Doctor Who: Engines of War (7 page)

The Doctor had reached the foot of the wall and was scrabbling up onto a heap of rubble, aiming for a narrow crevice through which he could gain entrance to the city proper. He was unexpectedly athletic for an old, curmudgeonly man – spritely, even – as he hauled himself up, not even bothering to glance back to see if the Daleks had spotted him.

‘Wait for me!’ she hissed as she followed suit, scrabbling up behind him. It was a daunting climb, but she had little choice. It was this or the Daleks.

The Daleks had now found their dead comrade and were fanning out, combing the ruins in search of the perpetrator. Cinder realised they didn’t have much time before they were spotted.

She reached up, catching hold of a ledge, but her fingers slipped on the smooth granite and she swung out, dangling by one hand. She stifled a cry of alarm, which came out as an unseemly grunt.

The cold, sharp lip bit into her remaining hand, and she felt her grip loosening. She reached up, trying again, but without the momentum she couldn’t quite get a hold. She was going to slide back down, back to the rocks below where, no doubt, the Daleks would find her, if she wasn’t dashed upon the rocks first. She looked down, trying to assess the distance. Her vision swam.

A hand suddenly grasped her own. She looked up to see the Doctor peering down at her, holding her by the wrist. ‘Hurry up,’ he whispered. ‘Places to go, people to see.’

He dragged her up onto the ledge. ‘You’re
enjoying
this, aren’t you?’ she said, a touch of accusation in her voice.

The Doctor grinned. ‘Aren’t you?’

Cinder shrugged, but gave an impish smile. ‘Maybe,’ she replied, noncommittally.

The crevice in the wall seemed far bigger from up here than it had from below. She’d anticipated having to wriggle through sideways, but in fact it was big enough that they could easily walk through side by side. As they did, Cinder realised the Doctor still had hold of her hand. She didn’t know if it was more for his comfort than her own, but she didn’t mind either way.

There was a drop of around twenty feet on the other side of the wall, into what looked like soft, sticky mud. Beyond that was a small patch of wasteland, which terminated in a line of abandoned human structures. As far as she could tell there were no Daleks to observe them. Evidently, her quick reactions out there in the ruins had proved a rather successful distraction.

‘You first,’ said Cinder, glancing at the Doctor. ‘It was your idea.’

‘Oh, together, surely?’ he said.

Cinder sighed resignedly. ‘Very well.’ She peered over the edge again, considering the wisdom of this next move, but decided she wasn’t about to start being sensible now. It was far too late for that. ‘On the count of one, two—’

The Doctor jumped, still holding her hand, and she was forced to leap after him. They both landed on their feet, and, with a synchronous movement that would have been funny if it hadn’t been for the circumstances, fell to their knees in the wet, cloying mud.

‘Urgh,’ said Cinder, letting go of the Doctor’s hand and getting to her feet. ‘My leggings are soaked through.’ She helped the Doctor up.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m sure there’ll be something similar in one of the TARDIS’s wardrobes.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Fond of women’s clothes, are we?’

‘Yes,’ he said, indicating his muddy trousers. ‘Clearly, I have a penchant.’

She laughed, covering her mouth with her hands.

‘Right,’ he said, pointing at the sombre-looking buildings up ahead. They were very much abandoned, shrouded in darkness, with broken windows and plants poking inquisitively through holes in the roofs. ‘I think it was this way.’

‘No,’ said Cinder. ‘I’ve studied maps of this place. If you want to get closer to the Dalek domes we should follow the wall round this way for a while. Then we can cut across, keeping to the shadows. They shouldn’t be expecting anyone to approach from that direction.’

The Doctor grinned. ‘Aren’t you glad you came along? I know I am.’

They were untroubled by Daleks as they crept through the empty streets of the city, passing long abandoned homesteads and shop fronts in which, years later, goods still stood on display in the windows, now slowly turning to mulch and mould.

The threat of the Daleks was an ever-brooding presence, however, depressing Cinder’s earlier good humour. She could hear their rasping, tinny voices, barking indiscriminate commands at one another as they combed the ruins, searching for whomever had destroyed one of their patrols.

