Illegal Aliens
Chapter One: Bloodbath
"Bloody Hell, Murdoch! What happened here?"
Detective Murdoch looked up to see the blocky form of Inspector Brackenreid silhouetted in the doorway of the warehouse. He rose from crouching over a body and went over.
"It's difficult to say, Inspector. It looks at first like a mass murder, but all the victims appear to have been armed and shooting back!
" But what is more worrying is that, as far as I can tell, the dead are the current members of the Brockley Gang!"
"What, all of them?" Brackenreid was incredulous.
"Most, at least." Murdoch assured him. "We have so far identified Daniel Brockley, his brother Adam and four of Daniels' five sons, as well as all of their accomplices apart from the boys they used to carry messages.
"If this was a fight, sir, the Brockleys seem to have failed to kill, or even seriously wound, any of their opponents!"
"That sounds bloody unlikely to me, Murdoch!" Brackenreid growled. "Are you sure the other lot didn't just take their dead and wounded with them?"
"Only if they also picked up their weapons and cleaned up any blood that they shed." Murdoch told him. "It is not easy to move a wounded or dead man in a hurry without leaving some trace!"
"No, it isn't." Brackenreid allowed. "This is going to be a bloody mess, Murdoch. The Brockleys' were no saints, and they ran rings round us and the courts, but they were a known quantity. If this is another gang, it looks like they're a bunch of vicious buggers!
"Ah, Dr Ogden! Found anything?"
"A great deal, Inspector, but not much of it makes sense!" Julia had come up beside Murdoch. "The wounds on the dead men are all very similar. Deep, penetrating wounds, some of which go completely through the victims."
"Rifles, then." Brackenreid said. "That might explain why there's no strangers among the dead. Difficult to counter rifle fire with only revolvers!"
"I don't think they were ordinary rifles." Julia said. "I'll need to do proper autopsies, but on initial examination it looks as if whatever killed these men burned through their bodies!"
"Burned?" Murdoch asked. "Like James Pendricks' thermal energy weapon?"
"Not entirely." Julia said. "Pendricks' weapon had a large area of effect, whereas this one seems to have one similar to an ordinary bullet."
"So we've got another crackpot inventor with a super-weapon!" Brackenreid grumbled. "Well, we know James is still alive, but we don't know where he is. Can you get hold of Tesla, Murdoch?"
"He is currently out of the country, sir. I don't know where."
"Sirs? Dr Ogden? There's something you need to see!"
Constable Crabtree had emerged from a side passage and was gesturing urgently. They followed him into a narrow corridor that ran down the side of the building. Julia coughed.
"What is that smell?" She asked.
"Some kind of chemical?" Murdoch suggested.
"The corridor was full of it." Crabtree said. "I had to open the door at the other end to get some air in. It looked as if the lock had been blown off."
A body lay in the corridor, on its back.
"Tom Brockley." Brackenreid said. "So that's all the Brockleys accounted for!"
"Unusual weapon." Murdoch noted. "It appears to be an elephant gun."
He cracked open the breech of the heavy, double-barrelled gun and two spent cartridges were expelled.
"Both barrels fired." Murdoch said.
"Yes, sir, and I can show you what they were fired at!" Crabtree said.
Further along was another body. It was clad entirely in silver, the head covered with a domed helmet. It lay on its back as if it had been facing Tom Brockley. Two large holes had been punched in its chest, which leaked a green fluid that had pooled around the body. The proportions of the body were somehow wrong; the shoulders seemed unnaturally wide, there was no apparent neck and the head looked too big.
"Either the armour is oddly-designed, or this poor man was terribly deformed!" Julia declared.
"What kind of deformity would turn blood green?" Crabtree asked.
"Don't you start, Buggerlugs!" Brackenreid snapped. "Next, you'll be telling us he comes from Mars!"
"Not necessarily Mars, sir." Crabtree said. "Perhaps Venus or Jupiter? Our blood is red because it has iron in it. His may have copper, or zinc instead."
"It's more likely, George, that the fluid comes from the armour." Murdoch said. "It's occurred to me before that a bag of fluid would absorb the impact of a blow or bullet better than a more rigid plate!"
"You might be right, Murdoch!" Brackenreid said, holding up a spent cartridge. "I've seen these before! It's a .577 Nitro Express round. One of these buggers can stop a charging rhino, but it looks as if Brockley needed two to put this one down, and he still got killed!"
