Part Eight
Away from the command centre, the corridors of the space probe were in semi-darkness now and Harry was thankful for the heavy-duty flashlight he'd been issued as he made his way through the ship in the midst of a party that included Morelli, Utoblo and two other crew members called Reig and Ranjit. The bland, featureless hallways were now broken up by solid steel barriers, sealing off the various sections of the ship and slowing their progress, as these hatchways had to be opened and closed manually to allow them through. Whether or not they might also slow the progress of the Natara creatures was less certain, but worth a try, it had been agreed.
The ship was strangely quiet now, its crew, Harry presumed, hunkered down at battle stations and assembly points – hopefully in groups with portable lights at hand, although neither, the Doctor had said, was a guarantee of safety, merely the best chance they had.
"Through here," said Morelli, breaking the silence as she led the way along a side corridor to a door that she unlocked using a key-card.
This was some kind of supply area, and the four Morestrans set to work at once gathering up the equipment they needed, handing their flashlights to Harry as they worked. Arms full, he fumbled and juggled awkwardly, and then almost dropped the lot when Morelli rocked back on her heels in dismay.
"There's one missing. I think de Haan was right – Captain Salamar has gone after the creatures alone."
dwdwdwdw
"This is rather a new sensation for me," said the Doctor.
Sarah's head jerked up with a start – she had, she realised, been on the point of nodding off, in spite of everything.
Shifting uncomfortably from her position on the floor, where she'd been resting against the computer console, she looked around, yawning. Vishinsky and Landa were just across the way, talking quietly as they shared a ration bar, while the Doctor paced about the room playing idly with his yoyo. There was a slight chill and crackle in the air still, but the broad daylight was holding the Natara at bay, for now – until such time as the space probe made it back to the planet there wasn't really much more they could do.
And that, of course, was what the Doctor was complaining about.
"What, you mean having to sit around waiting while someone else acts? Welcome to my world," said Sarah, who'd spent more time than she cared to remember waiting and worrying while the Doctor was off doing something dangerous or other that she couldn't be part of.
The Doctor pulled a face.
"I don't like it," he declared as if this were headline news, and continued to pace around the room looking disgruntled, before brightening. "Still, I suppose I can use the time to master my reverse trapeze."
It took a moment for Sarah to realise he was talking about the yoyo.
"Oh, only you could mess around doing tricks with a yoyo at a time like this!"
"Well, if you have any better suggestions."
"All right, here's one for free. You've told Harry and the others how to contain the Natara on the space probe, and if they succeed they'll head back here." She had to stop to take a breath, because it was such a horribly big if, and the other side of that if was unbearable: what if they didn't make it? But they would make it, they had to, and Sarah determinedly pressed on. "But what happens then? How do we get the creatures off the ship, had you thought about that? I mean, they're invisible, so how can we know for sure they're all gone?"
The Doctor stopped playing with the yoyo and looked at her, a twinkle in his eye and a funny little smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Sarah knew that look. She should have known.
"You have thought about it."
"Well, I do have one or two ideas," he said with a grin, practicing his yoyo trick again.
She smiled back, buoyed by his confidence – but still wanting to know more, to be certain, because she knew him too well. "Such as?"
The Doctor lost concentration and the yoyo swung around and hit him on the nose.
"Well, there's the snag, you see," he admitted as Sarah, amused, went over to help him untangle himself from the string.
And there it was. "Oh, I might have known there'd be a snag!"
"It should be straightforward enough," he continued, winding the string back onto the yoyo as if nothing had happened. "We can flush the Natara out from the probe using the dimensional stabiliser matrix in the TARDIS, but the snag is, of course…"
"That the dimensional stabiliser matrix is in the TARDIS," Sarah finished for him, seeing the problem, because the TARDIS, of course, was on the stricken space probe.
"Exactly. So until it gets here…" The Doctor eyed his yoyo speculatively. "Perhaps I'll try walking the dog instead."
dwdwdwdw
"Why would he do it?" The question came from young Utoblo, who couldn't seem to get his errant captain off his mind. "Why go alone – he heard – it isn't safe…"
"He may not care," Harry quietly said, remembering the look in Salamar's eye – the shock, the panic, the failure. The man had broken, left his crew to make shift for themselves, and there'd been no time to do anything about it. The greater emergency had to take precedence and he couldn't regret that, too much depended on resolving the crisis, but he did regret, very much, that he'd not been able to do anything for the captain. He'd become a doctor for a reason, after all.
