• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

‘Multiple?’ said the Doctor. ‘The transmat must be operational again.’

‘Transmat?’ asked Rachel. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Daleks,’ said the Doctor.

Gilmore strode into the room, ‘There’s no reply from my men at the school.’

The Doctor stood up suddenly and started stuffing toolsinto his pockets, ‘Get a vehicle ready and load it up with plastic explosives with integral detonators.’

Gilmore nodded and left.

‘Why explosives?’ asked Rachel.

The Doctor held up his contraption. ‘This just disables them. What do you expect us to do then? Talk to them sternly?’

‘Doctor,’ said Mike, hanging up the phone, ‘my mum says that Ace left ages ago.’

The Doctor was suddenly running for the door. Rachel and Mike looked at each other for a moment and ran after him. They caught up at the stairwell; the Doctor was taking the steps three at a time. He turned at the bottom and yelled up that Ace must be at the school.

‘What makes you think she’s got herself in danger?’

gasped Rachel as she reached him.

The Doctor looked at her with such ferocious intensity that she recoiled. ‘Of course she’s got herself in danger,’ he snapped, ‘they always do.’

8

Saturday, 14:15

The dreamers awoke. Crab-shaped servo-robots scuttled over polycarbide armour, testing for defects. Power cables disengaged and retreated into the floor, clamps retracted and the warriors began gliding to the staging post.

Command data-net came on line; instructions in microsecond pulses flashed from relays. The last of the servo-robots dismounted, leaping from the warriors into their wall niches with cybernetic precision.

Doors opened.

The Daleks entered their designated transmat broadcast zones. Power shifted from the mothership’s immense fusion reactor and energized the travelling field.

The first Dalek prepared to enter the combat zone.

Ace might have died.

Might have.

She had slipped into the quarantine zone, easily evading the squaddies who manned the checkpoints, and made her way to the school.

Outside a big Bedford truck sat untended; it was very quiet. Ace checked the cab: it was empty and the engine hood was cool and smelled of petrol. She assumed the soldiers were out patrolling or whatever it was that soldiers did when they were not saluting or shooting. She looked in the back just to be certain that they hadn’t left any goodies behind, but was disappointed to find it empty. There wasn’t even a whiff of explosives.

Ace found the tape deck where she had left it, on a bench in the chemistry lab. just on the off-chance she flicked the selector to FM and switched on.

There was nothing but static at first. Then she heard a ghost of a metallic sound on the fringes of reception. Ace adjusted the frequency.

‘Attack squad in position,’ grated the unmistakable voice of a Dalek.

Ace froze. If the reception was that clear then the Daleks were close, possibly within the school itself.

Leaving the tape deck on, Ace ran for the stairs.

‘Lower area clear,’ the tapedeck broadcasted.

Ace collided with a wall and stopped, staring stupidly down the staircase. There was a movement on the landing below — a shadow.

A cream-coloured Dalek came round the corner.

Ace threw herself backwards just in time. An energy bolt carved a track through the space she had occupied and drilled a hole in the wall.

As she banged back into the lab, Ace heard the whine of the Dalek’s motor unit as the creature prepared to ascend the stairs. She needed a plan and she needed it yesterday.

A distraction, she quickly thought.

Ace slammed a cassette into the tape deck, hit the play button, and twisted the volume to maximum.

A weapon.

Ace heard the Dalek’s engine go into overdrive as it started up the stairs. She reached over her shoulder and felt the cool handle of the baseball hat. Ace slowly drew it out and backed behind the door.

The whine of the Dalek’s engine was abruptly blotted out by two hundred watts of percussion.

Ace remained poised, bat upraised. A single trickle of sweat ran down her cheek; she could feel her heartbeat battering at her ribs. There was fear, but mixed