‘Move over, Captain,’ he said quietly.
‘Sir?’
Lethbridge-Stewart didn’t look him in the eye. ‘I wouldn’t ask you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. Move over.’
Yates shuffled over, allowing him to take up his position in front of the steering wheel.
Clenching his teeth until the muscles on his jaw stood out, the Brigadier pressed his foot down on the accelerator and the truck roared forward. The other two, packed with troops, followed.
‘Operation Trojan Horse, eh Captain Yates?’ said the Brigadier.
Yates nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Operation Trojan Horse.’
He looked down at his knees.
And now all nine keys are in place.
There is so little time. The ground beneath the steel palace groans and rocks. For the first time, a crack has developed in the thick plate glass of the observation window.
The Apothecaries look round in fear, the warm blue atmosphere is altered by the thin hiss of the filthy air from outside. The wind screams and scrabbles at the breach, like a living thing, jealously trying to gain entry.
Efforts are made to seal the gap but to no avail. They cannot be diverted from the great purpose. A translucent column of blue light has begun to shoot upwards from the dais, bathing the twelve elders in its glorious effulgence.
The Apothecaries stand back now. Their work is almost done. Soon, when the elders have passed through, it will be the turn of the embryos. And then the Gaderene race will have been saved. They will have survived.
And the Apothecaries will remain, as they volunteered to remain, to watch the dying hours of their home world…
The column of blue light pulses regularly. Waiting…
Waiting…
The old airstrip, plunged into darkness, stretched out like a bolt of black silk.
The Master jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the hangar. ‘They’re secure?’
Bliss nodded impatiently at the question. ‘Of course. The gas will keep them unconscious until their new occupants arrive.’
A stiff breeze had blown up, flapping Bliss’s lank hair into her large eyes. Noah cowered at the Master’s feet, the barrel of the pistol dangerously close to his temple.
A circular area about a hundred feet across had been marked out in the parched ground next to the airstrip, like some kind of black-magic pentagram. At equidistant points, narrow depressions were sunk into it. Bliss let her gaze flick over them and then turned to the Master.
‘It is time.’
The Master nodded. Bliss moved away and one by one began to insert the crystalline keys into hollow metallic sockets inset into the ground.
The wind suddenly increased in strength and, as each key was put in place, it began to hum with power.
‘Will… will my dad be all right?’ asked Noah in a small voice. The Master and Bliss ignored him completely.
Noah watched, awestruck, as what appeared to be blue fire crackled between the keys, forming a glowing halo just above the ground. Bliss inserted the eighth key and there was an ear-splitting roar of power. The blue halo grew more solid, spiralling upwards into the sky in a regular, pulsing pattern. But it was still oddly insubstantial, flickering like a film beam or distantly observed summer lightning.
The Master too, seemed impressed by the sight, the light washing over his saturnine features.
Bliss walked up to him and held out her fat hand.
‘The ninth key,’ she ordered.
The Master smiled. ‘You haven’t forgotten our little bargain?’
Noah scowled. ‘What have they promised you? Control of the world?’
‘Hardly, young man,’ purred the Master. ‘That is why the Gaderene are here, after all.’
Bliss looked down at Noah. ‘He wishes merely to see the destruction of your kind.’
Noah was appalled. ‘That’s sick.’
The Master shrugged. ‘As I told the Doctor once, it’s a big, bad Universe out there.’
Bliss jerked her hand in his face. ‘The key! Come on, we’re wasting time.’
The Master glanced over at the hangar. ‘First bring out the swine. They’ll need to be infested at once.’
Bliss considered this. ‘Very well.’
‘And do hurry,’ said the Master. Bliss shot him a deadly look.
‘Take the boy. You’ll need help,’ he concluded.
Bliss didn’t move for a moment and Noah thought she might strike the Master but then the woman grabbed Noah and dragged him back towards the hangar.
