Doctor Who: The Sontaran Games

by Jacqueline Rayner

  The students moved back. Holly called over five other gymnasts. Then they all climbed up the stand to where half the tug of war team waited.

  The gymnasts pulled themselves along the rope until they were under the force-sphere. Three of them stood up. Two more climbed onto their shoulders.

  There were gasps from the students watching below. No one had ever seen a feat like this before. A few let out yells of concern as Holly reached the top of the pyramid. Then she bent her knees – and leapt.

  There were more cries from the crowd, but Holly made it. She grabbed a sticking-out javelin with both hands. Then she let go with one hand, and reached up for a pole. Slowly, she made her way towards the top of the force-sphere, and its weak spot.

  The other gymnasts were making their way back down. They wanted to be out of the way when the missiles started to fall. This meant they were the only people looking into the arena, not up at Holly.

  ‘Doctor!’ called one of the gymnasts. The Doctor turned his head, and she pointed towards the Sontarans.

  They were still floating along, but their steps weren’t taking them so far off the ground. They were able to bring their arms down lower. They were also heading towards the Doctor, as best as they could.

  ‘Their suits’ gravity is going back to normal,’ the Doctor said to himself. Any moment now, they could regain control of their guns. Then the Doctor and his friends were all doomed.

  He glanced up at Holly. If only they had those missiles, things would be all right. ‘Just put the screwdriver through that hole, Holly,’ he called.

  But something wasn’t right. Holly had stopped moving.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked the Doctor.

  ‘I’m so dizzy!’ she cried.

  She raised a hand to her head. To the Doctor’s horror, he saw the sonic screwdriver slip from her fingers. It fell down, down to the ground below.

  It landed at the feet of Lieutenant Skezz.

  * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘NO!’ SHOUTED THE Doctor. Without the screwdriver, they had no hope at all.

  Skezz leant over to pick it up.

  The Sontaran’s arms went down, and his legs went up. Skezz hung in the air, turning lazy circles, unable to get himself back down. But he was still grabbing at the sonic screwdriver, every time his arms came near the ground. Now the other Sontarans were heading that way too.

  There was a gasp from the watching students. Karl, the sprinter, had dashed out from the crowd. He darted past Skezz, and scooped up the sonic screwdriver.

  The students cheered. But the other Sontarans were coming towards Karl. They were trying to point their guns at him.

  ‘One day, Karl might save the world,’ the Doctor said under his breath. Would it be today?

  Another man ran out. The Doctor had seen him before. He had been in the one hundred metres sprint. He passed Karl, grabbing the sonic screwdriver like the baton in a relay race. Karl fell to his knees, and the laser beam flew over his head.

  ‘Go Freddie!’ yelled the crowd.

  The Sontarans couldn’t change the way they were going that quickly. By the time they were able to point their guns at Freddie, another sprinter had taken the screwdriver.

  The runners were weaving their way across the arena. The trouble was, they were getting further and further away from the Doctor.

  Then a voice called out of the crowd near the sprinters. Sid was hobbling down into the arena. ‘To me!’ he shouted.

  The Sontarans were still trying to aim at the runner that had the sonic screwdriver. Karl had got up from the ground. He sprinted off again, and grabbed the screwdriver just in time. He hared towards the stands, and passed it to Sid.

  Sid raised his arm. ‘Holly, get down from there!’ he called.

  ‘I can’t!’ The girl was clinging to the force-sphere for dear life.

  The Sontarans were heading for Sid. Their strides were getting heavier. Any second now, they would be able to aim at him.

  The Doctor looked at Sid. He had grasped what was in the young javelin-thrower’s mind. Then he looked up at Holly. She was frozen with fear.

  The Doctor felt a rush of guilt. He should never have asked someone with a head injury to climb so high.

  He stood up straight. It was his fault, so he had to put it right.

  ‘Sid, just do it!’ he yelled.

  Sid glanced at the Doctor, and nodded. He raised his arm and threw the sonic screwdriver, as if it were a tiny javelin.

  The screwdriver flew into the air, higher and higher. Sid’s aim was true. It hit the sphere’s weak spot, dead on.

  The crowd gasped.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘I set a 10-second delay!’ shouted the Doctor.

  He had started running almost before the sonic had left Sid’s hand. The force-sphere hung over a spot more than a hundred metres away. He had ten seconds to get there.

  If the Doctor made it in time, it would be a new world record.

  He sprinted towards the spot. Lieutenant Skezz was still there, going round in circles. The Sontaran tried to aim his gun at the running Doctor.

  He was nearly there . . .

  There was a fizzing noise from above, and the force-sphere vanished.

  The Doctor dodged the missiles as they rained down around him. He caught the falling Holly, and sped away.

  The crowd cheered. They cheered even harder when a discus thumped onto the back of the spinning Skezz’s neck. The Sontaran lay flat, still hanging just above the ground. Then all of a sudden, he fell to the floor with a crash.

  ‘Their gravity’s back to normal!’

  The Doctor got to his feet, leaving Holly lying on the ground. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the students grabbing weapons.

  But he was watching the Sontarans. Major Stenx, Captain Skeed and Lieutenant Slorr were all heading towards the young athletes. They were raising their guns.

  ‘Sontarans!’ yelled the Doctor, as loud as he could. ‘I have won your Games! I am the victor! I demand the right to face you in combat! If you value your honour – face me now!’

  The three aliens turned towards the Doctor. Their guns were pointing straight at him.

  But now their backs were to the students.