Murdoch had picked up the weapon lying beside the strange corpse. It had the same basic outline as a rifle, but was shorter, resembling a carbine. It was much lighter than a normal weapon of its size, and while some of it appeared to be made from a silvery metal, other parts were of a black substance resembling celluloid, but obviously much stronger. There was a trigger in more or less the usual place and something resembling a magazine, but Murdoch could see no sign of a hammer, bolt or breech.
"George." He said. "Take this and lock it in the armoury at the station. Please handle it with great care!"
"Right away, sir!" George accepted the weapon gingerly and set off.
"Julia, I know you have a great deal of work, but I would like you to examine this body first." Murdoch asked.
"Of course, William!" Julia said. "It will be by far the most interesting. Rebecca will be able to start the preliminary work on the others."
They left the warehouse, and were immediately approached by a man whose oddly stooped, peering gait was unmistakable.
"Got anything, Watts?" Brackenreid asked.
Detective Watts shrugged. "Several people say they heard gunfire coming from the Brockley & Sons warehouse." He said. "But apparently that wasn't unusual! It seems that 'target practice' was quite common in there, and the locals knew better than to complain. Understandable.
"But some people who were closer say they heard a different sound as well. A kind of high-pitched sound like an angry wasp. Odd, very odd."
"Bloody odd indeed!" Brackenreid said. "Well, I'm off back to the station. What about you, Murdoch?"
"I must go and speak with Mrs Brockley." Murdoch replied. "Not that I expect it to be of much use!"
"No, she's as tough as her old man was, and just as close-mouthed." Brackenreid agreed.
XXXXX
Hilda Brockley was a robust woman who had once been lovely, and was still handsome. There were signs of recent tears in her eyes, but they still met Murdochs' directly, and her strong jaw and firm mouth didn't waver, despite the slight huskiness in her voice.
"I've heard of you, William Murdoch." She said. "The only copper in this town my Dan ever respected. He once said to me that if you'd set your stall out to get him, he'd have turned himself in on the spot. He was glad you were more interested in murders than in what he did!"
"We never were able to link your husband and his accomplices to any killings." Murdoch allowed.
"Dead people don't pay." Hilda replied. "Dan used to say there was only so far you could push a man before he turned on you. Never push too hard nor ask for too much, and make good on your promises."
"How familiar were you with your husbands' business dealings?" Murdoch asked.
"I knew what he did, but not the details." She replied. "Except when some poor woman came to me crying that her man was too free with his fists. Then I'd mention it to Dan and it would get sorted."
"I see. I must ask, Mrs Brockley, is there anyone who might have wished your husband dead?"
She gave a short laugh that had no humour in it.
"Fewer than you might think, Detective!" She replied. "There were the O'Hallorans, but Dan showed them out of Toronto years ago! The Black Hand and the Tongs stick to their own kind.
"But lately there's been another lot around. They don't have a name, but their boss calls himself the Colonel."
"What have they been doing?" Murdoch asked.
"Making trouble!" She answered. "Dan told me they send messengers round, saying that the Colonel is taking command, that they're to obey his orders and hand over forty percent of profits. Madame Vivace refused, so they burned her out and dumped her and her girls thirty miles outside town! I'm surprised you didn't hear about that!"
"It would have been handled by another Station House." Murdoch told her. "And you have no idea as to who or where this Colonel might be?"
"No." She allowed. "But if he is a military man, the gangs aren't going to be up to beating him – most of them aren't organised enough!"
XXXXX
It had not been easy stripping the unusual corpse. The clothing was composed of metal, or metallic threads, that would not yield to knife or shears. However, with the help of her assistant, Rebecca James, Julia had managed to locate the fastenings and remove the clothing.
"Rebecca, I don't think this is human!" Julia was more than a little shocked and Rebeccas' face indicated a similar state of mind.
The body measured about five feet two inches long, with thick legs and arms, wide shoulders, no visible neck and a large head, the skin being a brown colour. There was a recognisable face, with close-set eyes, a beak of a nose and a slightly narrow mouth, the ears were large and slightly protruding. Most of the body was heavily-muscled and it was entirely hairless. The two gaping wounds in the chest gave ample indication of the cause of death, but the fluid that had leaked from them was green.
