Doctor Who_ War Of The Daleks Part 12

Ayaka's mind seemed to stumble back to awareness. 'With me?'

'Yes.' He tossed her the communicator, which was shaped like a bracelet. He then closed the door again.

'There goes that escape,' Sam said with a sigh.

The Doctor shook his head and opened his hand. The sonic screwdriver was nestled there. Sam grinned. Good old sleight of hand!

'Ayaka,' the communicator said. 'I'm out of my depth here. I need your advice.'

'This has to be a first,' the Doctor murmured. 'The captain of a ship asking his model prisoner for advice.'

'Cathbad was never interested in command,' Ayaka said simply. 'He's good at following orders, but not too innovative.' She tapped the control. 'Ayaka here. Cathbad, I cannot command a battle from a jail cell. You will have to cope.'

'It's not that,' Cathbad answered. Sam could hear the strain in his voice. He'd seemed like a nice guy, and very young. He had to be feeling totally inadequate for this. 'The Daleks want us to surrender.'

'What?' Ayaka was startled. 'Are you sure?'

'I heard the signal,' he said, troubled. 'Ayaka, they've never requested a surrender before.'

'It must be a trick,' Ayaka decided. 'They wish to avoid a fight. They will kill us all afterwards.'

The Doctor placed a hand over hers. 'I don't think it is a trick as such,' he said softly. 'They know we have Davros aboard. They must want him alive for some reason. Maybe the same one Delani had in mind. Maybe they're having more trouble with the Movellans. I'm not sure. But they obviously don't want to destroy this ship and lose him.'

Ayaka nodded. 'That makes sense, Doctor. But surrender is hardly an option. They will kill us all when we have laid down our weapons. It's better to die fighting.'

'That may not be your best option,' the Doctor warned her.

'It is all we can do,' Ayaka said simply. To Cathbad, she added, 'You must fight while you can.'

'Understood.' He sounded relieved. 'Thank you, Ayaka.' The line went dead.

Chayn snorted. 'Are you sure you don't want to take command back again?'

'I am dishonoured,' Ayaka answered. 'The troops would have no confidence in me.'

'It didn't sound that way just now,' Chayn informed her.

'Cathbad is my friend,' Ayaka said. 'He values my opinion. The rest of the crew would not be so considerate.'

Sam tapped the Doctor on the shoulder. 'Isn't it time for the great escape?' She tried not to sound too scared. 'Right now, I'd really love to be back inside the TARDIS.'

'That may not be our best option, either,' the Doctor answered. He was clearly very troubled. 'I don't understand what's happening here. Is leaving this cell really the best thing to do?'

'Speaking for me, yes,' Sam replied. 'Let's get back to the TARDIS and scarper before they blow us all to smithereens.'

'Good point,' the Doctor agreed. He moved back to the lock, and started to work on it.

Sam turned to Chayn and Ayaka. 'Are you two coming with us? The TARDIS can get us away from here in safety.'

Chayn grinned. 'That's the Doctor's time and s.p.a.ce machine? Sam, you'd have to lock the doors to keep me out of there! I'm dying to take a peek at what makes it tick.'

Ayaka shook her head. 'I shall stay here,' she replied. 'These are my people, and I should be with them.'

Sam couldn't believe her. 'Look, if you stay, you've got two options. First, the Daleks blow up the ship and you die. Second, the Thals get you back home, they put you on trial and you die. Either way, you die. Is that really what you want?'

'No, of course not,' Ayaka admitted. She looked wistful. 'I should dearly love to see my daughter again now. But I cannot abandon my people. I have committed a crime and I must be prepared to account for my actions. If I am sentenced to die, then so be it. But I will not be a coward and run away.'

'More fool you, then,' Sam informed her. But, at the same time, she supposed there was something admirable in the Thal's conviction and courage. She turned back to the Doctor. 'How's it going?'

He tossed his sonic screwdriver into the air and then caught it. Slipping it into his pocket, he said, 'The matter has become academic. The guard fused the lock. Perhaps he discovered I'd picked his pocket, and he's taking no chances. We're all of us stuck here for the duration of the battle.'

Sam sighed, and collapsed back on to the bed. Bad news and more bad news. Was the universe against them, or just this one small portion of it? They were stuck here, in this jail cell, while their ship took on forces three times their size...

Her mum and dad had always warned her about going off with strangers.

Dyoni sent a single-word answer to the Daleks 'No!' She would prefer to die than to spend the rest of her very short, painful life as a slave. She turned her ship to the attack. With Cathbad's support, perhaps they could hammer their way through the waiting ships and escape. It wasn't much of a hope, but it was the best they had.

Tension rose as they closed in. The bridge was a hive of activity, and Dyoni knew it would be matched throughout the ship. Adrenaline was flowing, and she felt gloriously alive. This was what she had be born to do face the Daleks. Maybe this would be the day she'd die; if so, she'd take plenty of the enemy with her.

