Doctor Who - The Colony Of Lies Part 12

Kirann looked at them each in turn, the Doctor last. "So you"re the one I can blame this headache on?"

The Doctor looked a little concerned. "Headache? Oh dear, that isn"t good. You"d better lie down again."

"Leave me alone. I think I"ve had quite enough sleep, thank you." The woman looked at the two colonists again.

"Freedom," she repeated, thinking about the name, "Any relation to Jed Freedom?" she asked.

Freedom nodded. "My great-grandfather."

Dee could see that it was finally sinking in; Kirann was getting her head around what had happened to her.

"And my father...?" she asked, although she already suspected the worst.

Dee looked at Freedom, pa.s.sing the buck.

Freedom cleared his throat. "He died, not long after Planet Fall. I"m sorry."

Kirann tried to look unaffected. "Don"t worry about it," she said with a shrug, "It"s not like it happened yesterday."

The Doctor shook his head sadly. He watched her carefully as she climbed out of the Suspended Animation Cabinet, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. He knew that, for Kirann, it had had happened yesterday. happened yesterday.

Kirann shook her head too, trying to get her brain around what she had just been told. A few hours ago, by her reckoning, she had stepped into the cryo-chamber to be put into Deep Sleep. Her father should have been there to say a final goodbye. Except, of course, he wasn"t able to spare the time. He"d rushed in, given her a quick kiss, and promised her that he"d be there when she woke before promptly dashing off to deal with the latest in a long line of last-minute headaches. Typically he"d not given a second thought to the thousands of things that might go wrong, that might prevent him from being there when Kirann was revived. In the event, of course, he had pre-deceased her, by nearly a hundred years.

Turning away from the Doctor, and the two colonists, Kirann surrept.i.tiously wiped a tear from her eyes and cleared her throat. "Right, then," she announced, "I think it"s time you brought me up to speed."

The main bulk of the ECSV Hannibal Hannibal was a series of gleaming corridors and bright lights but Zoe knew that there would be a dark side. Even a state-of-the-art s.p.a.ceship like this had an "under stairs" area, where heat, grease, oil and darkness were more the order of the day - places like the engineering deck, the engine rooms, the food preparation and storage areas and the hangars for the shuttlecraft and other vehicles. Zoe made her way through these areas and didn"t come across a single living person. That"s not to say she found no signs of activity; she found droids of all sizes busy everywhere she went. Little maintenance droids changing lightbulbs and making other small repairs, larger messenger droids carrying supplies and refreshments to different parts of the ship and larger heavy-duty robots moving bulky packages and machinery, much of which looked to be weaponry. was a series of gleaming corridors and bright lights but Zoe knew that there would be a dark side. Even a state-of-the-art s.p.a.ceship like this had an "under stairs" area, where heat, grease, oil and darkness were more the order of the day - places like the engineering deck, the engine rooms, the food preparation and storage areas and the hangars for the shuttlecraft and other vehicles. Zoe made her way through these areas and didn"t come across a single living person. That"s not to say she found no signs of activity; she found droids of all sizes busy everywhere she went. Little maintenance droids changing lightbulbs and making other small repairs, larger messenger droids carrying supplies and refreshments to different parts of the ship and larger heavy-duty robots moving bulky packages and machinery, much of which looked to be weaponry.

She found herself in a hangar, where alongside a pair of the large shuttlecrafts similar to the one she had travelled up from the surface in, there were also a dozen or so smaller fighter s.p.a.cecraft. Zoe climbed into one for a closer look. The controls were unfamiliar to her but obvious: directional joystick, onboard computer, pilot"s chair with built-in ejection system. To Zoe"s delight there was also a flight uniform and, more importantly, a helmet. She checked it eagerly and saw that as well as a micro-screen that flipped down in front of the eyes to give a heads-up display, the helmet also offered computer access. Perhaps this would provide the back door that she was looking for.

Moments later Zoe was sinking into the mock leather of the pilot"s seat, slightly dwarfed by it - it was clearly designed for someone far bigger than she was. She slipped the helmet on to her head and was delighted to see that it did indeed give direct access to the little a.s.sault ship"s...o...b..ard computer, which was linked, in turn, to the main computer of the mother ship itself. Zoe had found her way in.

Allowing herself a quick self-congratulatory smile, she began ordering up some mission files. She wanted to know everything about the current mission.