But then again, he'd also joined both the Navy and later UNIT for a reason. Perhaps he should count his blessings that the two halves of his profession only rarely came into conflict.
"He's trying to save face," said Morelli, also very quietly. She looked troubled. "But I had to assume command – we couldn't wait for –"
The lights went out, all at once, and corridors that had been at least partially lit were abruptly plunged into total darkness.
Well, total darkness aside from the portable lights carried by Harry and the others, which seemed an extremely flimsy form of protection, all of a sudden, as the shadows pressed in around them.
"They've reached Engineering," was Morelli's verdict, a faint wobble to her voice. "It's the only place they could hit all the lights at once."
"Is it much further?" It wasn't until he'd spoken that Harry realised he was whispering, although quite why he couldn't say – the spookiness of the darkened corridors, perhaps; too easy to imagine an invisible alien lurking in every shadow.
"Not far – it's just along –" Morelli broke off as a shadowy figure lurched around the corner toward them. "Who's that? You shouldn't be in these hallways alone – go to…"
Her voice trailed off as the figure moved closer, pausing at the edge of their combined flashlight beams, head tilted quizzically, its features shrouded in shadow.
Utoblo narrowed his eyes, squinting. "Is that Chung?"
"Chung?" A note of desperate hope lifted Morelli's voice. "Chung, are you all right? What are you doing?"
Only natural, perhaps, that they'd hope, that they'd not want to believe the worst – it was their crewmate, their comrade – but Harry could see now, through the shadows, could make out the features, wizened and shrivelled. Dead. A zombie, like Anwar had said.
It was already too late. And he was almost certain they shouldn't get too close.
He remembered what the Doctor had said and stepped forward, raising his flashlight to point the beam right at the figure, and the effect was every bit as dramatic as when Utoblo turned the lights on back in the medical bay: the crewman, Chung, collapsing on the spot the moment the light beam hit him.
Harry shivered at the cold draught that seemed to speed past as the man fell – the Natara that had possessed him taking flight, perhaps, unless it was merely imagination. He was prepared to concede at this point that it might be.
His allies surged forward to cluster around the man's body in shock and revulsion at what had been done to him. They'd forgotten themselves, in the heat of the moment, lowering their lights – leaving themselves wide open. Feeling rather an intruder to this moment of grief, Harry made sure to hold his own light high, sweeping the beam around in hopes that this might hold the invisible aliens at bay.
There was no sign of further movement and the ship seemed deathly quiet, an icy bite to the air.
Safety in numbers, the Doctor had said, but the creatures would pick off any stragglers, so just how far did one have to stray from a group to be vulnerable? And how safe would even a large-ish group remain if the creatures were drawing power from the ship's systems? They'd used such stolen power to attack the whole ship earlier. Yesterday. Had it been as long ago as that? Between exhaustion, adrenaline and the now-defunct artificial illumination of the spaceship, time seemed to be blurring, impossible to keep track.
The hairs at the back of his neck were prickling. Was that a crackle he could hear, just at the edge of audibility, or was he imagining that, too?
"I think we should move on," he said.
Morelli straightened, looking as if she'd very much like to be sick.
"Yes," she said, composing herself. "Yes, keep moving. We won't let them take anyone else."
They peeled themselves away, left the dead man lying where he'd fallen, and moved on, but hadn't gone more than five paces when they heard yelling from up ahead.
"That's the captain," Utoblo shouted in alarm, and then the four Morestrans were running, all semblance of proceeding according to any sort of plan thrown out the window in an instant.
Harry pelted after them, wondering grimly what the Brigadier might have said about Morestran military discipline – or lack thereof. The air around him seemed to be alive all of a sudden: bitingly cold and crackling with menace. This was really not the moment to be separated from the group.
He'd had cause to be thankful for long legs before and was again now, catching up with the others as they burst into a wide, high room that could only be the engineering deck, full of machinery and control panels – and Natara. There were at least half a dozen crewmembers in the room, seemingly dead yet active at the controls, wizened and glassy-eyed zombies – Sorenson among them, the only one who appeared unharmed, if not exactly healthy, directing operations – while the air was alive with still more of the creatures, invisible but for the odd crackle-hiss of electric red-blue yet palpably present and thrumming with energy.