"It may sound strange coming from someone like me," Rebecca said, "but I was wondering about some strange tribe from Africa, Australia or South America! Or perhaps some kind of prehistoric ape-man. But the green blood…!"
"Yes, I don't know whether I'm performing an autopsy or a dissection!" Julia said. "Still, I'd better carry on as normal. Rebecca, will you make a start on Daniel Brockley? I promise to call you if I need any help!"
Julia began by collecting enough of the green fluid to make slides and other tests later. Then she set to, making the Y-incision she had found useful before. It was hard work, the skin was tough, the muscle tissue very dense and the bones thick and heavy, but she was a strong, determined woman and she managed it. The lungs, she noted, were very large. She found the two heavy-calibre bullets. One was lodged in the spine, severing the spinal nerve, another had passed through the heart, which was also uncommonly large. Upon removing this organ for further examination, Julia found it had eight chambers, rather than the usual four. She called Rebecca over to show her.
"This is very strange!" She said. "Most reptiles have only three chambers in their hearts. Mammals, like ourselves, have four. Why does this being have eight?"
"Four for each lung, supposed to make it more efficient!" This was a new voice, a tenor with an English accent. "You shouldn't really be doing this!"
Both women turned to see a pair of figures coming into the room. A tall slender man wearing a brown overcoat over a blue suit, a white shirt and a loosely-fastened red tie. He had brown hair and a thin, handsome face with piercing dark eyes. Slightly behind him came a pretty blonde girl in a plain blue dress.
"I am doing my job, sir!" Julia said. "I am Dr Julia Ogden, City Coroner, this is my assistant, Miss James. Who are you and how did you get in here?"
"Through the door." He said. "Not much of a lock. Oof! Sontarans aren't pretty on the outside, but they're even worse on the inside! How did you get hold of one?"
"From a crime scene." Julia told him. "Again, who are you?"
"I'm the Doctor." He said. "See that? Digestive system's very simplified. They get energy through the probic vent, but they can eat if they need to!"
"Sort of like a back-up or emergency system?" The young woman asked, in a voice with more than a hint of Cockney.
"Sort of." The man who called himself the Doctor replied.
"Doctor who?" Julia demanded, at the edge of her patience.
The Doctor sighed and produced a battered leather wallet from his jacket, which he flipped open and showed her.
"Doctor John Smith." Julia read aloud. "Torchwood Institute. What is the Torchwood Institute?"
"The people who deal with this sort of thing." He told her. "This is my assistant, Rose Tyler, by the way."
"Alright?" The young woman asked with a bright smile. "I didn't expect to see a woman doing this kind of job at this time!"
"I've been very fortunate." Julia allowed. "Inspector Brackenreid and Detective Murdoch are forward-looking men!"
"Well, this is a bit too far forward!" Doctor Smith stated. "We'll have to take this all away, then try to find his ship before someone else does!"
"I'm afraid that won't be possible." Murdoch said as he came into the room with Crabtree. "The body is evidence in a major crime, and we cannot release it yet!"
Dr Smith swung round. "Crime? What crime? Who are you?"
"I am Detective William Murdoch, Toronto Constabulary, this is Constable Crabtree. I'm investigating the incident. And you are?"
Smith produced his wallet again. Murdoch frowned.
"I'm aware of the Torchwood Institute, but I didn't know they had a branch in Toronto." He said.
"No reason you should." Smith told him. "But this body definitely comes under our authority!"
"Excuse me, sir." Crabtree broke in. "But that piece of paper didn't say anything about an Institute!"
"I beg your pardon, George, but…" Murdoch peered at the wallet, which Smith was still holding toward him. "That's odd, the printing has changed, it looks hand-written!"
"Yes sir." Crabtree said. "It says 'The Doctor, last of the Time Lords, plus one. Here to help.'"
Rose laughed. "Busted!" She said. "You trust that psychic paper too much! Told you we should get the TARDIS to print us off some real fake ID!"
"She doesn't like telling fibs." The Doctor said. He stared at the constable quizzically. "What did you say your name was?"
"Crabtree, sir, George Crabtree." Was the reply.
"Don't call me sir!" The Doctor said sharply. "Just 'Doctor' will do. Crabtree, Crabtree…rings a bell." He snapped his fingers and exclaimed. " The Curse of the Pharaohs! You're that George Crabtree?"
"Yes, sir – Doctor." Crabtree said. "You've read it?"
