‘That would be agreeable,’ replied Mrs Carstairs.
‘Wait a minute,’ said the Doctor, stepping back and switching off the small telescope. ‘What did you just say? “That would be agreeable”? Something’s not. . . I mean. . . Who says that? I mean, OK, I know this place is a bit, well, weird, but who says that? That would be agreeable?’
‘Doctor,’ said Mr Carstairs with mounting impatience, ‘what are you talking about?’
‘That shopkeeper, Mr Pemberton, said it yesterday,’ said the Doctor. ‘And then the assistant, at the botanical centre – she said it last night, or a variation on a theme, anyway. It’s like. . . It’s like. . .’ He paced around the room wriggling his fingers in concentration, and then eventually shouted, ‘Yes! It’s like it’s trying to copy human speech but there’s one thing it hasn’t quite mastered. It’s got everything except an affirmative yes or no. It can say yes or no, but when it’s trying to qualify the fact it gets it all jumbled up, like its vocabulary is limited or it’s making a mistranslation! Yes! I’m brilliant!’
Mrs Carstairs looked blankly at the Doctor, betraying no emotion.
‘Doctor,’ said Mr Carstairs, ‘none of this is making the slightest bit of sense. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to take my wife downstairs and we are going to seek the assistance of a professional we can trust. One who, no offence, doesn’t spout incomprehensible babble.’
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘No no no no no. . . If I’m right, and trust me, I am, this isn’t your wife.’
‘Doctor, please. . . I think we’ve all had enough of this nonsense for one day.’
‘No, you see. . . The spores, from the plant. . . They’re a sentient life form. They—’
‘Good day, Doctor.’
Mr Carstairs helped his wife to her feet, walking her out into the corridor, and the children followed. As they were leaving the room, Vienna turned around to face the Doctor.
‘Wallace,’ she said, tears welling in her eyes. ‘Wallace said it to me earlier. When he gave me the tickets. He said, “That would be agreeable”.’
‘Wallace gave you the tickets?’ said the Doctor, and then, remembering that Vienna had already told him this, ‘Wallace gave you the tickets! Of course! Right. . . Vienna, I need you to make sure that your mother doesn’t leave the hotel, OK? Just. . . Just make sure she stays here. And don’t go anywhere near any plants. Not unless they’re, I don’t know, a poinsettia or something.’
He followed them along the corridor and into the elevator, and together they went down to the lobby, Mrs Carstairs never once taking her eyes off the Doctor, though she was still quite expressionless.
It was as they left the elevator and entered the lobby that the Major came running out from behind the desk, his face flushed, pointing towards the upper windows.
‘Mr Carstairs, Mr Carstairs!’ he cried. ‘There appears to be a spot of bother on the bridge.’
Out there, in the black skies above the colony, a ship was coming into view. It was a large craft made of a dark grey metal, a central sphere surrounded by what looked like colossal, spindly claws.
‘Oh no,’ said the Doctor. ‘Not good. . .’
‘What?’ asked Jake, anxiously. ‘What is it?’
‘Sontarans.’
MAYOR SEDGEFIELD SAT in his office before a bank of monitors and surveyed the chaos outside. From one end of the colony to the other sirens were wailing, which would ordinarily have led to an evacuation, except that all exits had been locked. By whom, he couldn’t say. On screen after screen he saw technicians battling to open doors, and failing.
Elsewhere he saw the people of Chelsea 426 running through the narrow streets and across the piazzas and gardens, but running where? There was nowhere to go.
Then he saw them.
They appeared first in the loading bays of the Western Docks: flashes of red and purple light and then – where previously there had been empty space – soldiers. Dozens if not hundreds of soldiers dressed from head to foot in identical dark blue armour, their heads covered with wide dome-like helmets. Soldiers armed with rifles.
He saw the same flashes of light in other parts of the colony: the Southern Docks, Miramont Gardens. More and more flashes of light and more and more soldiers.
‘Mr Mayor,’ said a voice on the intercom, stuttering with fear, ‘Mr Mayor. . . There are people on board, sir. They’re armed. What should we do?’
Mayor Sedgefield covered his face with his hands and bowed his head.
There were guns on Chelsea 426, safely locked away in the colony’s armoury. They were a remnant from the days when the colony was attached to the IMC’s mining facility, when piracy was still a concern. They had never been used, and had not left the armoury in perhaps twenty years or more.
