Chapter 4: Production Lines

As it turned out, a new opportunity would present itself to her surprisingly soon. She'd only had to do three more tasks for the Daleks before they Daleks were all summoned to the war room once more.

"A MESAGE HAS BEEN RECIEVED FROM THE DALEK EMPEROR." The Supreme informed them. "RAW MATERIALS ARE REQUIRED FOR THE MORVELLAN FRONT. WE HAVE BEEN ORDERED TO LOCATE A FEDERATION PLANNET WITH SUFFICIENT QUANTITIES OF ELEMENTS DJI54, DBH46…" It listed a few more elements. The data cluster filled Clara in on what they were. Some of them, Clara could guess what the Earth-based equivalents would be. Other's she had had no idea. "LOCATE MINERALOGICAL REPOTS ON ANY PLANNET WITHIN REACHABLE DISTANCE."

They all took positions at consoles and searched. Every time a Dalek found a possible planet, they'd announce it and place it up on a big screen. A second group of Daleks would then rank them, based on other factors.

Clara trawled the databases hard. She found as many uninhabited planets as she could that would supply the Daleks with the materials they needed, while ignoring the inhabited ones she found. While she wanted to escape more than anything, she wasn't about to put lives at risk for her own ends. But it was getting nowhere. Most of these planets, the Daleks would discount for one reason or another. A few came close to reaching the top of their board, but were soon superseded. Mining operations would go much faster with a populace to enslave.

A human colony called Weatley had caught their attention. "THIS PLANNET IS APROXAMATELY 270000 RELS TRAVEL FROM HERE. THE REPORTS INDICATE THAT THEY HAVE RECENTLY WITHDRAWN FROM THE GALACTIC FEDERATION."

"THEN THE FEDERATION WILL OFFER THEM NO ASSISTANCE. THEY WILL BE EASY TO CONTROL."

Weatley soon went to the top of their list and remained there until they'd completed the exercise.

"ASSEMBLE THE FLEET." The Supreme ordered.

The fleet gathered at a given rendezvous point and the Daleks were soon on course for the planet.

While general maintenance continued as normal, the main focus of every Dalek on the ship now was preparing for the invasion. About half her time was spent sitting in on their war room meetings, trying to look busy while they looked up everything they could get hold of about the planet's military, geography, political situation, and anything else that might need to be factored in. They constantly adjusted their battle plans and relayed the information to the other ships. They were working at an incredible rate, especially considering they'd only decided to invade two days ago.

But one thing was confusing Clara. The other ships, from what she'd seen of them seemed as sparsely populated as this one. There couldn't be more than 6000 Daleks in this fleet. How were they planning to overpower a whole planet? A planet who's population, she'd learned, was around 11 billion.

She found out once they'd reached a point ten hours from Weatley. Here, the Supreme summoned them all to the bridge. "THIS ATTACK WILL REQUIRE A FULL INVASION FORCE. WHAT DO WE HAVE AVAILABLE?"

A Dalek took a look at a console. "WITH OUR CURRENT RESOURCES AND TIME, WE CAN ASSEMBLE 34647 REINFORCEMENTS."

"30000 WILL BE SUFFICIENT." Said the Supreme. "ACTIVATE THE PRODUCTION LINES. ORDER THE OTHER SHIPS TO DO THE SAME."

25 of them left the bridge and went in the direction they'd been sent, Clara included.

There were several areas of this ship that Clara had never been ordered to for various reasons. This was one of them. And she vaguely hoped she'd misinterpreted what the information cluster had told her about what it was. But, of course, it was just as bad as she'd thought. It was a Dalek mass production line.

She took her position at a console near the end of the line. All of them were conducting final checks. All was in order at her point. She scoured the system for a way of making it not in order. Maybe even modify it to produce nicer Daleks. But everything she read that wasn't related to the operation of this machine was just gibberish. The Daleks didn't need her to design Daleks, just assemble them. Besides which, the area she was activating was just a conveyor belt for moving the completed casings along. Not a lot of difference to be made there.

The whole line was in perfect working order. Now the voices came over the communication systems reporting.

"DALEK GENERATION CHAMBER ACTIVATED."

"ACTIVATING LIFE SUPPORT ASSEMBLY."

The sequence was rapidly moving towards her. If she outright refused, how long would it actually delay them? Minutes? Hours perhaps? She'd be dust as well. She had no choice but to obey. And so she switched her stage on.

Her stage was fully automated so her next task was to go to the end of the line to line up with some others, whose task was also complete, and watch. She didn't have to wait too long there before a new Dalek rolled off the line. Ten rels later, another followed it. Then another. Then another. The first word out of each of their speakers was "EXTERMINATE!"

She understood now why the ship had so much empty space, and how they'd activated that boarding party so quickly. The Daleks kept their crew at a minimum in non combat situations to save resources. But they were always ready, at short notice to produce any number of reinforcements they needed. Starting with little, they could have a full invasion force, ready to invade a world like Weatley in less than ten hours. It was one thing to be told that the Daleks had assembled a huge army in a hidden city. Actually watching them coming off the line and seeing just how quickly they could churn out new killing machines was something truly terrifying.

But she wasn't here to just watch. There were eleven other production lines on this ship that they needed to set up. A Dalek was going along their line, assigning a job to each of them. "LEAD 25 DALEKS TO PRODUCTION LINE 8." It said to her.

"I obey." She said and said to the next one off the line. "25 Daleks to form line behind me." She took position in a corridor and waited for a given time, while the next 24 off the line formed up behind her. She led them through the ship's corridors, towards production line 8.

