Chapter 13: The Pursuit:
Clara never thought she'd be so pleased to be back in her Dalek suit. Now, she was safe from their mindwashing.
She looked up at the Dalek supreme, hoping the other part of the plan had worked. Sure enough, the now Oswin-possessed, Dalek turned to her and said. "CREATE THE DISTRACTION THEN."
Clara had updated her on the details of the plan. With her now controlling the Supreme, the data cluster was no longer needed. But she still had a part to play. She found the apropriate console, shoved its former operator aside and placed her sucker on it. "Attention all robomen, attack the Daleks. This order cannot be countermanded."
Most of the robomen would die fighting, but for their last minutes, they'd be more alive than they'd been in ages. At any rate, this was only supposed to create a diversion and stop anyone noticing the set of orders Oswin gave next. "ACTIVATING FLEET WIDE SELF DESTRUCT. THERE ARE TO BE NO WARNINGS. TIMER SET FOR NINE THOUSAND RELS." She then moved to a different control. "ATTENTION ALL DALEKS. RESISTANCE IS NO LONGER TO BE TOLERATED. RETURN TO SHIPS AND RETURN TO ORBIT. ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT SET TO BEGIN IN TEN THOUSAND RELS. RELEASE ALL PRISONERS ONTO THE PLANET. THEY WILL PERRISH IN THE BOMBARDMENT." She then turned to Clara. "YOU HAD BETTER GET MOVING."
"Come with me." Said Clara.
"I HAVE TO DESTROY THIS MACHINE BEFORE THE DALEKS RETAKE CONTROL. I WILL ACTIVATE SELF DESTRUCT WHEN YOU HAVE GONE. NOW RUN!"
"Thank you." Clara said one more time and left. As she glided her way through the corridors, she heard a small blast as her echo destroyed herself. Remembering that Oswin was counting on her to survive, she hurried onwards.
"Madame President." Said a voice on her intercom. "We're getting reports that the robomen have turned on the Daleks."
The vice president pulled out his gun. "That's the signal. Now please move aside."
She thought for a moment. "There's no need for that. I'm perfectly happy to help." She pressed some buttons. "Attention all commands, this is President Summers. Execute special order 267. Repeat 267." Pretending she'd forgotten to end the transmission, she asked him. "So are you going to shoot me then?"
He just fumed at her.
Jones had worked her way to the front of the resistance so she could lead them through the evacuation tunnel. At the end was a huge mass of undergrowth they'd left undisturbed in the hope that the Dalek patrols wouldn't notice. She peeled some of it back and had a look out. Outside, hundreds of collaborators were covering the entrance.
She turned back to the others. "They found us."
"What? But they weren't here earlier." Said Hammond.
"Must've moved into position after you got here." She sighed, and looked back at the exhausted rebels following along. Well, all we can do is try to punch through.
They quickly moved up into positions, hoping they might still have the element of surprise. But even as they moved, they saw the colaborators abruptly abandon their positions and move away. What was going on?
It seemed someone in their ranks noticed the rebels, because they sent someone over with a flag of truce. "We've received orders from the President." She said excitedly. "We're going to attack the Daleks!"
This was met by cheers from the rebel ranks. "She actually did it." Journey grinned.
Jones issued directions. "Journey, assemble a team and move to the extraction point. The rest of you, fall in behind me. Let's drive them all the way back to their ships!"
Clara, meanwhile, was realising a flaw in the roboman distraction. There were several hundred robomen on the flagship and not that many Daleks. She'd only covered a couple of corridors before she ran into a column of them, who promptly opened fire. Maybe she should have added "except me" to her order?
Fortunately for her, the Daleks hadn't been stupid enough to give the robomen guns that could penetrate their armour. Unfortunately, the robomen also seemed to have realised this, and charged forward to attack Clara with their bare hands, perhaps planning to push her somewhere dangerous. She didn't wait to find out, she just turned and ran.
She tried a different corridor, in which a smaller crowd of robomen had found some tools and were attempting to pry a Dalek's armour apart. Clara shot past them while they were still distracted and made for what she hoped was the exit. Still the robomen kept coming. She stunned a few but the stun setting was hard to use and she didn't think she could take on the lot.
However, as she fled down one corridor, the air suddenly became filled with death rays, as the first group of Daleks back to the ship shot the robomen.
Clara moved along the side of the corridor, going in the opposite direction to the flow, until she found the main ramp. She watched the continuous stream of Daleks coming up and wondered if she'd have time to wait for them to pass. Ultimately, she decided she'd need to go now in hope of getting lost in the crowd. "I need to check a system outside. Make space." She ordered. Sure enough, the stream shifted slightly to allow her a gap.
Clara looked at the Daleks hovering overhead, providing air cover, and decided to stay on the ground for now. She weaved her way between the streams of Daleks moving in, dodging through gaps where needed. No one was questioning her… yet.