Cinder had no idea how they were going to get out of this. Scrabbling back up the wall was no option – it was far too high. They would need to find an alternative route out of the city – preferably one that wasn’t being guarded by Daleks.

That, however, was for later. Right now, she needed to concentrate on getting them to the Dalek base without triggering any warning systems or bringing down the wrath of a patrol.

She stopped at the corner of an intersection, putting a hand on the Doctor’s chest to hold him back, and peered around. At the end of a long, narrow street she could see the curve of one of the Dalek domes, its outer surface stippled with familiar globes. Before that, however, was a single Dalek, standing with its back to them, its eyestalk swivelling from side to side, as if keeping watch.

She pulled back. ‘Dalek,’ she whispered.

‘Now I wasn’t expecting to find one of those here,’ whispered the Doctor.

Cinder punched him gently on the shoulder. ‘Seriously, what are we going to do? If I fire my weapon this close to the dome, they’ll hear it. There’ll be swarms of them on us in moments.’

The Doctor stuck his head around the corner, assessing the situation for himself. ‘We could just ask it nicely?’ he said. ‘Tell it we’re lost and that we want to go back to our cells in the camp. It’s as good a way as any of getting inside.’

Cinder looked at him as if he were mad. ‘My liberty is more important to me than getting inside that dome,’ she said. ‘And my life. I have my limits.’

The Doctor grinned. ‘In that case, let’s go round.’

They backtracked until they found a gap between two rows of houses, forming a narrow alleyway. Quietly, they traversed the length of it, their feet sloshing in the unwholesome effluvia that ran in a constant stream from the overflowing drains.

‘Come on, in here,’ said the Doctor, pulling her into the doorway of an empty house. It looked relatively intact – a standard-issue, prefabricated habitation bloc, built for a family. He tried the door, but it was locked.

Cinder watched as he removed his screwdriver from its hoop in the ammo belt he wore slung across his chest, and tinkered for a minute with the settings. He held the tip of it to the lock and pressed the button. The end of it lit up, and it emitted an electronic warble. Seconds later, she heard the lock mechanism slide open.

‘What did you do?’ she asked.

‘Agitated a few molecules,’ he whispered, tapping the end of his nose. ‘Let’s go inside.’ He led her into the building.

It was dark inside, without the flickering glow of the Tantalus Eye and the radiation storms still raging overhead. What light there was seeped in through the gaps between the lichen that was growing over the downstairs windowpanes, just about allowing her to see once her eyes had adjusted to the gloom.

She swallowed. She felt as if her heart were in her mouth. The room they’d entered was laid out as if the family who had once occupied it had simply upped and left; had got up and walked out, with every intention of returning later to pick up where they’d left off. Children’s toys were strewn across the carpet. An empty glass rested on a side table. A picture frame on the wall still projected the holographic resemblance of a man and a woman, clutched in a happy embrace.

Cinder felt the weight of guilt upon her shoulders, of immense sadness. How had she survived all this time, while the Daleks had taken these people and their families? What right did she have to still be alive? How had she been allowed to live on while her mother, father and brother had been exterminated?

Her entire life up until this point had been about eradicating those memories, those insidious, guilt-ridden thoughts; about burying them in violence and revenge, turning them into the burning hatred of the Daleks that now festered at the very core of her being.

She’d never once thought of trying to rescue anyone, of trying to change things. It had always seemed so futile, so far beyond her means. And so she had settled for taking pot shots at passing Dalek patrols, or hunting them in the ruins of her former home, counting each death as a victory.

Then the Doctor had come along, tumbling out of the sky in his magical box, and in a few short hours had forced her to face up to this, to recognise that perhaps there
were
things that could be done, that nothing was quite as impossible as it might seem. There were different ways of fighting back. She wasn’t quite sure what he intended to do with the information he gleaned here on Moldox, but she knew it wasn’t simply for his own gratification. He was getting involved, because he wanted to help, wanted to make it all stop.

She could see now that all she’d been doing was screaming into the wind. Those victories she’d notched up on the barrel of her gun had been hollow, every one of them. She hadn’t
changed
anything, hadn’t really made a difference. She’d wasted so much time.