The newcomers arrived just in time to see Salamar's body crumple and fall, the cumbersome device in his hand hitting the floor alongside him with a clatter; he'd never managed to operate it. They were too late – for him, at any rate, but there were still other lives to save, including their own.
But now every eye in the room was upon them – even those that couldn't be seen, Harry was certain. There were five of them, in a group and with lights, but the creatures were swarming, drawing power from the systems – so who exactly had the advantage here?
"Morelli! Senior Crew-leader Morelli, come in!" de Haan's voice unexpectedly crackled over the communicator. "The ship's turning around again, resuming course for Morestran space – we're locked out of the helm. We've lost control!"
Morelli had that queasy look about her again, transfixed by her zombie shipmates. She thumbed the communicator, voice wavering very slightly. "All right, Ensign, stand by."
In that same moment of distraction, Harry saw Sorenson's impassive expression curl into a leer, arms raised like a conductor. Salamar's body was stirring, rising – just another zombie now. The air was like ice and that crackling sound became almost deafening, the air thick with red-blue sparks that were rushing toward them, seemingly heedless of the flashlights still in their hands.
"Now!" yelled Harry in panic. "Do it now!"
For a handful of agonising seconds the Morestrans fumbled with the unwieldy equipment they'd hauled from the storage locker, and the Natara were upon them now, freezing and choking…
Utoblo got his switched on first, flooding the room with an oddly-tinted light that was dazzlingly bright, the brightest light Harry had ever seen. There was an unearthly shriek that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere and he could breathe again all of a sudden. Ranjit wasn't far behind, then Morelli and finally Reig got his lit as well, and the light was so bright now it was blinding.
Harry groped for the dark-tinted glasses he'd been issued and rammed them on, blinking furiously to clear his eyes of the colourful spots dancing before them as he looked around to see what had happened.
The Doctor had talked at length about what should be done and how to go about it. He'd talked about photonic field generators and laser light, about lux and lumens, linking this or that doodad and switching the thingumajig to project through the whatsit – it had all been so much double-Dutch to Harry. Seemed to have worked, though. The air was clear again – warm, even – there wasn't a crackle to be heard…and the room was littered with corpses.
"Get to work," Morelli ordered in a shaky voice.
That powerful burst of super-light would effectively disperse and repel even a large swarm of the creatures, the Doctor had said, but would quickly drain the batteries of the equipment, so there wasn't a moment to lose. While Morelli rushed to a control console to release the helm and get the ship turned back to Zeta Minor, the others set about linking their handheld equipment into the ship's central power supply, and here Harry was able to lend a hand at last. He may not understand this technology, but he could lay out cables and strip wires with the best of them.
They had four of the photonic field generator thingummies, and retrieved the one Salamar had taken to make five. Wired together and linked to a central power supply, they formed a very rough-and-ready protective barrier to keep the engineering deck flooded with light and the alien creatures out.
"They aren't really designed for this, I just hope the connections hold," said Morelli.
"What about the others?" Utoblo asked in a small voice. "The rest of the crew – those things are still out there…"
"There's nothing we can do," she replied, an agonised expression on her face. "We must hold the engineering deck – it's the only way we'll make it back to the planet."
"But what then?"
"The Doctor will have a plan," Harry stoutly assured them all – himself included. It helped to say it out loud. "First rate boffin, you'll see – got an answer to everything."
Morelli didn't seem entirely convinced. "I hope you're right."
So did Harry, but he thought it prudent not to admit as much out loud. With nothing more he could usefully do for the time being, he looked around with regret at the corpses littering the room – and realised with shock that one of them was moving.
"I say, Professor Sorenson!"
"He's alive!"
"It can't be…"
Amid disbelieving exclamations, Harry ventured closer to the man. Utoblo caught at his sleeve.
"Careful – it might still not be him. I mean…just be careful."
"Oh, I am, I assure you." Harry edged closer still, but not too close, and squatted, trying to get a look at the man. "Professor Sorenson? Professor, are you all right? Is that you?"
Sorenson raised his head. He looked absolutely ghastly – jaundiced and gaunt, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes – but he was alive, definitely alive. Was he himself, though?
"Is it me?" he repeated, sounding both hoarse and indignant. "Who else would I be?"
