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A Dalek forced its way through the doors. It was close enough for Ace to see her distorted reflection in the burnished gold of’ the creature’s sensor pods. Even this close the Dalek made no noise as it zeroed in on the tape deck. Energy sprouted from its gunstick.

The tape deck exploded; a bench tap ruptured and water spewed out in a long arc.

The Dalek’s eyestalk swivelled to scan the room.

‘Small human female on level three.’

‘Who are you calling small?’ Ace brought the baseball bat clown on the smooth dome. Neon blue tendrils of energy crackled as the bat hit, eating into the laminated surface. Slivers of armour exploded off the surface.

Ace struck the Dalek again before it could react – a glancing blow off the side.

The Dalek began to turn, describing a circle that would bring its weapon to bear.

Ace desperately swung the bat at the vulnerable eyestalk: there was a shower of sparks and the whole assembly parted from the dome and bounced away across the floor.

The Dalek screamed but kept turning. Ace threw herself under a bench; a stool bounced off her shoulder. Glass flasks exploded as the Dalek shot at Ace, tracking her by sound. A plume of flame shot upwards as a gas-tap was blown away.

Instinct told her to keep moving, but she was running out of classroom. She vaulted on to a bench, hoping to run past the Dalek and through the door. The Dalek fired again; the cabinet behind Ace exploded.

The Dalek blocked the doorway.

Ace pounded along the bench, the partition window rushing towards her. At the last moment she flung her arms in front of her face, screamed and jumped.

There was an agonizing moment of stillness.

Her forearms and then her shoulders silently bore the impact, and then she felt herself falling. The sharp crackle of breaking glass somewhere behind her shattered the silence, and then she bounced off the corridor wall.

The Dalek continued to scream and glass rained onto the floor as Ace scrambled to her feet. Bat still in hand she ran for the stairway, ignoring a sharp pain from her left ankle.

There was another Dalek at the top of the stairs.

Woman and Dalek saw each other at the same time.

Ace screamed as she charged forward.

The Dalek hesitated.

Ace gave it a vicious backhanded swing as she went past, and fragments of polycarbide exploded off the Dalek’s casing. She took the staircase in two leaps, screaming again as she came down on her injured ankle.

She saw the dead soldier as she skidded into the entrance hall. Beside his sprawled body lay his gun and a rifle grenade. Ace grabbed the weapons and limped for the exit.

The commander of the Dalek attack squad had no name, yet it knew what it was. That was enough – it would always he enough. It puzzled over the reports from scouts one and two.

Scout one had sighted a small human female on level three. The commander had expected extermination details to follow, but scout one had instead registered severe damage. The female was using a weapon of advanced design and had disabled the scout. This was outside the parameters established for the operation.

Eight seconds after the attack on scout one, scout two sighted the female. It reported behaviour inconsistent with human response predictions.

The commander immediately tagged the female as an intruder human – one either not from this planet or from this temporal zone – or both. It recalled two undamaged warriors and assigned them intercept positions. Only one intruder was allowed for in the operational parameters –

the Time Lord known as the Doctor. The commander issued a capture directive specified under the human section of Dalek battle tactics. The female was to be intimidated into surrender.

The commander entered the school entrance hall; it immediately sighted the female. The female now exhibited the expected reactions of fear and flight, accelerating away in the inefficient controlled fall of bipedal locomotion. The commander notified the two warriors to close in while