The Master smiled as he watched the alien’s retreating back. He held the ninth key aloft and watched as it sparkled in the dazzling column of blue light.
The Doctor’s hands gripped the controls of the Spitfire as he banked the plane to the right and then forward again as he headed for the aerodrome.
He glanced down at the controls which he knew would operate the fighter’s machine guns. His thumb hovered over the red button but he took his hand away. That wasn’t his style at all. No, he would try and put the plane down somewhere close by and get the nitrous-oxide bombs to the Brigadier.
Glancing out of the bubble-hood of the cockpit, he could see some kind of activity below.
Suddenly, the night sky appeared to explode into a blazing blue. The Doctor threw a hand in front of his eyes and squinted through his fingers. A vast column of light was extending from the ground into the sky. It burned with a fantastic magnesium brightness, like fire trapped in amber.
The Doctor thrust the joystick of the plane down and the Spitfire roared towards the earth.
The ground rushed up to almost meet it. In the light from the blue column, the Doctor could suddenly make out the perimeter fence. As before, Legion troops surrounded the place, but they had been joined by others, clearly villagers, whose ordinary clothes stood out against the black of the soldiers’ uniforms.
Three trucks were hurtling along the road towards them.
‘Oh no,’ whispered the Doctor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
INVASION
Jo and Benton were tearing across the fields towards the aerodrome, the other troops and the possessed villagers close behind them.
They stumbled through waist-high crops damp with dew, then suddenly flattened themselves as the pillar of blue light sprang into life before them.
‘Look! Look!’ cried Jo. ‘The Gaderene. They’re coming!’
Moments later, she and Benton crouched low again as the Spitfire roared overhead.
‘Good,’ said Jo. ‘The Doctor’s almost there. Come on, Sergeant. He’ll need all the help he can get.’
She grabbed Benton’s hand and pulled the burly soldier from the ground.
The Doctor knew his timing had to be perfect. If he was right about what the Brigadier was planning, there wouldn’t be time for another pass.
The Spitfire roared through the air towards the Culverton road.
Beneath, the UNIT trucks were powering towards the perimeter fence and its human shield. The Doctor could make out Mrs Toovey in the front rank.
He reached down between his knees and plucked out two of the gas-filled milk bottles.
Keeping the plane steady with one hand, he managed to unclip the hood of the cockpit and, with a tremendous heave, threw it sideways.
He gasped at the change in air pressure and squinted as the wind screamed in his face, flattening his cheeks and mane of white hair.
He moved the joystick to the right, and the plane suddenly turned sharply, allowing him a clear view of the road. Desperately, he flung the bottles one after another out of the cockpit.
They plummeted to the road about fifty feet below and shattered just in front of the assembled crowd.
The Doctor reached for the last of the bottles and hurled those out too, watching in satisfaction as they broke open on impact. Almost at once, the Legion troopers and the remaining villagers began to keel over.
The Doctor managed to haul the bubble-hood of the Sp
itfire back into place and then flew back around to see the results of his handiwork.
To his delight, the people had fallen back in a broad fan, like the petals of a dying flower, leaving the entrance to the aerodrome virtually clear.
Bliss paused as she pulled the first of the surgical tables from its position by the wall.
Noah watched as her head shifted to one side, almost as though it were too heavy for her neck. She closed her great, black eyes and a strangely troubled expression flitted over her face.
Her eyes screwed up tight. One last time.
The worm must prevent the troops from reaching the airstrip. One last time…
She reached deep into her subconscious. Found an image, a memory of them together on the Gaderene planet before all this. She replayed in her mind the moment when they had been sent into space, the brief childhood they had known together as sister and brother.
Bliss shuddered as the memories washed over her. She had made the dimensional jump unscathed.
He had not been so lucky. For years he had slept on in the marshland while she made her way in the human world, desperate to find a way back to the planet of the Gaderene. And then the Master had found her, told her that her people were on the verge of extinction, that she could become their saviour. He had provided the equipment to track down the missing key; the encoder which had gone astray after their craft had crash-landed on the aerodrome during wartime. Now their plans were almost complete.