‘Unlock the armoury,’ he said, after an age. ‘Tell Sergeant Bashford and his men to unlock the armoury and defend the colony at once!’
Was it possible that the soldiers who had unnervingly appeared out of thin air were pirates? If so, why had they come here? What did Chelsea 426 have that they might steal?
Mayor Sedgefield stood up and walked around his office in circles, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands.
‘Mr Mayor.’ Another voice, this time female, and from another part of the colony.
‘Yes,’ he replied wearily.
‘Mr Mayor, we are getting reports of a major incident at the Oxygen Gardens, sir.’
Sedgefield sighed, dropping himself back down into his chair. ‘There is a major incident happening everywhere,’ he said.
On the screens he saw all five officers of Chelsea 426’s police force approaching the armoury. At their head, Sergeant Bashford opened the thick metal doors, and began passing out pulse rifles to his men.
‘Sergeant Bashford,’ said the Mayor.
On screen the Sergeant turned and looked directly up at the camera.
‘Yes, Mr Mayor?’
‘When you engage with our. . . visitors. . . please ask them what their demands are. Do not open fire on them unless. . .’
‘Unless what, sir?’
‘I. . . What I mean to say. . . Uh. . . Don’t. . . I mean. . .’
What could he say? Nothing in all his years on the colony council had prepared him for this moment.
‘Just ask them what they want,’ he said eventually.
Sergeant Bashford nodded and then, closing the armoury doors, ordered his men to about-turn and make their way toward Miramont Gardens.
You have to hand it to them, the Doctor thought as he passed through the stampeding crowds of residents and visitors, nobody knows how to panic quite like humans.
He didn’t want to compare them to sheep, as such – that would be vaguely insulting to both species, albeit for different reasons – but they certainly knew how to lose all reason and self-control in an emergency. Most of them, anyway.
He had left the Grand Hotel to find the colony far removed from the sedate and, yes, if he had to find a word, boring place that had first greeted him. What few conversations he could overhear amongst the noise of screaming and shouting were barely intelligible. Nobody seemed to have the first idea what was going on, and why should they? Of all those on board Chelsea 426 it was only the Doctor who grasped the seriousness of the situation.
‘Smalls was right,’ cried one old man as he ran past the Doctor, holding his trilby hat to his head. ‘It’s all these Newcomers, if you ask me!’
The moment the Sontaran ship had first come into view, the pieces of the puzzle had begun to mesh in the Doctor’s mind. The chemical composition of the spores, the behaviour of Mrs Carstairs, Mr Pemberton and the others. He knew full well what it all meant. All the Doctor could hope was that he got to the Sontarans before any of the residents did.
That hope was dashed the moment he left Tunbridge Street and ran out into Miramont Gardens. On one side of the square, standing shoulder to shoulder in rows of ten, were the Sontarans. On the other side stood five policemen armed with
rifles.
One of the policemen, their leader the Doctor imagined, stepped forward.
‘I am Sergeant Bashford of the Chelsea 426 constabulary,’ he said. ‘We mean you no harm. Please state your intent.’
For a moment the Sontarans stood immobile and silent. They appeared almost like statues, like some latter-day Terracotta Army. Finally one of their fold left the group and marched towards the Sergeant, his feet stomping heavily on the metal floor.
‘Sergeant Bashford,’ a voice barked from inside the helmet, ‘I am Colonel Sarg of the Fourth Sontaran Intelligence Division. We have orders to search this facility for all known enemies of Sontar. Do you allow us to proceed?’
‘Um,’ said Sergeant Bashford, looking back at his men, helplessly. He turned back to face the Sontaran, ‘Colonel. . . Colonel. . .?’
‘Sarg,’ said the Sontaran.
‘Colonel Sarg. . . We are a peaceful colony and mean you no harm.’
‘Whether you mean us harm or not is of little consequence,’ said Sarg, and then, more forcefully, ‘Do you allow us to proceed?’
The Doctor was now at the edge of the gardens, trying his best to go unnoticed as he made his way stealthily towards the policemen.