"Well, it certainly sounds like him." Not sounding or behaving at all like himself had been the first sign of something wrong, so it followed, perhaps, that seeming himself again should imply that the possession had been broken – the light field driving the creature out and too intense to allow it to reclaim him as it had before.
It seemed logical enough, in theory, at least. In practice, Harry sat back on his haunches and watched the man warily as he struggled to his knees and looked around, squinting and shielding his eyes against the blinding brilliance of the light shield.
"I don't know who else I should sound like," Sorenson muttered crossly, but his expression changed as he began to notice the bodies scattered around the room. "What's that…no, no it can't be – what's happened?" And he turned on Harry in sudden, single-minded fury. "Where are my crystals?"
That settled it. It was definitely him.
dwdwdwdw
Steak and kidney pie with creamy mashed potato and lashings of gravy…served by the Brigadier…who was most improbably wearing a frilly little waitress apron…that was odd…
There was a loud burst of static and Sarah started awake with a gasp. It took a moment for the dream to clear, and by the time she'd realised with relief that Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was neither present nor dressed as a waitress, and with disappointment that the pie wasn't anywhere in the offing either, the Doctor was already deep in conversation with someone, somewhere nearby.
Vishinsky and Landa had also been asleep, she groggily realised when she saw them helping one another up – and she remembered now, the Doctor had offered to keep watch and let them rest a while. So who was he talking to? Was that the radio she'd heard, the voice was familiar…?
"That's de Haan!" Landa exclaimed, rushing over to join the Doctor – as excited as Sarah had seen her yet.
It was de Haan's voice, of course! And if she was talking on the radio, then that meant she'd recovered, that Harry had managed to save her life. As much as she'd liked the other woman, who'd been so friendly and kind, Sarah was surprised to realise just how relieved she felt. It was the first bit of properly good news since they'd landed on this wretched planet – she hadn't known quite how much she needed it.
She pushed to her feet, every limb feeling like lead. However long she'd slept, it hadn't been nearly long enough.
"When this is over, I'm going to sleep for a week," she muttered as she joined the others at the radio. "So what's happening now?"
"The probe is on its final approach," the Doctor announced, ceding control of the radio to Vishinsky, who began to anxiously enquire after his crew.
"Approach?" Now Sarah knew she wasn't properly awake yet, because that took a moment to sink in, as well. "So they've done it? They're nearly here?"
The Doctor's smile lit up his entire face. "They've done it. They're nearly here."
"Oh, thank goodness."
"But it's not over yet," the Doctor immediately warned.
"Of course it isn't," she agreed, rolling her eyes.
Vishinsky set the radio receiver aside. He looked grim. "Morelli's team has secured Engineering and has control of the ship, but Captain Salamar is dead and the Natara are running rampant – total number of casualties unknown."
"We'll have our work cut out for us reaching the TARDIS then," the Doctor cheerfully observed, grinning as if the prospect filled him with delight. "Won't we?"
dwdwdwdw
"I don't understand," seemed to be the only thing Sorenson could say, when all was explained and done. "I don't understand, I don't understand," as if, like Salamar, something had broken somewhere inside.
The man was also badly dehydrated and in need of medical care, which Harry was once again unable to provide, confined as they were to the engineering deck. All he could do was make the professor comfortable, keep an eye on him, and try not to let his frustration show.
"I don't understand either," Utoblo muttered. "Why's he still alive? Why didn't those things kill him? They killed everyone else…" He looked across at his dead crewmates, their bodies now moved from the undignified positions they'd fallen in and neatly arranged at the side of the room.
"I really don't know. I suppose they must have wanted him alive – well, he was their first host, their spy. Perhaps they still needed him for something," Harry theorised. The Doctor would have a better explanation, he was sure, if only he were here. Soon enough, they'd be able to ask.
But not soon enough. Harry had always thought of himself as a reasonably patient sort of chap, but just now he felt thoroughly impatient, tired of waiting and wondering. They were so close now and he wanted, rather badly, to talk to the Doctor and Sarah himself – to find out what needed to be done next, what they were going to do next…to satisfy himself that they really were all right. But communications from engineering were internal only – planetary communication could only take place on the bridge, which meant that any news must be relayed second-hand.
At least the bridge had held, and de Haan was providing regular updates. The ship was about to land. Nearly there now.