"Of course I have!" The Doctor replied. "It's a classic! Absolutely brilliant! They all are."
"All?" Crabtree asked. "Doctor, I've only written the one!"
"So far." The Doctor told him. "Now, Detective, tell me about this major crime!"
"I see no reason why I should share information with a stranger who tried to present me with forged documents." Murdoch answered.
"Not forged!" The Doctor protested. "Psychic paper! It just shows what you think it should show. Unless you're particularly imaginative, creative or open-minded. But like it said, I'm here to help!"
"William," Julia interrupted, "it might be wise to explain matters to the Doctor. He seems to know something - more than I do – about this body!"
Murdoch examined the body briefly. "It's certainly not a normal one." He remarked.
"William, it's not human!" Julia said. "The Doctor called it a 'Sontaran'."
"I see." Murdoch turned to the Doctor. "So I presume you are claiming that this man is from another planet. Mars, perhaps?"
"It wouldn't be Mars, sir." Crabtree put in. "Martians come from Mars. If this is a Sontaran he'll come from… Sontara, I suppose."
"Sontar." The Doctor corrected him. "Yes, his species originated there, but Sontar was destroyed a long time ago. This one would have come from a cloning plant on a conquered planet.
"I thought he'd been killed when his ship crashed here, but he wasn't, was he? What happened to him?"
"He was shot." Julia replied. "Twice. One bullet went through his heart and is lodged in the muscles of his back. The other went into the spine and cut the cord."
She showed the Doctor the slug she had retrieved. He put on a pair of glasses and peered at it.
".577 Nitro Express." He said. "That makes sense. Not many other guns around at this time could go through Sontaran armour. Most of them would barely go through a Sontaran without armour! So who shot him and why?"
Murdoch explained about the Brockley Gang and the massacre at the warehouse. The Doctor asked to see one of the human bodies. He produced a pen-sized instrument from his pocket which emitted an intense blue light and a trilling sound as he passed it over the body.
"Normal human." He noted. "Killed with a phased plasma carbine by the look of it. Typical Sontaran light infantry weapon."
"We have the weapon this fellow was carrying in our armoury." Murdoch told him. "I was planning to test it on the range, later."
"Well don't!" The Doctor told him. "If you get the setting wrong, you could blow a wall out!" He shook his head. "This isn't right!" He said. "Sontarans are soldiers, not gangsters. They don't need money, especially not human money! If they were stranded here, they'd either try to take over the country, if there were enough of them, or hide until their fleet got here!"
"Perhaps they are Sontaran criminals?" Rebecca suggested.
"No." The Doctor said. "There are no Sontaran criminals. They're all soldiers. It's what they were designed for, originally. They come out of the clone tanks fully-grown, fully-trained and battle-ready!"
"What is a clone?" Julia asked.
"Like a worker bee." The Doctor said. "A queen bee can produce thousands of eggs, all hatching into identical workers. Sontaran clone plants do the same thing, only with machinery and using basic DNA."
"So this Sontaran is…artificial?" Rebecca asked.
"They all are." The Doctor told her. "Created by the Kaveetch as soldiers in their war against the Rutans. The Kaveetch and the Rutans were both wiped out a long time ago, but the Sontarans survived. Now they're at war with just about everyone – it's all they know how to do."
"Are you implying, Doctor, that this being was created by man, not God?" Murdoch asked.
The Doctor looked at him quizzically. "The Kaveetch were humanoids, but not human." He said. "They started by cloning themselves, then used genetic engineering to alter the DNA into what became Sontarans. So the Sontarans are altered, but not completely artificial. The Kaveetch evolved in the normal way."
"It would help if I knew what DNA was." Julia said. "Genes and chromosomes I know about, is DNA something to do with those?"
"It's the bit that makes the genes and chromosomes work." The Doctor told her. "And I can't tell you anymore because it won't be discovered for another twenty or thirty years!"
"You're from the future, then?" Crabtree asked.
"No, but I've been there." The Doctor said.
"I'm from the future." Rose supplied. "Your future – Earths' future – anyway!"
"Can we," Murdoch asked in a strained voice, "get back to the case?"
"Oh, right!" The Doctor said. "Well at first I thought the Brockleys might have been aliens in disguise, but they're not. So now I've no idea what the Sontarans might be up to!"