‘You have no enemies here,’ said Sergeant Bashford. ‘This colony is the property of the Powe-Luna Corporation. Its inhabitants are human. We mean you no—’
‘Silence!’ barked Colonel Sarg. ‘Your babbling indicates an unwillingness to comply. You are armed, Sergeant Bashford, are you not?’
‘I. . . er. . .’ Bashford stuttered, looking down at his rifle.
‘You are armed, sir!’ yelled Colonel Sarg.
The Doctor looked from the handful of police officers to the Sontarans. He knew all too well what was about to happen.
‘No!’ he shouted, breaking his cover and running towards Sergeant Bashford. ‘Drop your weapons! Drop them now!’
Sergeant Bashford turned to face the Doctor, his shaking hands still grasping his rifle, and still the Doctor ran, holding up his hands in one last, desperate gesture.
Sarg turned to the front row of his command.
‘Sontarans,’ he growled. ‘Open fire!’
The front row of the unit lifted their weapons in one swift move, and suddenly the square was lit up crimson with the flare of a dozen laser beams. The bolts of blood-red light cut across the square in a sweeping arc. Sergeant Bashford and his men were massacred in an instant.
‘No!’ the Doctor shouted, falling to his knees where their bodies now lay. As the smoke and the smell of burnt flesh cleared, he looked up from the dead and saw the Sontarans marching toward him, their guns still ready to fire.
WITH HIS CHIN resting on his desk and his lower lip jutting out in a helpless pout, Mayor Sedgefield lifted the ball at one end of his Newton’s Cradle desk toy, and let go. It swung down, hit the next ball along, which in turn kicked the ball at the end of a row of five up into the air, before it swung back down, starting the process all over again.
Click-clack-click-clack-click-clack. . .
‘Mr Mayor. . .’
He couldn’t even bear to look at the screens any more. He dreaded to think what might be happening outside his offices. He was only glad those offices were soundproof.
‘Mr Mayor. . .’
He looked up at the door and saw one of his assistants. She looked scared, terrified even, her eyes bloodshot from crying and her cheeks streaked with mascara.
‘Yes?’ said Mayor Sedgefield.
‘Mr Mayor. . . sir. . . The leader of the. . . Well, I’m not sure what they are, sir. . . But he’s here, sir. . . To see you.’
Mayor Sedgefield sat upright, his mouth open, his eyes wide with fear. After looking around the room for an alternative exit that he knew did not exist, he nodded.
‘Show him in.’
Seconds later they came through the door – three of the soldiers in blue armour, one marching in front with a long baton tucked under his arm, and two following closely behind. The leader stopped when he reached the Mayor’s desk.
‘Are you the administrator of this facility?’ he bellowed.
Sedgefield answered him with a trembling lower lip but no words.
‘Sir,’ said the soldier. ‘Are you the leader of this colony?’
Sedgefield nodded, bracing himself with both hands on his desk to stop himself from shaking.
The soldier lifted up its gloved hands, which the Mayor noticed had only three digits, and, with a mechanical hiss, lifted off his helmet to reveal a hideous, egg-shaped bald head. Placing his helmet down on the desk with a heavy thud, the alien soldier reached forward. Mayor Sedgefield released his vice-like grip from the desk and nervously shook the creature’s hand.
‘I am General Kade, Commander of the Fourth Sontaran Intelligence Division,’ said the creature.
‘I. . . I. . . I’m Mayor Sedgefield,’ said the Mayor. ‘Um. . . pleased to meet you?’
‘Mayor Sedgefield,’ Kade continued, ‘our intelligence leads us to understand that your colony has been taken over by an enemy of ours.’
‘R-really?’ Sedgefield stuttered.
‘Yes,’ replied the Sontaran. ‘We have been at war with a race known as the Rutan Host for nearly fifty thousand of your years. They are master spies, sir, and a menace. It is our intention to search this colony and eliminate every single Rutan on board.’
The Mayor fell back into his chair, his head in his hands.
‘Mayor Sedgefield,’ said Kade. ‘What few defences you had have been neutralised. Your limited weapons are in our possession. Your exits are sealed. We have surrounded the colony with a propagation mirror so that no communications may leave this facility. All docking systems have been locked so that no spacecraft may escape. You have no choice in this matter.’
‘B-b-b-but there aren’t any aliens here,’ said the Mayor. ‘Only humans. We. . . we’re the only ones here.’
