Doctor Who_ Remembrance of the Daleks - Ben Aaronovitch [27]
As Ace entered the playground, the commander sprang its trap: it and the other warriors closed in on her. Again, the commander considered, the human deviated from normal human behavioural patterns, even as the intimidation took place.
‘Exterminate!’
The voices rebounded off the walls and crowded Ace’s mind; they made it difficult to think, harder to act.
‘Exterminate!’
Three Daleks. There was a sickness in her stomach as she realized that blind aggression was not going to save her now. But why had they not killed her?
‘Exterminate!’
The rifle was clumsy in her fingers; the grenade kept slipping off. She was determined to take one of them with her.
‘Exterminate!’
They were on every side – an alien wall of white and gold. She knew she was going to die.
The Doctor is going to be really angry this time, she thought.
The commander monitored the female carefully, wary of more unpredictable behaviour. It contacted the mothership through the communications relay in the transmat below and demanded reinforcements.
It had just finished when communications were drowned in static. Co-ordination systems suddenly malfunctioned; motor circuits failed to respond. With dimming vision the commander saw the female scuttle away. It tried to fire but its weapon failed. Wild power fluctuations disrupted the incubator, and it felt a sudden intense physical pain. There was a fleeting sensation of enemies, humans near itself. Spiridon, it screamed silently, the Doctor.
Sudden heat and oblivion.
Ace fell down a few metres away from the Daleks. They were thrashing about, their gunsticks waving erratically. A weird moaning issued from somewhere deep within their shells.
Over the sound, Ace heard sontone – was it Mike? –
shouting orders. Then the Doctor cried: ‘It worked!’
Figures in uniform darted among the Daleks, sticking grey plastic blobs on to the casings. Then they were gone.
‘Get down,’ shouted Mike.
Ace understood what the grey blobs were and threw her arms over her head.
There was a deafening noise and it started raining bits of Dalek.
9
Saturday, 14:55
Perhaps the most notable of the Cambridge Group in the 1950s was Professor Rachel Jensen. Hardly recognized outside the scientific community despite her pivotal work with Turing during the war, she retired suddenly in 1964.
Her autobiography The Electrical Dreamer is curiously vague as to why. She married a year later.
The Women That Science Forgot
by Rowan Sesay (1983)
Three explosions occurred in quick succession: smoke belched out of the entrance to the covered playground.
Three white and gold Daleks had brewed up in the confined space. Rachel clutched a carbon dioxide extinguisher and dashed into the smoke. There was an unidentifiable stench that reminded her of burning fat.
The Doctor stared at the shattered Daleks, his face unreadable.
‘There were living beings in there,’ he said.
Mike looked at the smoking remains. ‘Not anymore.’
Gilmore holstered his gun and turned to Mike. ‘Search the area upstairs.’
Mike took from the Doctor the device that had confused the Daleks and led a squad into the school buildings.
Rachel beckoned to Allison and they cautiously approached the trio of Daleks. The top dome of one had been blown off by the plastic explosive. Smears of carbon ran down the shoulder flanges, and vapour rose from the shattered bowl at the top. Rachel thought she saw something move amid the tangle of wiring.
‘Doctor,’ called Rachel, backing away and pulling Allison with her. ‘I think this one is still active.’
The Doctor hurried over. Something clattered under Allison’s foot – Ace’s baseball bat. The Doctor peered into the steaming interior of the Dalek.
Rachel heard something – a sharp scuttling movement in the interior.
‘Interesting,’ breathed the Doctor.
Rachel backed further away from the Dalek, picking her way through the metal and organic scraps scattered over the rough concrete.
The sound inside the Dalek ceased, and the Doctor leaned closer for a better look. Rachel suppressed the urge to scream.
A grey-green