But she knew getting through the perimeter would be difficult. Before her was the innermost of a series of circles the Daleks had rapidly formed to cover their withdrawal. Less than a mile away, she could here the sounds of battle as the humans fought to keep the pressure up.
She wouldn't be heading that way. Instead, she'd be heading to a part of the mountains which was to far out of the way for both sides. The Daleks had set up a position covering the entrance to the mountain pass she was aiming for. They took immediate note of a Dalek apparently going the wrong way "HALT."
"Some rebels have been spotted moving this way." She said. "I have been ordered to investigate."
"WE WILL HOLD POSITION. THEY WILL BE DESTROYED BY THE ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT."
"They may be planning to take the ship."
"THEY WILL NOT HAVE TIME. WE WILL BE IN ORBIT SOON. RETURN TO THE SHIP."
Clara thought hard of any way to talk her way out of this, but could find none. Fortunately, at this point, the position came under fire as a squad of robomen emerged from the pass. The Daleks quickly began to return fire.
"Charge!" Clara shouted and sped forward, before abruptly elevating over the robomen and moving rapidly into the mountains. The Daleks called for her to return, but soon realised she wasn't going to. Fortunately, by then, she'd dodged round a rock face out of sight.
Nonetheless, she felt a Dalek presence following her. It couldn't be more than 5 of them, but it was a problem. If she could feel them, they could feel her and there was no chance of hiding from them or losing them.
She fled onwards blindly, keeping to passageways as deep and narrow and windy as she could. Her pursuers were also sending units up in the air to get at her. She had to try and not give them enough time to aim properly.
After a time, she began to feel a presence ahead. It must be one of the few Dalek patrols in this sector heading back to the ship. For a moment, she thought about how to avoid it. Then an idea struck her and she ran directly to it.
As soon as these Daleks came into view, she shouted at them. "Quickly, there is some rogue Daleks back there, trying to get away. Shoot it!"
The Daleks took her at her word and blasted one of her perusers out if the air. They returned fire and confused fire fight erupted behind her. She used the distraction to put as much distance between her and them as possible. She could still feel one or two of the Daleks chasing her, but they weren't so close now.
What she hadn't realised was that she'd got so lost in the mountains that she'd strayed towards the edge of the main battle lines. As she rounded a bend, she came face to face with some human troops. "Dalek to your front. Fire!"
"No wait!" She shouted, skidding to a halt, but too late. A soldier with a heavy gun blasted at her. Fortunately, he'd not been expecting her to skid to a halt and the shot passed across her bows before slamming into the rock wall beside her. Unfortunately, this was still close enough for her to get hit by the blast wave. It knocked a huge dent in the right hand side of her armour and sent her tumbling over to crash into the rocks on her left.
Her inertia compensators kept running just long enough to cushion her fall, but she still instinctively held out a hand to brace herself. In the few rels after the hit, she realised that her left hand was directly under her face. It was no longer restrained! She reached up and felt a broken cable trailing down the right hand side of her head. The explosion must have damaged it.
She grabbed the other probe and pulled it free. The view from her eyestalk finally vanished, to be replaced with a bronze coloured blur. She hadn't used her eyes in seven weeks and they were having trouble focusing.
She pulled out all the other systems that had attached themselves to her, before feeling around for a loose clamp. She quickly found some that the explosion had damaged and pushed the panel open. Once one had gone, the rest were relatively simple to unravel. She grabbed the edges and pulled herself out.
All around her, a fire fight was taking place. Fortunately, both sides were ignoring her since she'd apparently been destroyed.
As she'd feared, her legs wouldn't respond. Instead, she grabbed the edge of the rock she was lying on and pulled herself over, landing in a heap on the ground, now covered from the Dalek fire.
"There's someone down there!" A soldier shouted. "Grant, with me." A blur with a human outline appeared above her. "Can you walk?" She said
"No." Clara tried to say, but it all came out as a whisper. She shook her head instead.
"Grant, get her on your back and get her out of here."
Grant picked her up in a fireman's carry. As he did so, she began to hear a rumble above her.
"They're trying to bring down the rocks!" Someone shouted. "Move!"
Grant ran harder. From her position, Clara could make out shapes and outlines around her. She saw a bronze shape that was her casing lying on the floor, and watched as a huge grey shape descended on it. She watched as the casing, that had been her prison for the past 7 weeks, was smashed to pieces.
The troops had lain Clara on a stretcher, but left her where she was for the time being since there was nothing immediately wrong with her. As she lay, she heard the distant rumble as the ships all began to take off.
People around her cheered, but Clara was waiting with baited breath. If the Daleks had discovered the self destruct, she and Oswin had just condemned the planet to death. Although even that seemed preferable to a slow death under Dalek rule.
Her vision was slowly clearing as she lay watching the sky. Finally, she saw a series of points light up bright orange, before quickly fading. She lay back grinning in relief. The Daleks were gone.