffective-looking ring for five people to shelter within, holding the crackling alien presence at bay.
"They'll never last the night," Landa dully pointed out. "Not if the creatures can drain power from batteries."
"They have to last," Vishinsky dourly replied. "They're the only defence we've got."
Sarah knelt at the Doctor's side and took his hand. If only he'd wake up – he'd know what to do, surely, some brilliant scheme to pacify the aliens and call the probe back…but he just lay there, pale and still.
It was freezing in here. Perhaps there was still a measure of safety in numbers but the aliens were all around them, she knew, poised to attack.
"We're on our own," she despondently murmured, wondering how long they could possibly hope to last.