The closest Dalek ship opened fire, impacts slamming into their force shields. Dyoni knew that this was only a testing; the Daleks didn't expect to cause serious damage at this distance. 'Hold your fire,' she ordered quietly, as the ship shook under the barrage. A second killcruiser joined in, the combined fire power causing a rolling effect similar to that of being on water. Still too far for her to consider wasting their ammunition. She gripped the edges of her monitor, her knuckles white, as she stared at her displays. Almost within range... The sh.e.l.ling on their shields was increasing in intensity, but that was to be expected.

'Ready,' she called to the weapons officer. And a moment later, 'Fire!'

Her ship's missiles began to streak out, dots of light against the blackness of s.p.a.ce. Several exploded in the Dalek fire power, but most made it through to their target, the closest killcruiser. The Daleks' shields flared almost white as they strove to absorb the impact, and then Ioki reported: 'They've lost power to their forward shields. It's down almost fifty per cent.'

'Again!' Dyoni ordered, the scent of death heady. This could be their first victory of the day... As her ship shuddered under the continued impacts, they fired again and again. She was dimly aware that Cathbad's ship had engaged one of the other killcruisers. She focused all of her attention on their own target. The second killcruiser was closing, and the faster they could finish the first, the better.

'They've launched hoverbouts,' Ioki reported.

'Order the secondary gunners to target them,' Dyoni called to the weapons officer. Hoverbouts couldn't do a great deal of damage, but two or three together might be able to penetrate a shield somewhere, and make them vulnerable to the main batteries.

s.p.a.ce about their ships became a seething cauldron of fire. Lasers, masers, missiles, and anything else either side could throw against the other lit the inkiness almost constantly. The ship shuddered and groaned under the a.s.sault.

'Dalek forward shields are down,' Ioki reported jubilantly.

Dyoni leaned forward, staring at her monitor. The enemy was vulnerable now... Her gunners targeted the bow of the enemy ship, pouring everything they could into an intense hammer. There was a momentary pause, and then s.p.a.ce lit up as the killcruiser came apart at the seams, billowing outward in a ma.s.s of flames and debris. The shields shook harder as the debris battered against them.

'We're down to two-thirds strength,' Ioki reported.

'Continue,' Dyoni ordered, her eyes fastened to her own displays. Cathbad was taking on two ships and struggling. The fifth now moved to press home the attack on Dyoni, and the one that had been chasing them into the trap was also closing in. Still, there was nothing to do but to fight on.

Brief flares showed where hoverbouts were being destroyed, but still the individual killers came on. Their puny fire power still rocked the ship, adding to the main blasts from the two killcruisers.

'Shield-power draining,' Ioki reported, her voice strained. 'We can't hold them all off.'

'No,' agreed Dyoni, resigned to death. 'But we can make them know they've been in a fight. Close in on the nearest target.'

The engines fired, moving them closer to one of the killcruisers. The intensity of the attack increased. Her panel was showing ma.s.sive damage to several decks, but she ignored it. It hardly mattered at this stage of the game. As long as her guns and her engines worked, the rest of the ship could fry.

'Shields failing,' Ioki reported. She coughed as her panel started to smoke and sputter fire. 'We won't hold together much longer.'

'I know,' Dyoni nodded. To the engineer, she ordered, 'Full thrust.'

She was dying, but she would not die alone...

Cathbad was going frantic, attempting to keep up with the flow of data to his station. He didn't want to be in command, but there was no one else to take his place. He desperately wished that Ayaka were here, but that was impossible.

What should he do? He was no tactician. He could follow orders without a problem, but originating some brilliant plan to save their lives was beyond him. Still, it didn't take any great brains to realise that the Daleks were not trying to destroy his ship. Oh, they were fighting, and parrying his attempts to destroy them, but he could tell that they were simply trying to shake him up, or cause minimal damage. Dyoni was not as lucky.

He saw the first killcruiser explode, and for a second wondered whether victory might be possible after all. Then Dyoni's ship powered up and began to move. The intensity of the blasts about it increased, and it became obvious that it could not withstand such concentrated fire for very long.

Cathbad suddenly realised what Dyoni was up to, she was about to ram the closest killcruiser. The Daleks must have deduced that also, because the bombardment of her ship increased. A gout of flame erupted close to her engine room, but it didn't slow her ship down. Cathbad watched, spellbound, as the Thal ship closed with the killcruiser.

They were almost touching when Dyoni's ship exploded. That close in, the Dalek shields couldn't take it. A line of fire burst out down the length of the craft, and then it, too, exploded. Twin fireb.a.l.l.s merged incandescently, blooming like some beautiful, deadly flower, before collapsing in on themselves and snuffing out.

Dyoni was gone...

'Incoming message from the Daleks,' his navigation officer reported.

It was that one word again, 'Surrender.'

Cathbad stared around the bridge at his crew. What should he do? It was almost unthinkable that he should obey. But if he didn't, he was condemning everyone to death. And if he did, to almost certain slavery.

What to choose? The pressure of command crushed him. Why did it have to be him?