‘The Rutans are, as I have said, master spies. They will appear quite human, but we are of the understanding that there may already be several thousand of them. We intend to find them and destroy them, Mayor Sedgefield, and then we shall leave you in. . .’ Kade sneered, as if the word he was about to say were somehow poisonous to him, ‘peace.’
Sedgefield looked up through the domed glass ceiling of his office. The Sontaran ship was now hovering, in orbit, only a few hundred metres away. He had little doubt that they could destroy the whole of Chelsea 426 in the blink of an eye if they wanted to.
‘Do I. . . do I have your word?’ he asked, finally looking Kade in the eye.
‘Of course, sir,’ said Kade. ‘A Sontaran’s word is his bond.’
‘Not strictly true that, is it?’ said a voice from the other side of the office.
Kade and the Mayor turned to see Colonel Sarg entering the room with a prisoner.
‘Who is this?’ Kade snapped.
‘We arrested him nearby, sir,’ said Sarg, nudging his prisoner forward by digging the barrel of his rifle into the man’s back. ‘He demanded he be allowed to speak to you.’
Kade snorted dismissively.
‘Oh, did he now?’ He turned to the prisoner. ‘And who are you exactly?’
‘Oh, I’m the Doctor. And you are?’
‘I am General Kade, of the Fourth Sontaran Intelligence Division.’
‘The Fourth Sontaran Intelligence Division?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Yes,’ grunted Kade. ‘You have heard of us?’
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘No, not at all. Just seems like a bit of an oxymoron, if you ask me.’
‘Well I didn’t,’ snapped Kade. ‘Did you say that you are the Doctor?’
‘Yep,’ replied the Doctor. ‘That’s me.’
It was then that the Sontaran did something the Doctor clearly hadn’t expected.
He smiled.
‘Well,’ said Kade, still beaming. ‘That really is quite something, is it not?’
‘Oh,’ said the Doctor, shifting awk
wardly. ‘Is it?’
‘We have travelled so far for this mission, and here you are. . . the Doctor.’
Kade now began pacing around the room, looking up at the Doctor as if he were a specimen in a museum.
‘Fascinating,’ he said. ‘Absolutely fascinating.’ He turned to Sarg. ‘Colonel Sarg. . . Do you know who this is?’
‘No, sir,’ replied Sarg. ‘I hadn’t seen him before his arrest, sir.’
‘This,’ said Kade, ‘is the Doctor. A face-changer who travels through time. Our race have encountered him many times, usually within this system, and he has, without fail, bested us. So far. Quite remarkable. Quite, quite remarkable.’
‘Right,’ said the Doctor. ‘Well. . . Now that we’ve got the introductory chitchat over and done with, what are you doing here?’
Kade suddenly lashed out with his baton, hitting the Doctor in the arm.
‘Ow!’ the Doctor yelled.
‘Please understand,’ said Kade, ‘that my respect for you as an adversary does not allow you to address me as you would a subordinate or a small child.’
‘Understood,’ said the Doctor, still holding his arm and wincing.
‘We are here,’ Kade continued, ‘because our enemy, the Rutan Host, is using this facility as a staging post for a counter-attack upon Sontar.’
‘The Rutans!’ said the Doctor, his face lighting up. ‘I knew it! I knew it was the Rutans. It was the carbon levels. Far too high for a Krynoid. And then the speech thing, with the words. . . “That will be agreeable.” Pure Rutan slip-up, that one. Pure, good old-fash—’
‘Be quiet!’ shouted Kade, lifting up the baton but holding back from hitting the Doctor a second time. ‘As I was saying. . . The Rutans are using this facility as a staging post for a counter-attack upon Sontar. . .’
‘Permission to speak?’ said the Doctor, holding up his hand.
‘Permission granted.’
‘A counter-attack? What have you done to them lately? I mean. . . Apart from a war spanning fifty millennia and all the rest of it.’
‘Our attempt,’ said Kade, ‘to utilise the Earth as a breeding centre for further armies. When the Rutans discovered that Earth was to become a cloning facility for the Sontaran Empire they planted a trap on a neighbouring world – this world. A sentient spore that, when brought into a habitable environment, would grow into plants, producing further spores. These spores, Doctor, are the Rutans themselves.’
The Taking of Chelsea 426 Page 6