"It doesn't seem right." Utoblo stood gazing at his dead crewmates. "Vaughan came through the Academy with me…and Alvarez, she was…and the captain! It's so…well." He crouched alongside the captain's body, regarded him sadly. "He wasn't a very good captain, I suppose."
It seemed churlish to say it now the man was dead, but Harry had to agree. It didn't mean he'd deserved what happened to him, though.
"Perhaps you can learn from his experience," he suggested. "See that you do better when it's your turn."
Utoblo's troubled expression broke and he beamed all over his face at the thought of the captaincy he aspired toward.
"Oh, I will," he said. "I will."
The ship jolted, very slightly, and they both looked around. Morelli was at the radio again.
"We've landed," she announced. "They're opening the main doors now – Commander Vishinsky's heading for the bridge."
"Is the Doctor still with him?" Harry promptly asked.
He both was and wasn't, was the reply. The Doctor and Sarah, it seemed, were heading for the medical bay – to do something with the TARDIS, although quite what de Haan couldn't say.
It was no good. Harry should, by rights, be exhausted, he knew, and the adrenaline that had brought him this far would present a hefty bill when all was done, but just now he couldn't have kept still if his life depended on it. He simply couldn't wait around a moment longer.
"Right, then." He snatched up a flashlight and headed for the door, removing his dark glasses – he wouldn't need them out there. "I'm going to find the Doctor."
"Wait, you can't go alone – those things are still out there." That was Utoblo, scurrying after him looking determined – although not so determined that he didn't shoot a quick, nervous sideways glance at Morelli for permission. "I'm coming too."
dwdwdwdw
The Doctor, of course, had never set foot inside the space probe before, and turned beseeching eyes upon Sarah as Vishinsky and Landa dashed on ahead of them, intent on reuniting with their colleagues and assessing their losses.
"Well?"
"This way."
Flashlight firmly in hand, Sarah led the way through dimly-lit corridors toward the medical bay, where she'd last seen the TARDIS. Signs of the Nataran incursion could be found everywhere, from patches of ice-cold air dispelled by her flashlight beam to damaged light fittings and torn electrical cables. They ran into only one animated corpse along the way, though: a woman who'd until very recently been young and full of life, with long dark hair and a set of colourful rubber bands around her wrist, a tiny quirk to offset the smart, severe lines of her uniform.
What was her name? Who would she not be going home to? Sarah wondered as the woman's body crumpled and fell beneath her and the Doctor's combined flashlight beams. It felt almost like murder and she had to remind herself it was release. So many had been lost to these creatures, and the weight of them was heavy on her heart.
But there wasn't time for more than cursory passing respects for the dead – too many other lives to save, including their own, and the ship was not yet secure. They pressed on, and found the medical bay open but barred to them, the freezing air alive with electric red-blue sparks, crackling with menace.
The Doctor was fascinated. "They seem to have an idea what we're about – someone's been eavesdropping."
And even combined, two flashlights barely even put a dent in them, although they did at least hold the creatures at bay.
Sarah and the Doctor retreated to a safe distance to consider the problem, peering back around the corner for assurance that the creatures weren't following. They weren't, but they also weren't budging. Stalemate.
"Why can we see them?" Sarah caught herself whispering and made herself stop. Pointless. "Or sort of see them, anyway. We couldn't before."
"They've been feeding," said the Doctor, head tilted to regard the swarm thoughtfully. "It strengthens them, stabilises the manifestation – but we must find a way through. Perhaps if –"
"Doctor – Sarah!"
Sarah turned just in time to see a flying figure sprinting toward her at top speed.
"Harry!"
He was running too fast to stop gracefully and nearly sent them both headlong. Sarah gave him a hug and the Doctor grinned.
"There you are, Harry, it's about time you showed up. We need to get in there. Any ideas?"
Rather unexpectedly, Harry looked pleased with himself. "I might have, as a matter of fact – except…" His face fell again. "We may not have clearance to get through."
"Actually…we do." Ola Utoblo was with Harry, alert and agitated. He held up a tiny plastic card. "I took this from the captain's…well, you know. I shouldn't've – the commander'll…but I thought…well, just in case."
"How very perspicacious of you," the Doctor remarked. "But don't say any more." He nodded toward the crackling swarm, which was holding its distance but not far enough. "The walls may have ears. Show us."