He tapped the communications relay again. There was only one thing he could think of to do...

Sam had felt the ship shaking under the attack, and her stomach roiled again. This constant danger and air of impending death was wearing down her nerves. No wonder the Thals were such a weird race, if they faced this kind of situation every day of their lives. She felt as though someone had taken a soldering iron to every one of her nerve endings at once.

It wasn't the same for Ayaka, who probably expected something like this every day of her life. She sat there on the bunk, staring into nothingness, probably wishing she could be at her post during the attack.

'I'm too young to die,' announced Sam, then she giggled, a low t.i.ttering that erupted into quiet, bleak laughter. Everyone ignored her, even the Doctor. He looked strained and pale. He'd had a good life, something like a thousand years, he claimed. Would that make the idea of dying easier or harder for him? He was giving up so much more than she was. Even if she survived this, she'd probably be dead by the age of seventy or so, some fifty more years. He could go on perhaps a hundred times as long.

Not for the first time, she admired his courage. To give up what amounted to immortality and spend your life fighting for causes you believed in that was real heroism. Most of his fellow Time Lords stayed at home, h.o.a.rding their precious years and rebirths. The Doctor squandered his by helping the less fortunate. She reached out and pressed his hand. He gave her a brief smile, and then returned to his own thoughts.

And Chayn... The engineer looked scared and defiant at the same time. Like the rest of them, Sam supposed, she really didn't want to die, but probably couldn't see any alternative. She looked at the Doctor suddenly and asked, 'Do you think the Quetzel Quetzel got away safely?' got away safely?'

He blinked and looked at her. 'Probably,' he conceded. 'They had nothing the Daleks wanted, and couldn't be much of a threat. The killcruisers wouldn't have bothered going after her.'

'Most likely,' Chayn said.

'Most likely,' he agreed. His tone said there were never any guarantees with the Daleks.

'I'm glad they at least had a chance to live,' Chayn decided. 'They may be a bunch of screw-ups and losers, but they're my friends.'

The Doctor managed a smile at that. 'I feel like that a lot of the time, too,' he confessed. 'But we're not dead yet.'

'We're close,' Ayaka said abruptly. 'I know this ship; the shields are failing. You can tell because the decibel count is rising.'

Like they needed to know that... Sam grimaced, trying to warm the icy rock of fear inside her. It wouldn't be much longer.

And then the communications link sounded again. Ayaka, surprised, answered it.

'The Daleks have offered a surrender again,' Cathbad reported. 'Ayaka, our shields are failing. We can't hold out much longer. If we don't surrender, they will destroy us. And if we do, then we'll be slaves for however long we live.' He lowered his voice. 'I can't decide, Ayaka. What should I do?'

Ayaka was about to speak when the Doctor held his hand over her wrist, covering the bracelet. There was a fierce light in his eyes. 'Surrender,' he said.

The Thal was shocked. 'Doctor, you know what the Daleks will do to us if we do. I can't condemn my crew to Dalek slavery.'

'I don't think it will come to that,' the Doctor replied enigmatically. 'This whole thing was a Dalek trap. They've some grand strategy in mind. I think you've got a good chance for survival.' Then his face fell, to be followed by a thin smile. 'Of course, as soon as they realise who I am, the Daleks will exterminate me. It's their standing orders. But you have to survive. I have confidence in you. Whatever the Daleks plan, you'll be able to counter.'

'Doctor...' Sam began, scared now for him.

'No,' he said abruptly. 'No arguments. If you can, escape to the TARDIS. There's an emergency system that will return the ship to Gallifrey. The Time Lords will help you get home again. They won't like it, but they'll do it.'

Sam realised that the Doctor was saying goodbye. She couldn't believe that he was so sure he'd die. He was always so optimistic, even in the worst of situations. Why not now?

Because this was the worst possible situation?

Ayaka stared at the Doctor, still unsure.

'Do it,' he ordered her roughly, then held up his hands in apology. 'Please, trust me on this. There will be a way out, if you try. Just don't give up. Listen to Sam, and Chayn. Work together, and I don't think that the Daleks will stand a chance against you.'

Ayaka came to her decision, and triggered the bracelet. 'Agree to their terms,' she ordered Cathbad. Sam could hear his sigh of relief that he didn't have to make the decision any longer. Ayaka had saved the ship but condemned the Doctor to death.

Seconds later, the ship stopped shaking as the barrage ceased. The whine of the shields died out, too, as Cathbad ordered them dropped. The noise level dropped almost to zero as the guns ceased firing. Sam's ears were ringing and she had the start of a headache. But at least she'd be alive to suffer it.

But now what would happen?

As the Thal ship's airlock door hissed open, the Red Dalek glided into the enemy craft. Warrior Daleks streamed after it, to secure the ship and prepare it for its journey. The door into the main corridor slid open. There were three Thals waiting there, all unarmed. One of the males stepped forward nervously.

'I am Cathbad, in command,' he said. 'We have all disarmed.'