Monstrously overgrown and mutated, her brother had become useful only as a guard dog. Except for that tiny part of him which kept calling out to her for release.
Release…
She would give it to him at last.
Bliss focused all her thoughts on the creature she had once loved and bade him rise from the marsh…
In the truck, Yates suddenly pointed ahead. ‘Look, sir!’
The Brigadier glanced up from the wheel just as the Doctor’s Spitfire roared overhead. He saw the unconscious villagers and smiled with relief.
‘Right,’ he cried. ‘No time to waste.’
He rammed his boot down on the accelerator and the truck ploughed forward, missing the human shield and smashing into the perimeter fence which collapsed in a chaos of steel and mesh.
The two other trucks powered through the hole, their tyres flattening the mesh as they drove towards the airstrip.
The leading truck screeched to a halt and the Brigadier and Yates jumped out. They could already make out the blazing column of light, flaring over the rooftops like a firework display.
‘Seems like as good a place as any,’ muttered the Brigadier. ‘Come on.’
‘Right, sir.’ Yates moved swiftly to the parked trucks and ordered all the men out.
Just as they were dismounting, the air was filled by a deafening, throaty roar.
The ground shook beneath the Brigadier and several soldiers toppled over, their arms and legs splaying wide as they struggled to remain upright.
Then, with a massive splintering of glass, an adjacent building crumbled into fragments as the gigantic marsh-worm hove into view. Brittle, antennae-like protrusions bristled around its head, its black eyes bore down on the troops below.
The Brigadier’s face fell. Then he recovered himself, pulled out his pistol and took up position with his men.
‘Commence firing!’ he yelled.
Jo and Benton had crossed the marsh and reached the back of the aerodrome. The non-appearance of the creature puzzled Jo until they both heard the crackle of nearby gunfire.
‘I think the Brig’s got company,’ said Benton quietly.
The fence had been flattened as the creature passed over it and they clambered over it comparatively easily. The remaining UNIT troops were close behind them. Legion men and villagers were milling around, seemingly disorientated.
Benton tapped Jo on the arm.
Jo shielded her eyes against the glare of the light column. She could just make out three figures at its base, close to the hangar. Bliss and Noah were moving a series of what looked like hospital operating tables out on to the airstrip. The Master was close by, gazing up at the light.
‘Come on,’ said Jo urgently.
Swiftly, she and Benton ran the remaining distance.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
LAST OF THE GADERENE
The Doctor put the Spitfire down behind the hangar. A section of road, cracked and broken, connected some of the aerodrome’s outbuildings with the control tower. Black Legion lorries had been neatly parked at one end but there was enough room for the old plane to touch down, her heavy rubber tyres screeching over the tarmac.
As soon as the fighter came to a halt, the Doctor threw back the hood and clambered out. He raised an arm to shield his eyes from the incredible glare of the blue light and ran as fast as he could towards it.
For a few moments, there was silence around the Spitfire. Then a figure emerged from behind the metal stairs which led to the control tower.
Wing Commander Whistler, hobbling and exhausted, stumbled towards the plane, smiling ecstatically, and patted the fuselage as though it were an old friend.
The Doctor approached the base of the column of light in silence. He spotted Jo approaching too, and Benton peeling away from her and heading for the Brigadier. Behind them, the UNIT troops were still being pursued by the possessed villagers.
Jo raced to the Doctor’s side and took his hand. She looked over at Noah and gave him an encouraging smile. The boy looked miserable and scared.
‘A magnificent spectacle, don’t you think, Doctor?’ said the Master, without turning round.
The Doctor looked into the light, his eyes hidden in the lines on his face. The column’s unstable pattern showed that the ninth key had yet to be inserted.