"We'll have to move fast, then – they'll see where we're going, may already have it blocked off," Harry said in a low voice.
So they moved fast, heading for another door along the corridor that Utoblo opened using that purloined key-card. Wherever it led, it had been disregarded by the Natara – but for how long? Glancing over her shoulder, Sarah could already see them stirring, noticing – moving.
They ran through the door and across the room beyond to an odd little hatchway – it was a cupboard, a dead end, surely…but Utoblo and Harry confidently pushed inside and through the clutter of equipment within to reach the far wall, where there was another door.
This one came out in the medical bay – but the Natara were already swarming in, realising what they were about…and there were more behind them, cutting off their retreat.
"Run!" yelled the Doctor.
They ran, pelting across the room to the TARDIS. It wasn't far, no more than a hundred yards, yet it felt so much further, impossibly far. Sarah strained and struggled, invisible fingers catching at her, cold as ice, the air freezing around her, burning her lungs – it was like running against a force ten gale, frozen, icy, choking…it was too far, too far, they weren't going to make it…but then the Doctor was there, fumbling with the lock, and then they were all tumbling inside, and the door swung shut behind them.
Sarah leaned forward, hands on thighs, trying to catch her breath, while Harry redundantly remarked, "I say, that was a close one," and Utoblo stared around at the TARDIS interior in open-mouthed wonder.
A nasty thought occurred.
"None of the creatures made it inside, did they?" Sarah asked. If a Natara takeover of an ordinary spaceship was bad, how much worse would it be if they seized the TARDIS?
But the Doctor seemed entirely unconcerned. "No, I don't think so. They'll be sorry soon enough if they have!"
He gave her a cheery wink, already busy at the console, nimble hands moving swiftly and assuredly across the controls.
"So what now?" Harry asked.
The Doctor grinned. "Now, Harry, I'm going to end this."
He became engrossed in his work once more, disappearing beneath the console to pull out all kinds of cables and circuits.
Sarah bent to see what he was doing. "Anything we can do to help?"
The Doctor's tousled head reappeared.
"Yes," he said. "You can help a great deal by standing over there and keeping out of my way."
He disappeared beneath the console again.
Sarah looked at Harry, who said, "Well. That tells us, doesn't it?"
And then Utoblo found his tongue. "Um. What is this place?"
They attempted to explain, which was easier said than done – especially the clumsy way Harry did it, which Sarah then had to unpick – and at length it transpired that there was plenty they could do to help after all, the Doctor making use of all three of them to hold circuit boards and cables, which he looped around them as he worked. He was building something, and at last declared it complete.
"Bit of a lash-up, really," he declared, regarding the jumble of wires and equipment with smug satisfaction. "But it'll do the trick."
He turned the machine on.
dwdwdwdw
Harry hadn't a clue how the Doctor's contraption worked, but all that really mattered was that it did.
The Doctor kept blathering on about dimensions and frequencies – the man clearly thought he was explaining, but it was all so much double-Dutch, really.
The gist of it appeared to be that the device could detect the Natara creatures and sort of hoover them up into a kind of holding chamber that was no bigger than one of the Doctor's infernal bags of jelly babies yet could reputedly contain an infinite number of the formless creatures – dimensionally transcendental, you see, said the Doctor, beaming with pride – before spitting them back out again later, outside the ship and back into their home dimension.
It took several sweeps of the ship before the monitor atop the device stopped displaying the little pinpricks of brilliance that indicated the location of any creatures still hidden aboard. Quite what the Natara themselves thought of it all was unclear, since they had no means of communication, but with the bulk of the swarm captured within seconds of the TARDIS door being opened – well, they'd been waiting just outside, after all – they seemed to have accepted defeat at last.
The Morestrans, meanwhile, were venturing out of hiding and counting their dead – more than a third of the crew, but the Doctor seemed to think they'd got off lightly. Harry wasn't sure they'd agree.
"You must leave no trace," the Doctor told them. "Not a trace – nothing they can make use of."
Commander Vishinsky looked to have aged about 10 years since arriving on Zeta Minor.
"You're talking about the survey team's base," he said. "The solar cell – the equipment."
"It must be destroyed," the Doctor insisted, so they used the last precious minutes of daylight to venture out of the ship and across to the base, to set charges and blow the whole shebang sky high.
The Doctor, Harry felt, secretly enjoyed a big bang every bit as much as the Brigadier, however much he claimed not to. It was certainly an impressive blast.