Administrator Greene watched silently and patiently as Cartor began to receive reports from his security teams. The locate-and-apprehend order had gone out half an hour ago but with a further order to operate at a very low visibility level. Now, although a few two-man search crews were methodically working through the more remote areas of the ship, the bulk of the search was being conducted with the computer and the many surveillance and security cameras dotted around. A graphic on his screen showed an outline of the ship, a large area of which was glowing green, meaning that it had been searched and eliminated as a possible location of the missing girl. The rest of the ship was marked red, still being searched. Slowly but surely the red area was diminishing by the second. Soon there would be nowhere left to hide.

His communicator bleeped and Cartor flicked it open.

"Report," he barked into it.

"We think we"ve got her, sir. In the hangar," came the slightly tinny voice.

Cartor frowned. "What was she doing there?" He glanced over at the Administrator who just nodded.

"Wait there," Cartor ordered. "I"m coming down!"

The rush of information was too much even for Zoe and her capacious memory to deal with. She blinked, cleared her eyes and tried again, slowing the flood of data down. It was still an overwhelming experience as facts and figures rushed towards her at breathtaking speed, threatening to turn her mind into mush.

And then she saw it: a top-secret, for-your-eyes-only briefing doc.u.ment for Major Jonn Cartor. She got the screen to freeze and allowed herself the luxury of reading through it twice. She read about the background, the war against the Daleks, evil creatures she had heard about from the Doctor and Jamie but had never met. At this point in her future they were a dominant force in the galaxy, their empire spreading like a cancer through s.p.a.ce. An alliance had been formed to try to hold back their advance, an alliance in which the Earth Federation was playing a major part. But the price of this war, like any war, was high. Whole solar systems had to be abandoned and discarded like sacrificial p.a.w.ns in a deadly game of real-life chess. The human cost was the greatest, not just the death toll (which was bad enough) but also the displacement of people, entire races made homeless, creating innumerable refugees. And that was the secret behind Cartor"s mission to Axista Four. He wasn"t there to respond to the cries for help from the Realists, or to make a routine check on the colony"s development. He was there to prepare the ground for a ma.s.sive influx of newcomers. Eighty thousand men, women and children were already en route; en route; a tidal wave of humanity that would change the face of Axista Four overnight. Zoe realised that she needed to warn the colonists of the true scale of the refugee problem. She needed to get back to the Doctor and to find Jamie. There was only one possible result to a situation like this, and it would be both violent and b.l.o.o.d.y. She was certain that the TARDIS a tidal wave of humanity that would change the face of Axista Four overnight. Zoe realised that she needed to warn the colonists of the true scale of the refugee problem. She needed to get back to the Doctor and to find Jamie. There was only one possible result to a situation like this, and it would be both violent and b.l.o.o.d.y. She was certain that the TARDIS crew didn"t want to be stuck in the middle of it.

Zoe was about to disengage herself from the pilot"s chair when the computer flagged up something new for her attention. Hostile enemy action, it reported, telling Zoe that it had sensed armed humanoids approaching. Zoe asked the computer for a visual display and in the tiny screen in front of her right eye she was able to see a slight movement in a high observation gallery to one side of the hangar. She looked again and this time there was no mistaking what she was seeing: armed guards taking position. Panicking, she ordered the computer to show her a full 360-degree scan of the rest of the hangar, and now she knew what she was looking for, she could see activity on all sides. They"d found her and surrounded her. What could she do next?

She sat back in the pilot"s chair and tried to calm her racing heart. There had to be another way out. Almost without realising what she was doing she reached for the controls of the fighter craft and flicked the power-up switch.

Immediately she felt the throb of the powerful engines and the hydraulic lift as the vehicle orientated itself for prelaunch motion. Automatic systems kicked in as the machine began to roll forward. A fuelling robot detached itself and retracted into the sidewall of its cage as powerful lights flickered into life on the floor of the hanger, marking a runway.

And now the hidden troopers were no longer interested in remaining unseen. A few shots rang out and she felt the impact as projectiles bounced off her hull. At the far end of the hangar automatic s.p.a.ce doors were slowly rolling open.

Zoe realised that she had stumbled on a way out - but did she really want to take it? She knew plenty about the theory of flying but she was some way short of being a pilot. She rapidly flicked through the database and found what she was looking for: a vehicle manual file. She ordered the computer to display it at top speed. It was, as she had hoped, a fully ill.u.s.trated guide to the craft she was in. Zoe began to read, thanking her training for her speed-reading and data-absorbing talents.

