Doctor Who_ Loving The Alien Part 1

DOCTOR WHO:.

LOVING THE ALIEN.

by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker.

PART ONE.

Chapter One.

'This is the BBC Here at Winnerton Flats hundreds of people have turned out to watch history being made. In the distance the elegant turned out to watch history being made. In the distance the elegant shape of the shape of the Blue Streak Blue Streak rocket dominates the skyline, and on top of it rocket dominates the skyline, and on top of it the experimental Waverider, the plane that the British Rocket Group the experimental Waverider, the plane that the British Rocket Group hope will put a man into orbit and them into the record books. hope will put a man into orbit and them into the record books.

'Here in the launch control room there is an air of barely concealed excitement as white-coated technicians scurry around like ants, excitement as white-coated technicians scurry around like ants, checking and rechecking their calculations, all eyes on the clock checking and rechecking their calculations, all eyes on the clock ticking relentlessly towards zero hour. ticking relentlessly towards zero hour.

'As for Uncle Sam, well, he's starting to look a little green with envy as our plucky chaps look like beating them to the punch. On the other as our plucky chaps look like beating them to the punch. On the other side of the pond the Dyna-Soar project has run into a few problems, side of the pond the Dyna-Soar project has run into a few problems, whilst here all systems are go, ready to make the Dyna-Soar look like a whilst here all systems are go, ready to make the Dyna-Soar look like a dinosaur!' dinosaur!'

Rita Hawks raised a perfectly measured eyebrow and gave an unlady like snort of contempt.

'If that's the best reporting you can do, then you're the only dinosaur round here, bud!'

The grey-suited BBC reporter cupped his hand over his microphone and gave her a disapproving look.

'If you don't mind, madam, we are on the air!'

'Yeah? Well, chances are that any listeners you had have probably dozed off. Still, it could be worse. They might be able to see you instead of just hear you, and you've got a face that was made for radio.'

There were guffaws from her fellow or, rather rival journalists.

The BBC man spluttered with indignation. 'Well, really.'

There was a good-natured chuckle from the doorway. 'Hey, Rita, the war's over, remember, and even if it weren't, I think we were on the same side as the Brits.'

Rita flashed a brilliant smile at the young army major who had just entered the control room. 'Ah, I know, Bill, but these BBC guys are an easy target. They bring out the worst in me.'

1.'And I thought it was me that did that.'

'No, you bring out the mother in me. It's those baby cheeks of yours.'

'Flattery now?'

'You get all the flattery you need from these British girls; I've seen you prowling the officers' club.'

'But you know that I prefer older women.'

'Well, if you're going to insult me, you can let me smoke a cigarette.'

Rita pulled an elegant silver cigarette case from her handbag and snapped it open. 'Got a light?'

'Sure.' The major slipped a lighter from his jacket and flicked it into life, cupping his hands over the tip of her cigarette.

'Thanks.' Rita took a deep drag and blew a cloud of blue smoke into the air. There was a cough from the control room. One of the white-coated lab technicians was looking at her sternly over the rim of his gla.s.ses.

'Miss Hawks, must I remind you yet again about smoking in the control room?'

'All right, all right! Jeez.' She fanned her hand through the cloud of cigarette smoke, sending wispy spirals towards the ceiling.

'I'd better step out onto the terrace. Care to join me, Bill?'

The major pulled his cap onto his head and grinned. 'I don't think that the general would be too pleased to find his staff fraternising with members of the opposite s.e.x whilst on duty.'

'Well, if the general would like to fraternise with me, I could do with a few words for the paper.'

'Well, I don't know...'

'Oh, come on Bill, what's the point of me being well connected if my connections don't get me any closer than this? All I need is five minutes with him. It'd be a h.e.l.luva scoop.'

'Are you sure you wouldn't rather spend five minutes with me? I know a quiet little place...'

'Bill Collins...'

'OK! OK! I'll see what I can do' He grinned. 'But I'll have to lie about the paper. You don't think your rag usually gets invited to these shindigs, does it? I'll say you're from the Mirror Mirror.'

'Why not The Times The Times?'

Collins smirked.

'Say anything!' Rita blurted.

'And it's going to cost you a drink later.'

Rita sighed.

'Sure. You never give up, do you?'

2.'Never.

With a wink Major Collins straightened his uniform and crossed the control room. Two privates snapped to attention as he pa.s.sed and he gave a lazy salute. Rita smiled. The young major was so c.o.c.ky. Cute, but not her type. She raised her cigarette again, then caught the eye of the lab technician.

'I'm going! I'm going!'

She pulled open the door of the control room and stepped out onto the terrace that overlooked the launch site. The November air was crisp and cold, and Rita pulled her cardigan tighter around her shoulders, glad of the warmth from the cigarette. She squinted through the morning glare to where the rocket sat on its launch pad. The slender shape glinted under the winter sun, like the steeple of some technological church.