"Well, that's that, then," said Harry when all the fireworks appeared to be over, but Sarah didn't seem convinced.
"They're still out there, though – watching us, resenting us, just waiting for an opening." She shivered reflexively.
Harry put an arm around her shoulders. "We'd better make jolly sure not to give them one, then."
"In the beginning," she said, "They were just defending themselves – protecting their world, their young. How many times have we done the same?"
"They killed an awful lot of people, Sarah."
"I know," she said. "And we've not actually destroyed a single one of them. We kept our promise, in the end. We've brought them all back and the invaders are leaving. It feels strange – to be among the invaders."
They were approaching dangerously philosophical ground now, so it came as a relief to Harry that the Doctor reappeared at that moment, having carried out one last sweep of the ship in case of stragglers.
"Hallo, you two," he greeted them with a beaming smile. "Ready for the off?"
Sarah cheered up at once. "It's all done?"
The Doctor nodded. "I do hereby solemnly declare the space probe KX9-06 pest free! Vishinsky seems to think they've just enough power to break orbit and signal for emergency refuelling from the nearest way-station, so –" He broke off as the ship shuddered very slightly. "Compression units, I believe. She's taking off. Come on, it's high time we were going."
He strode off in the direction of the medical bay and the TARDIS without any further ado.
"Just a minute, Doctor," Sarah protested, hurrying after him. "We haven't even said goodbye to anyone."
"Oh, fiddle-faddle," he blithely dismissed. "Vishinsky's people are short-staffed – they'll all be far too busy to bother about us. Come along."
They entered the medical bay, and there found that they weren't going to get away quite as farewell-free as the Doctor intended, because the room was occupied: Landa repairing damaged equipment, while Utoblo tended to Professor Sorenson, who was recovering.
"Apparently, I did such a good job assisting you, I'm stuck with this duty until we get back," Utoblo told Harry, equal parts rueful and proud. "But I'm not taking up the medicking full-time – I still mean to be a captain someday."
"Oh, I've no doubt you will, old chap, no doubt at all," Harry said with a grin, shaking his hand.
The Doctor, meanwhile, was talking to Sorenson, who remembered very little of what had happened and was fretting about the loss of his crystals.
"My researches – I'd discovered a new source of energy…"
"No, no, no, Professor," said the Doctor, very gently. "I think you'd abandoned that line. You'd decided to concentrate on deriving energy from the kinetic force of planetary movement."
Sorenson stared at him. "Had I?"
"Oh yes," the Doctor solemnly replied. "Large source of untapped energy there."
"The kinetic force of planetary movement," Sorenson murmured. "What a brilliant idea!"
And Sarah was talking to Landa, who regarded the TARDIS bemusedly.
"It's a box – how can you travel anywhere in that?"
Utoblo laughed. "It's bigger than it looks!"
"But where are you going?" Landa asked. "You don't really just…travel, with no destination and no mission – no purpose?"
"Of course we've a destination," the Doctor briskly told her. "Come along, Sarah, Harry. We've an appointment in London and we're already thirty thousand years late."
Harry grinned, waved to the Morestrans and followed him into the TARDIS.
"By the way, Harry," the Doctor remarked as he operated a lever to close the door behind them. "I never did say: thank you for bringing the TARDIS back."
"My pleasure, Doctor – I did have something of a vested interest in the matter."
"Oh yes." The Doctor looked shifty. "Our appointment in London, you mean."
"Well, I did promise the Brigadier. I'm supposed to be seeing you safely back."
"And a splendid job you're doing too," the Doctor evasively replied, busying himself about the controls and avoiding eye contact.
Harry knew him more than well enough by now to recognise that manner – and what it meant. Here we go again.
Yet as he caught Sarah's eye, he realised that he didn't mind the thought of another detour nearly as much as he'd have expected – and certainly not so much as he no doubt should. Make sure he gets back to London in one piece, the Brigadier had said, and the job wasn't done yet. They'd get there in the end.
"Doctor," said Sarah with faux-sternness, amusement dancing in her eyes. "You said you'd take us back to London five minutes before we left."
"Oh, I did, I did," the Doctor cheerfully agreed. "But of course, arriving in London five minutes ago doesn't mean we have to go straight there…"
~end~
© J.B., April 2015
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