Yet something in her had known there was still time to make a difference. She’d followed the Doctor here, a Time Lord she barely knew, and now, standing in the remnants of Andor, she realised he might prove to be her salvation. This wasn’t simply about helping her to run away from her old life. It was about showing her how to change it for herself. What was more, she thought he knew that, too.

She looked round for him and realised he’d already moved on, deeper into the house. She heard his footsteps on the stairs and followed after him.

Cinder found him in one of the children’s bedrooms on the second floor, standing by the window, the brightly coloured curtains pulled aside so that he might look out upon the Dalek base. She joined him there.

From this distance the Dalek structures didn’t appear quite as sophisticated as she’d imagined. In fact, they looked rather lashed together, with narrow metal causeways erupting from the flank of each dome to puncture its neighbour. There were five domes in total, forming a loose circle around a central courtyard. They were large and seemingly identical, disc-shaped with a raised central turret, and decorated with the same bronze and gold patterning as the Daleks themselves.

The base had an economical, practical layout that had little or nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with function. The whole place had a temporary, transitory feel to it, despite the fact it had been in situ for well over a decade.

‘What are they?’ said Cinder.

‘Spacecraft,’ said the Doctor. ‘Dalek vessels. They haven’t co-opted the old school, so much as levelled it and landed their saucers on top of it. They’ve erected walkways between the ships, but they’re only temporary structures. The whole base could be disbanded at any moment. They’re clearly not intending to stay on Moldox.’

‘Then what are they doing here?’ asked Cinder. She’d always supposed the occupation was about the Daleks wanting control of the planet. She’d never even considered that there might be another, less permanent purpose.

‘That’s a question I’m very keen to know the answer to,’ said the Doctor.

Cinder thought she saw a sign of movement in the courtyard and leaned forward, until her nose was almost touching the dirty glass of the window. She narrowed her eyes, trying to see what was going on. There was definitely movement – people, in fact – a group of humans being shepherded out into the paved area that had once been a children’s playground.

Floodlights blared suddenly, causing her to wince as everything was brought into sudden, sharp relief. Three Daleks were jostling the human prisoners – around ten of them, both male and female – making them form into a long line, standing shoulder to shoulder. Cinder could hear nothing from this distance, but she could imagine the threats being issued by the metal monsters in order to force the humans to comply.

The Doctor put his hand on the sill, peering out, watching with interest.

Why were they forming a line?

‘Oh, no!’ said Cinder, with sudden realisation. ‘They’re going to execute them!’

‘Perhaps,’ said the Doctor, his voice a low growl. ‘But again, why do it like this? Why go to all the trouble of taking them prisoner, leading them here half-starved, only to line them up in the courtyard to shoot them down. There has to be more to it.’

Cinder didn’t really want to watch, fearful of what she might see, but nevertheless she was transfixed, unable to tear her gaze away. As she watched, the three Daleks backed away, two of them disappearing from view, while another moved forward into focus.

This one had a slightly different, yet familiar outline. ‘That’s like the one I saw during the ambush,’ said Cinder. ‘The one you decapitated when you crashed. It’s one of the mutants, a Degradation.’

It was precisely like the monstrous thing she had encountered earlier that day, the size and shape of a standard Dalek, save for the fact its midsection had been replaced by a fat, black cannon.

‘That’s no Degradation,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s different. That’s something new.’

The Dalek swivelled to face the sorry-looking line of human prisoners. One of the other Daleks hove into view, and Cinder could tell it was speaking by virtue of the flashing lights on its domed head.

In response, the cannon-wielding Dalek powered up its weapon. An aura of intense, ruby-coloured light flickered to life at the end of the barrel. There was a sudden, massive discharge as the weapon spat a stream of pink light, which engulfed four of the people, warping around them as they screamed and tried to back away.

The remaining prisoners staggered out of the way, clearly terrified as they looked on upon their own likely fate.

The four victims writhed in obvious agony, as the pink light appeared to seep into their bodies, pouring into their open mouths, their eyes, permeating through their skin. Then, as if their flesh were simply unable to contain so much raw energy, they blossomed, their forms dissolving, the pink light flickering brightly before dispersing and fading away, like wisps of trailing smoke.