Rita nodded in approval. She liked that a.n.a.logy. She'd use it in her article. Show the BBC guys what real journalism was all about. A gust of cold wind sent ash from the tip of her cigarette skittering across the terrace and she ducked behind one of the crumbling columns that lined this wing of the house.

It was typical of the Brits to set a state-of-the-art s.p.a.ce development centre in the sh.e.l.l of an Edwardian manor. She craned her neck and looked back along the elegant frontage. Up to the line of the second floor windows Winnerton Manor looked like any one of a number of crumbling British country houses that littered the countryside, but the forest of aerials sprouting from the roof, and the huge radar dish that dominated the south wing, distinguished it as something different.

Winnerton Manor must have been impressive in its day, but time and the war had taken their toll. Out in the grounds, corrugated-iron huts sat amongst the rubble that had once been stables and outbuildings, rough, tyre-worn tracks cutting ugly swathes through the remains of the gardens. One wing of the house was gone completely, blown into dust by a German bomb intended for the docks. What remained had been hurriedly sh.o.r.ed up with scaffolding and timber by the army, holes in the stonework repaired with brick and concrete forming harsh blemishes amidst the Edwardian grandeur. The gentle sweep of the drive leading from the main road was now dotted with barriers and checkpoints, khaki-uniformed soldiers tensing whenever a car rounded the curve of the road.

Whereas the house might once have dominated the sweep of land running down to the estuary, it now paled into insignificance next to the stainless steel tower that sat at the end of the lawn, the grey concrete slabs of the launch platform showing none of the skill and 3 care that had gone into the house.

It saddened Rita. She was from Ohio. The oldest building they had back home was only 150 years old. Here in Britain they had buildings ten times older than that a history, an ancient history, that had been systematically blown from the face of the country, and she wasn't sure whether the rebuilding was going to be as elegant. They were entering a new era, a new age, and already she was beginning to feel hopelessly out of her depth. As the BBC guy had said... a dinosaur...

It was the rocket that both impressed and terrified Rita. A Blue Blue Streak Streak rocket. One hundred and fifty feet of stainless steel powered by two Rolls Royce RZ2 rocket engines. A rocket built with the express purpose of retaliating against a Russian nuclear strike. A rocket designed to cause maximum devastation to people and property. A weapon of Armageddon. rocket. One hundred and fifty feet of stainless steel powered by two Rolls Royce RZ2 rocket engines. A rocket built with the express purpose of retaliating against a Russian nuclear strike. A rocket designed to cause maximum devastation to people and property. A weapon of Armageddon.

The devastation caused here in Britain by the Germans was like petty vandalism compared with what her fellow countrymen could now inflict on the world. The day of 9 August 1945 should have been a happy one for Rita. Her thirtieth birthday. A day that she had intended celebrating sedately with her family out on the farm, then heading into town and getting unsedately drunk with her friends. A friendly, amiable celebration. Instead, it had become a day when a city was wiped from the face of the planet in the blink of an eye. A day when conflict became unwinnable. She had never been able to celebrate her birthday with any enthusiasm since then. To mark the anniversary of her arrival into the world when that same day had seen so many lives extinguished from it always left her with a bad taste in her mouth, and so she lied, made excuses, avoided any mention of her birthday at all. It was easier here in England. Here her close friends were few and far between, and her colleagues on the paper were more interested in her stories than her age.

Who could tell? Maybe the rocket would do some good give the Russians pause for thought. If the rumours were true, this would make England a significant nuclear player, help redress the balance.

Anyway, this was a peaceful flight. The rocket had been adapted to carry a pilot. She stared up at the delta-winged shape perched precariously on the nose of the rocket where once a warhead would have sat.

The Waverider. An experimental s.p.a.ce plane capable of taking man into s.p.a.ce and bringing him back down again. Rita made a mental note.

If this worked, then next year her first birthday of the new decade she would celebrate in style, with a man on her arm. Not one of these soldier boys, with their quick quips and their fancy uniforms; a proper 4 man, someone she could settle down with...

The harsh rasp of a match on its box caused Rita to look up. A man had stepped out onto the terrace and lit a slim, twitching cigar, his eyes fixed firmly on the rocket.

Rita started. The man was none other than the director of the BRG, Edward Drakefell. She frowned. What the h.e.l.l was going on? Less than fifteen minutes before the rocket was due to launch and the director of the project was stepping out for a quiet smoke? From what she had seen of the chaos inside, she couldn't imagine he would want to take his eye off the ball for a moment.