Her radio crackled into life.

"Please turn off the engine and come out of there voluntarily or we will stop you by force."

It was Cartor. Zoe ignored him, concentrating on her studying. A quick glance up confirmed that the s.p.a.ce doors were now open. As the fighter craft trundled on to the start of the runway they automatically locked into their open position. Zoe, one eye still on the computer file, put her hand on the control joystick and began to open up the throttle.

In the observation booth Cartor"s jaw dropped. She was actually going to do it. This girl - whoever she was - was going to hijack his fighter. This could not be allowed. He"d be a laughing stock if word of this got back to Central... He glanced over at the silent figure of the omnipresent Administrator Greene, observing his every move.

"Override the s.p.a.ce doors," he barked into his communicator.

"But sir," someone began to complain before Cartor broke in on the channel again.

"Just do it."

Down on the floor of the hangar, the troops that had managed to find the emergency breathing gear hurried across to the side of the now open doors, holding on to safety lines to avoid being dragged out into s.p.a.ce should the minimum-resistance force field fail. Two of them tied themselves in place and began winding a mechanical override control. As they wound the giant metal lever in a huge arc, the doors began to move again, but very slowly.

Zoe"s eyes widened in horror. Was that door moving again?

She looked across at the other door and saw that it too was in motion. The doors were closing. Slowly, mechanically, powered by human arms rather than electricity, but moving nonetheless. The automatic launch systems of the fighter craft were locked; there was no way she could abort now. The fighter craft was gathering more speed with every second, heading for the gap in the wall, a s.p.a.ce that was ever smaller. Zoe bit her lip and did some rapid mental calculations. She decided that she could just make it but the sight of the marines, straining to turn the gear, and the closing doors narrowing the gap made her question her own abilities. She closed her eyes.

Cartor watched with frustration as the fighter shot out of the hold into the darkness of s.p.a.ce beyond, its pa.s.sage marked by a brief multicoloured flash as it pa.s.sed through the low-level force field. The fighter"s wings must have been within half a dozen centimetres of the metal doors on both sides: so near yet so far. He reached for his communicator again.

"Bridge," he almost spat, his eyes narrowing, "I want that ship stopped."

Zoe opened her eyes and was both relieved and surprised to see that she was in s.p.a.ce. She"d made it. Now all she had to do was use her new familiarity with the fighter to master its basic controls and fly down to the colony. All in a day"s work, she thought with a wry smile. Using her incredible memory to flash up in her mind"s eye each relevant section of the manual, she began to try each of the controls in turn. Before long she was satisfied that she had mastered basic orientation, acceleration and braking. Sophisticated matters like landing she could save for later. Right now she wanted to get clear of the ECSV before any of her craft"s twins were launched in pursuit.

Looking around with a quick sensor sweep, Zoe was puzzled to see that no such pursuit seemed to have been initiated. The ECSV hung in s.p.a.ce, slowly shrinking away as she put some distance between it and herself, but no other craft were visible at all. It was almost as though Cartor had given up.

As she moved away from the ESCV she noticed some odd-looking asteroids in orbit around the planet. There was something strange about the way they were s.p.a.ced out, something artificial. Instinctively Zoe was certain that these were not the innocent asteroids they appeared to be. She decided to take a closer look but then suddenly everything went dead. The controls, the readouts, monitors, everything. Including life support. Zoe realised that she was stuck in a dead vehicle floating in the vastness of s.p.a.ce with perhaps minutes of oxygen left to her if she was lucky. A dead craft and a soon-to-be-dead Zoe Heriot.

Zoe thought for a moment and concluded that, all in all, this had not been the most successful escape attempt she had ever made.

Chapter Eleven.

The Tyrenians were nothing if not a patient race. Although the necessity to rescue Dyselt from the clutches of the humans was urgent, Lorvalan hadn"t rushed the preparations for their raid. He and Zenig had watched and waited and hatched their plan over many hours before they even began its implementation. Robot drones, unsuited to the rocky terrain but mobile, with a little help from Zenig, had been placed in key locations and provided with precise instructions. At the same time, Lorvalan had carefully circled the human base and placed explosive devices at key points.

Some were timed, while others were primed to be set off by a radio signal.