"There's a leader called the Colonel who seems to want to take over all the criminal gangs in the city." Murdoch said. "If these Sontarans are soldiers, as you say, then they may be working for him."
"Yes, but why?" The Doctor said.
"Maybe he thinks the gangs are the ones that really run things?" Rose suggested.
"They aren't as powerful as that, though they're certainly influential." Murdoch noted. "I know where the padrone of the Black Hand can be found. It may be worth speaking to him, though I doubt he will be very forthcoming!"
"Oh, he'll probably talk to me!" The Doctor said airily. "I knew the man who founded the Black Hand!"
"What happened?" Rose asked.
"I made him an offer he couldn't refuse!" The Doctor told her. " Allons-y!"
XXXXX
Julia, at Williams' request, had gone to the Station House to tell Inspector Brackenreid and Detective Watts the situation. Watts took the whole thing in stride, but then the man had a peculiar way of thinking that Julia had never really understood. She had expected sarcastic incredulity from the Inspector, but he had listened gravely throughout. Then he had instructed Watts to pursue enquiries at other Station Houses about gang activity in their areas. "Just don't mention men from Mars or this Doctor, not for now, anyway!"
Julia was about to follow Watts out when Brackenreid held her back with a gesture, then closed the office door again.
"Sit down, Julia." He said. His rare use of her given name meant that something important was about to be said. Brackenreid sat behind his desk, opened the bottom drawer and pulled out the bottle of whisky he kept there. Thomas Brackenreid was a hard-drinking man, but seldom in the office and she had never seen him drink so early in the day. Now he poured out a small measure of whisky, and mutely offered her the same, which she declined.
"I'm going to tell you something, Julia, that not even Margaret knows." He told her. "It's up to you how much you tell William -you can both keep a secret – but I'd rather you didn't tell Watts, Miss James or bloody Crabtree! Especially not Crabtree, he's got enough odd ideas of his own and I don't want this ending up in a storybook!
"This happened in Afghanistan. The squad I was with got ambushed, the ones that didn't get killed got scattered. It was up in the mountains, and I was trying to make my way back to camp. Anyway, I was sneaking along, because the mountain people are crafty and damn good shots. I was on a ridge, and I saw an Afghan sniper on another one below me. He was lining up on another British soldier on the track below him. Then he fired and the soldier went down. But by that time I'd got a bead on the sniper and killed him.
"I went down to see if the soldier had survived. I recognised him, Scots bloke called MacLeod. Now this is where it gets strange, Julia.
"MacLeod had been drilled clean through the chest. I could see the hole. He wasn't breathing, his heart wasn't beating. He was as dead as dead can be! I didn't want to leave him for the animals, so I started collecting stones to make a cairn. Then I heard him gasp! I looked over and he gasped again – his whole body shuddered – then he sat up and looked at me!
"Next thing I remember he was sitting me up and pouring rum down my throat! I'd never passed out before, except from drink, and for a minute I thought I'd been asleep and dreamt the whole thing. But there was the bullet hole in his jacket and the bloodstain, but no wound!
"I think MacLeod realised that he wouldn't be able to spin me a tale, so he just told me the truth. He was an Immortal, one of a group of people who don't die. The way he told it me is that they're born just like ordinary people, and if they reach a certain age without being killed, they just age and die naturally. But if something happens, if they get killed in a fight or an accident, they come back to life and stay at that same age forever. The only way to kill them then is to cut their heads off. Sounded like a fairy story to me, but then I'd seen it, hadn't I?
"Took us a week to get back to camp, and Connor talked a lot. He'd been born in the 16th Century, he'd travelled the world and seen an awful lot. Some of it was stranger than anything Crabtree could write! He told me that some Immortals hunt others down and kill them for something called the 'Quickening'. That there are groups of ordinary people who also hunt down Immortals.
"But – and this is the important bit – he told me about other beings who aren't Immortals, but don't die, either. One of them is called The Doctor. The Immortals say this Doctor can travel through time, that he changes his appearance, that 'he' can even be a woman, sometimes! But they all say, never cross The Doctor, or get in his way. Because he only turns up when there's real trouble! Trouble for the whole world.
"So just in case this is the same man, Julia, you'd better let William know! He needs to be very careful. Murdoch isn't good at backing off from a case, wherever it leads, but there might come a time when he needs to walk away and let The Doctor do what he has to do!