A furtive movement behind the curtains of the French windows caught her eye. A white-coated technician hovered worriedly inside the house. Seemed that she wasn't the only one who thought that Drakefell should be indoors. Drakefell seemed oblivious to both of them. He fiddled nervously with his cigar, blowing great clouds of smoke into the November morning without seeming to enjoy it.

The roar of an engine caught his attention. Rita looked down to see an army jeep roar out across the tarmac, the figure in the pa.s.senger seat bulky in a silver pressure suit, and the technicians in the rear making endless last-minute adjustments to the controls on the figure's helmet and backpack.

At the same time a klaxon started to wail and a clipped English voice crackled from the speaker above Rita's head.

'All personnel please proceed to firing positions. I repeat, would all personnel please report to their firing positions. Fuelling procedures are commencing. We are fifteen minutes from launch.'

The announcement seemed to goad the figure loitering behind the curtains into action. Opening the French window he called nervously to Drakefell.

'Director? Sir? The final checks...'

Drakefell, still watching the jeep making its way towards the rocket, ignored him.

'Sir...'

'Yes, all right, I'm coming!' Drakefell stubbed his cigar out on the side of a pillar and pushed past the embarra.s.sed technician.

Rita took a last drag on her own cigarette and flicked the stub carelessly into the wind.

'Showtime...'

The control room was abuzz with nervous excitement. Engineers darted between banks of machinery checking and rechecking data, flight controllers relayed a steady stream of instructions to the rocket, 5 while the voice of Colonel Thomas Kneale echoed harsh and tinny from a dozen speakers bolted without care to the Edwardian plaster work.

'Pre-flight checks complete. All lights green on my board. Receiving you loud and clear, Control.'

Drakefell nodded.

'Thank you, Colonel. Start final checks.'

'Wilco. Oh, and tell Jefferson to get that drink he owes me set up.

I'm going to be collecting.'

A ripple of laughter ran around the control room. The wager between Thomas Kneale and Hugh Jefferson, the barman at the Winnerton Hotel (strictly off-limits), that the Waverider would never get off the ground, was apparently well known.

Rita smiled and jotted the good-natured exchange down in her notebook. She liked Thomas Kneale. Thanks to Bill Collins, she'd spent an hour with him and Davey O'Brien, his relief pilot, yesterday and found the two young astronauts refreshingly straightforward and totally unfl.u.s.tered by what they were about to do.

She glanced over to where O'Brien was sitting at the front of the control room. His face was unreadable. Was he relieved that he wasn't there, strapped into a seat on the top of an intercontinental ballistic missile? Disappointed that it was Kneale's name and not his that would be gracing the history books?

Irritatingly, Rita heard the BBC reporter talking along similar lines into his microphone, his constant low commentary and perfect enunciation giving the entire proceedings the air of a royal wedding or a funeral. She made a mental note to change her piece.

A door opened and Bill Collins marched smartly into the room, winking almost imperceptibly through the gla.s.s at Rita as he pa.s.sed her.

'Perimeter secure, Director.'

Drakefell nodded. Thank you, Major.'

Bill snapped smartly to attention and turned on his heel.

On the far side of the control room the American contingent stood straight-backed and straight-faced. Towering over his colleagues, the imposing figure of General Crawhammer scrutinised the proceedings, impa.s.sive behind his mirrored sungla.s.ses. Bill saluted crisply and fell into line next to the general.

Drakefell drew his chair close into his control position; an expectant hush settled over the room. Even the BBC reporter stopped his relentless commentary 'Right, gentlemen.' The director's voice was calm and low. 'Can 6 you please start the final countdown? Colonel Kneale, I wish you G.o.d speed.'

'Thank you, Director.'

At a nod from Drakefell, one of the technicians started a stopwatch, counting down in slow, measured tones. Rita crossed to one of the bulky periscopes set on one wall, pushing in front of the gentleman from The Times The Times. She had screamed about getting a proper photograph of the launch from the terrace, but Bill had cheerfully informed her that because of the chance of explosion, all observers would have to watch from the safety of the house, via several huge periscopes in the press gallery. All the photographs were being taken by automatic cameras, and appropriate pictures would be circulated to the press later. Bill had promised to make sure that Rita got the pick of the bunch, but she was sure that that would probably involve dinner at the very least.

Through the periscope the rocket seemed impossibly close. Behind her she could hear the countdown being monotonously maintained.

How could the guy remain so calm, for G.o.d's sake? Rita's heart was hammering in her chest.

'Twelve, eleven...'

Out in the grounds a siren began to wail, a long, drawn-out howl cutting through the November air. Rita shivered. It was too much like an air-raid siren, or the early warning signal for imminent nuclear strike that the radio kept reminding them of.

'Eight, seven...'

Rita gripped the sides of the periscope. Vapour had started to vent from the sides of the rocket.

'Five, four, three...'

The rest of the countdown was lost in the roar as the engines ignited.