Lorvalan returned to their initial observation point and found Zenig waiting patiently for him. He noted the eager expression on his lieutenant"s face and smiled. "Nearly time,"

he promised. The sun had pa.s.sed its apex; the long Axista afternoon had begun. Some of the humans who had returned to the base for a midday meal were now heading back out to the cultivated fields to adjust the settings on the various propagation systems and monitor the crop developments.

Gradually a silence descended on the settlement as the few remaining humans returned to their own tasks.

Lorvalan checked his weapons and nodded to Zenig to do the same. Satisfied that they were ready, he glanced at his chronometer and smiled.

The first explosion was not the loudest but, in being first, it had the additional element of surprise. It was positioned in the lower parts of the nearby hills and set off a minor avalanche of rock and earth as part of a cliff collapsed.

Almost exactly as planned the humans all emerged from the various buildings, some still clutching pens, notepads or bits of machinery that they had been working on. They looked in horror towards the dust cloud sent up by the crumbling rock.

Their expressions and cries suggested confusion. Had that been some natural event? If not, what the h.e.l.l was it?

Lorvalan was counting the seconds, fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.

Right on cue the firing started. The droid was programmed to make a quick sweep with the projectile weapon, pause, then reverse the movement. It was a simple and mechanical act; any soldier worth his uniform would instantly recognise the precise movement as being the result of some artificial intelligence, rather than a living one, but these humans were clearly not soldiers. Even as the bullet marks picked out a semi-circle in the dust some of them stood still, mouths flapping open, unable to read the situation. Others were quicker to react, flinging themselves and their loved ones to the ground or under cover. The firing was only intended to be distraction rather than an offensive action but Lorvalan noted with satisfaction that at least three humans were hit and one didn"t get up in a hurry.

Killing the humans, however pleasant given their history with that dishonourable race, was not the purpose of this attack; rescue was. As soon as the gunfire died away, the second and third blasts went off in quick succession. These were nearer to the camp, one on each side, and had the desired effect. The humans all took cover, sheltering from the attack, unsure where exactly it was coming from.

Lorvalan nodded to Zenig and the two powerful figures took advantage of the smoke that now hung densely between the prefabricated buildings of the base and, keeping their bodies low to the ground, headed towards the building they knew to hold the humans" "alien captive". As they moved in, the time-release explosives continued to go off; alternating between locations, giving the impression to the hapless humans that the attack was coming from all sides.

Lorvalan reached the entrance to the target building. With his back to the wall he provided cover, while Zenig took the door down with a well-aimed kick and headed inside. With one final glance around, Lorvalan followed him. Inside it was now Zenig"s turn to provide cover for him as he raced down a corridor, checking each room as he came to it.

The final door at the end of the corridor was the one they wanted, however. This was where Dyselt was being held. The two Tyrenians reached it without having encountered a single human. Zenig slammed into the wall and a.s.sumed a covering position. He nodded at his commander who walked up to the door, considered it a moment and then gave it a single kick with his foot. The door buckled and a second kick brought it clean off its hinges.

Lorvalan and Zenig entered the room, guns raised.

A young human in strange clothing, that left his legs bare, sat holding his hands up in the universally understood gesture of submission.

"Och," said Jamie, bemused, "who let the dogs out?"

For someone who had spent the last hundred or so years in deep cryogenic sleep, Kirann Ransom was showing remarkable powers of recovery, thought the Doctor. She had accepted the situation she had found herself in with an incredible calmness; with a willingness to embrace the unexpected that the Doctor would have welcomed in some of the humans who had travelled with him in the past.

They made their way back to Plymouth Hope, following Val Freedom as he picked a path through the decaying wreck of the colony ship. Kirann was clearly a little upset to see what had become of her father"s ship but this was nothing to her reaction to what had happened to her father"s dream.

As the Doctor had expected she was not impressed that the creed her father had chosen for his colony had become an ideological football, kicked around by opposing teams. 'Back 'Back to Basics to Basics was a set of ideas, not a set of rules," she explained angrily as they emerged from the bowels of the ship into the afternoon sun. "It was a framework, an ideal, not something you were meant to follow like some quirky religion." was a set of ideas, not a set of rules," she explained angrily as they emerged from the bowels of the ship into the afternoon sun. "It was a framework, an ideal, not something you were meant to follow like some quirky religion."

Dee and Freedom, as representatives of the people who had done just that, felt embarra.s.sed and tried to apologise but Kirann dismissed their "sorrys" with a wave of her hand.