‘The dimensional bridge isn’t completed,’ he cried. ‘There’s still time. You don’t have to go through with this madness.’
The Master turned round, his features bathed in blue light. ‘Don’t I, Doctor? I’ve made a deal with the Gaderene. I can’t deny them. Isn’t that what we all fight to defend? Hearth and home?’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘But not like this. Earth does not belong to them. There must be another way. If they make the leap, every living thing on this planet will be at their mercy.’
‘Exactly!’ The Master’s eyes were blazing. ‘They will drain this little world dry. And I shall have my revenge.’
He glanced over at Bliss who was still smiling her wide, wide smile. ‘You have defeated me more times than I care to admit, Doctor. But now, at last, the hour is mine!’
Without another word, he tossed the ninth key over to Bliss. The alien caught it in her spade-like hand and hugged it, briefly, to her chest.
‘No!’ cried the Doctor, stepping forward.
The Master’s hand reached into his tunic and brought out a long, black cylindrical object. He resembled a gunslinger, a UNIT pistol in one hand, trained on Noah, and his deadly tissue-compressor in the other, pointed squarely at the Doctor’s chest. ‘Stay where you are, Doctor. It would be a pity if you missed the… fireworks.’
Bliss strode forward and calmly inserted the final key into the ground. The pitch of the humming roar changed again, rising, rising, rising. Jo shielded her ears.
The Doctor looked back. The creature was still keeping the UNIT troops at bay. There was nothing he could do.
And now the journey nears its end.
The twelve elders stream through space in their component particles, bridging the dimensional gulf between their world and Earth. They feel no pain, no fear, no exhilaration, sleeping still and cocooned in the power of the nine jade keys which hold their existence secure.
Flashing through the inky blackness of space, they spearhead the Gaderene invasion force; three hundred thousand embryos glittering in their molecular wake…
The Brigadier ducked as a section of the aerodrome building crashed to the ground. The worm reared above him, its mandibles thrashing wildl
y, and wriggled forward, crunching the old tarmac beneath its scaly body.
Several soldiers lay dead around the base, crushed by its monstrous bulk or casually tossed aside by its maw.
A lone soldier raced towards the action. Close behind him came the remainder of the troops, the villagers on their heels.
‘Benton!’ cried the Brigadier. ‘Glad to have you back.’
Benton saluted breathlessly.
‘Bring in the bazookas!’ ordered the Brigadier.
Benton tore off to the rear of the UNIT trucks. The newly arrived troops immediately took up their positions.
‘Now, Yates,’ said the Brigadier, turning to his deputy. ‘If we can just get the creature into that passageway…’
Yates nodded. ‘I know what to do, sir.’
Keeping low, he scurried along the side of the hangar, revolver in hand, until he was perilously close to the monster’s underbelly.
Ahead of him, a broad passageway connected the hangar buildings to the main body of the old control tower. Yates waited until the worm was at the top of the passage and then gave three sharp blasts on a whistle. At once, the troops to his immediate left began a vicious assault, blasting into the creature’s flank until blood pumped from its gelatinous flesh.
Roaring in pain and rage, the worm slithered backwards down the passage.
The Brigadier smiled, raised his hand and then dropped it to his side.
At once, every one of the UNIT vehicles switched on their headlights. The worm was suddenly lit by a fierce illumination, pinioned back against the hangar buildings as though pierced by arrows. It howled in agony, its evil black eyes retreating back into its fleshy face.
The Brigadier raised his R/T set. ‘Now, Benton,’ he barked.
There was a short pause. Then, with a multiple crack, the bazookas let rip, sending shell after shell into the monster’s head.
Clenching his fist in triumph, the Brigadier looked over to see the possessed villagers shambling towards him.
Bliss’s face had taken on an ecstatic look. She stepped back from the fiery blue light, which now seemed as solid and palpable as a glass column. Dark shapes had begun to swirl within it. Jo peered closer but couldn’t make out anything definite.