Daleks were moving off the other production lines now and filing towards their assembly points. In an intersection up ahead, the Daleks from production line 4 were crossing the corridor.

Clara knew she couldn't wait for them to pass. They'd left gaps to allow others to filter through anyway. Once more, she focused hard and carefully controlled her speed to avoid a collision. She reached the gap at just the right time and sped through, clearing the Daleks nicely.

But then she heard the sound of metal striking metal behind her. She'd forgotten that the Daleks she was leading were following her every movement and neglected to give them a gap to leave between themselves. Now the Dalek behind her had smacked into one from line 4.

Both of them had moved out of the way of the line 4 Daleks coming through, who continued on, closing up the gap. The Dalek who'd been hit was undamaged, but it was confused. "WHAT HAS HAPPENED? EXPLAIN!"

She'd done it now. She'd made a mistake no Dalek would make. They were going to realise something was up.

With only rels to talk her way out of it, she quickly blurted out. "This one is defective! Yes, you have faulty movement controls. You must be exterminated!" She quickly shot it before it could talk. If she achieved nothing else today, that was one fewer Dalek in the invasion force.

She looked at the other Dalek, who said nothing else. Clearly, it had accepted what she'd said. Breathing a sigh of relief she ordered it. "Take that one's place." And then said to the next Dalek in line. "Lead the others through."

She resumed leading them. This time she ordered them to maintain a two Dalek gap between themselves. The next time they had to cross a path, they cleared it without incident. Finally, she reached production line 8.

"Activate it." She ordered.

"I OBEY." They all said and took up their positions. They were barely 1000 rels old and they were already operating everything as easily as any other Dalek on this ship.

Clara's task required her to look at a panel to ensure everything activated correctly, which it was all doing. As she looked, she glanced round and saw the Daleks from the other machines, streaming through the ship, towards their designated stations.

One Dalek was not forming the streams. It approached her. "REPORT."

Was it the same one that had ordered her here? They all looked the same. "Production line 8 is in operation. The first new Daleks are about to come off it."

"GOOD. LEAD THEM TO STORAGE BAY 3."

"I obey." As the first Daleks rolled off the line, she ordered them to follow her. She was only at their head for a short time before they merged with streams moving from production lines 7 and 9. "Form a two Dalek gap between yourselves." She ordered her column and they merged with no problem.

Clara imagined a group of humans all trying to get in somewhere at once. Imagined them forming a slow moving traffic jam. But the Daleks seemed to have the whole thing sussed. They barely needed to slow down to get to storage en masse

Spaced around the outer rim of the ship, there were four huge chambers, which seemed to rise the full length of the ship. The floor was made up of a series of platforms, plied on top of each other. Each was mounted on huge gears running up the wall, which could raise it up and down to be set at to any height. These were essentially unfolding storage units, ready to be filled up with any Daleks which would be needed but not just yet. A means of keeping them out of their way until they needed to be deployed. Coming into the chamber, she could see that at least one platform had already been raised and was now half a metre above her dome. Through the floor, she could feel hundreds of Daleks on the level above.

Clara entered and moved to her mark. She saw that it was directly behind one Dalek and to the left of another. As another Dalek formed in on her left, Clara realised that she wasn't here to direct the Daleks into storage. She was here to go in with them. Sue enough. More Daleks formed ranks behind her. And more behind them.

She'd allowed herself to believe that she was in some way important to the Daleks. A part of the Supreme's crew who would be clear from the crowds, and hopefully far from the front lines. But really, they saw her like every other Dalek. Only good for whatever task they needed someone to do. With thousands of Daleks on this ship now, there were not enough tasks to go around and there was little chance she'd be set apart from the others.

She then heard a whirring sound as the platform raised them all up. Now there was no way out of this unit. She'd just have to sit here until the Daleks needed her. Sit completely still and stare at the wall. Below her, she felt hundreds more Daleks gathering before the platform raised up once more. Before long, her proximity senses were overwhelmed by thousands of Daleks right left, front, back, up and down. More than ever, she felt like a cog in the Daleks' machine.

She contented herself with the thought that it would only be for a few hours. And the information cluster wouldn't be injecting anything into her mind in that time. She would be clearer headed than she'd been in a while.

But, as she rose through the ship, her mind increasingly brought up thoughts about what was going to happen to her. The Daleks would only move her out of storage once the battle was joined. She'd be deployed straight into a war zone much more terrible than anything she'd seen before. Even to get to that point, millions would have to die already. Something she badly wanted to avoid.

She might not even make it to that point. The people of Weatley would aim to take down the flagship. If they won, great. The only problem was, she'd go down with them. In her mind's eye, she imagined the Doctor arriving to save the planet and blowing up the whole fleet, only to find her body among the ruins.

And then there was the third possibility. That the Daleks would make a strategic withdrawal before she could be deployed. What would happen to her then? Would she be dismantled? Or would she be left in storage indefinitely? Her whole world reduced to two square metres on the floor, in complete silence for what could be the rest of her life?

Clara had to think positively. She thought of the people who would be saved in the latter two cases. And she imagined outlandish scenarios where the battle would blast this space open and she'd be flung out and go to find someone who'd help her out of the suit. She'd then help them all fight off the Daleks once and for all. She pictured herself sitting in the TARDIS, telling the Doctor the story of how she'd got out of all this. She just needed to get to that bit, so she'd know what to tell him.

Author's notes: To answer a couple of comments. I don't currently plan to bring the Doctor into the story as I'm just enjoying writing about what the Daleks are like when he's not there to stop them. I may write in people like River or Jenny or some of the Doctor's other friends if I can find a way to work them into the story.