"Don"t worry about it. It was your parents, and your parents"

parents..." She stopped, shaking her head as she heard her own voice. "All of whom were born after me but are already dead," she said, a tone of wonderment in her voice. "How weird is that?"

The Doctor smiled. "Actually it was quite common in the early days of Earth"s expansion. People were forever setting off in various forms of suspended animation only to find, when they got to their destination, their descendants had beaten them to it with superior technology developed after they had left."

Kirann stopped as a thought hit her. "Maybe something like that happened with us."

She could see that the others were not following her. "You said you suspected that there might be some third party on this planet? Some alien force that attacked the medical centre?"

Freedom and Dee had lost no time in bringing Kirann up to speed on recent events, as well as the details of the political situation. The Doctor had felt sorry for the woman having to take on so much detailed information in one great info-dump but Kirann Ransom seemed totally up to the job.

"The Doctor thinks it was an alien," Freedom said, shooting a sideways glance at the stranger. "Don"t you?" he prompted.

"Ah well, yes, I did wonder," the Doctor began beguilingly.

"Some sort of creature with claws, I should say."

"So these clawed aliens," Kirann continued, "perhaps they appeared here between our surveys and our arrival. Perhaps this planet wasn"t as unpopulated as we thought."

"But why haven"t we seen or heard from them until now?"

asked Dee.

"Perhaps it"s only now that you"ve given them a reason to show themselves," Kirann suggested.

Freedom led them to the point where they had left their horses. Gallantly he offered Kirann his mount but she declined. "I"ll walk," she insisted. "These muscles could do with the exercise. You go on ahead. I"ll walk down with the Doctor."

Slightly reluctant to leave their new-found leader, Dee and Freedom did as they were asked. Kirann watched their horses take them off into the distance towards Plymouth Hope, which lay at the bottom of the valley a few kilometres away. She turned to the Doctor.

"Well, Doctor, fancy meeting you again like this!"

The Doctor stared at her in amazement. He"d led a long life and met an awful number of people but his memory was generally pretty good, especially for humans; nevertheless, he was certain he"d never met this woman before in his lives.

Billy Joe had never been so frightened in all his life. All around him he could hear the sounds of battle - explosions, gunfire - but he could see nothing. He was lying at full stretch in the tiny roof s.p.a.ce of the building. He and Jamie had located a moveable panel in what had turned out to be a false ceiling. The s.p.a.ce above the ceiling was tiny and didn"t seem to offer too much hope of becoming an escape route, but Billy Joe had thought that he might be able to explore it.

With a great effort Jamie had managed to push the boy high enough to get into the gap he had created by removing a panel. Then, with a further hefty shove to his feet, Jamie had propelled Billy Joe upwards. He"d quickly pulled the panel back into place, in case any of the Realists came looking for him, and had started to explore the dark roof s.p.a.ce. He had quickly realised that there was, in feet, no other way out and had been about to return to Jamie when the fighting began.

Now he didn"t know what to do. In the darkness, in the enclosed s.p.a.ce, he actually felt safer now than anywhere else. He closed his eyes and waited for it to be over.

Hali hugged the ground as another explosion rocked the base. When the rumbling ceased, she popped her head up and looked around. Max was with her, and she was horrified to see how scared he looked. Things were out of control.

"Who the h.e.l.l is it?" he called across to her, not really expecting an answer.

"Maybe Kartryte"s mob finally figured out where we are," she suggested, but in her heart she knew how unlikely this was.

Even if the Loyalists had found their base they wouldn"t launch an attack like this; for one thing it was too technically sophisticated.

"We need help," Max said.

Hali considered for a moment. Where could they turn for help? They"d already made a radio plea but so far there was no sign of any answer from Earth Gov. However, there had been talk last night about something new in the sky: one of the Realists - Jobern, a man with an interest in the stars - had claimed that there was a new body orbiting the planet.

There had been a lot of discussion about his claim, most of it good-natured but dismissive, and the general conclusion had been that it was all in Jobern"s imagination. But what if there was something out there? Could it be a ship from Earth? Or was it perhaps the source of their current problem - the mother ship of the people attacking them? A radio plea for help couldn"t hurt, could it? something out there? Could it be a ship from Earth? Or was it perhaps the source of their current problem - the mother ship of the people attacking them? A radio plea for help couldn"t hurt, could it?