  About fifty missiles hit the Sontarans at once. Some bounced off the backs of their heads, or their armour, but enough found their mark.

  Stenx, Skeed and Slorr fell, face down, onto the ground. They didn’t stir.

  The crowd went wild.

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  WITH THE SONTARANS out of the picture, the force shield vanished. A series of small pops came from the aliens’ suits as controls short-circuited.

  The Doctor tried the tunnel door and was pleased to find it was no longer sealed.

  The athletes streamed back into BASE. Most didn’t even pause to change, just headed straight out of the front door in their nightclothes. Karl and Sid both insisted on taking Holly to a hospital. The start of a beautiful friendship? Perhaps.

  Soon the building was empty. Just the Doctor and the bodies remained.

  There had been too many deaths. There were so many families who had been so proud, waiting to cheer on their loved ones at the Globe Games. There would be no medals now, just endless suffering.

  The Doctor couldn’t condone what the students had done, covering up the deaths. But he held on to the fact that they hadn’t been the killers. He thought – hoped – things would be better now for them. They’d all learned what they could do when they worked together. Their future would be brighter than their past, whatever it held.

  The Doctor went to check on the TARDIS. He needed to know he could get away. He hoped it didn’t still have an electric charge running through it.

  He found that the building wasn’t empty after all. There was a young woman sitting on the floor by the TARDIS, where Jess’s body had been. She was idly kicking the toolbox that still lay next to the ship.

  �
�Hello,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘Hello,’ said Emma.

  The Doctor sat down next to her, crossing his legs.

  ‘I’m glad you’re not dead,’ he said. ‘I thought you would have left, though. The doors aren’t sealed now.’

  ‘I left the building,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t have anywhere to go. So I came back to find you. Are you leaving? It’s all sorted now.’

  ‘Is it?’ The Doctor looked at her. ‘You’ve forgotten the people who died. Not just the ones killed by the Sontarans. The ones from earlier. Laura. Joe. Andy.’

  ‘But the Sontarans killed them too!’

  ‘Oh no they didn’t.’ The Doctor shook his head sadly. ‘The Sontarans only arrived tonight. That was pretty clear from the way they acted. Anyway, Sontarans don’t tend to electrocute people, despite what we saw in the arena. And talking of things electric, how about the electrician?’ He reached out a booted foot and kicked the toolbox.

  ‘The who?’

  ‘The electrician. I wanted to know what Sid was doing, walking around down here late at night. He had to be quite close to hear you scream. No one else heard you. Sid thought I was an electrician. Then there was this toolbox and these special rubber boots. So when I had the chance, I asked him.’

  Emma said nothing. She was biting her lip as the Doctor told his tale.

  ‘Sid had sneaked out and called an electrician. He thought about calling the police, but he was worried because he’d helped to hush up the deaths. If an electrician could find out what was going on, though, then maybe no one else would die. That was his idea. He told the man to sneak in, and then came down to meet him last night. But someone had found him first. I wonder where his body is?’

  Emma reached out and took a hammer from the toolbox.

  The Doctor plucked it from her hand. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘You see, there’s still one more death we have to talk about.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘The death of a young swimmer called Emma.’

  The girl took a deep breath. ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve suspected it for a while. You gave yourself away – no big mistakes, but it was enough. You said you’d never seen the bodies, then you talked about seeing Laura floating in the pool. It was pretty clear you were up to something dodgy. It could have been anything, though.’

  The Doctor sighed. ‘But there was more. Lots more. The hand I found by the pool. The length of time you were able to stay underwater. I remembered how you’d asked about the Rutans. That threw me for a moment. But you just wanted to find out how much I knew. And I told you.’

  He was still staring into her eyes. ‘Except there were a few things I didn’t mention at the time. Like how Rutans don’t like heat – even heated swimming pools. And the big one. How they can absorb electricity, and use it to kill.’

  Emma was hanging on his every word.

  ‘And when I found out the Sontarans were looking for a shape-changer, that clinched it.’ The Doctor looked at her sadly. ‘You’re the shape-changer. You’re a Rutan.’

  * * *

  Chapter Sixteen

  EMMA NODDED SLOWLY.

  ‘Why?’ said the Doctor. ‘Why come here in the first place? Did you crash-land?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Emma the Rutan shook her head. ‘I was sent here. You see, the war’s heading this way. We’re going to need Earth soon. But it takes time to form a base on an inhabited planet. Wiping out the natives can be costly, too. Much better to get them to do it for you.’

  The Doctor didn’t like what he was hearing. ‘You wanted the humans to wipe themselves out?’

  ‘That was the plan. The Globe Games are a world event. Many of Earth’s nations are on the brink of war. If I was part of the Games, I could push them over that brink.’

  ‘A scandal here, a murder there?’ asked the Doctor.

  ‘That sort of thing. So I was sent here to BASE. I could have waited for the Games themselves . . .’

  ‘. . . but you wanted to practise being human first,’ the Doctor said. He was almost enjoying himself, seeing all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. ‘As Rutans are used to being in the water, you decided to become a swimmer. You hid at the pool until someone came along on their own. The real Emma. You killed her. Then you took her body apart. You needed to do that to find out how it worked, so you could copy it yourself.’

  ‘Human bodies are very complex,’ the Rutan agreed. ‘Even when I’d mastered the shape, it took some time to copy the movement. I was found by the human girl Laura. She joined me in the pool, thinking I was Emma. I found out much from her. But she saw I was not swimming in the human way. She knew something was wrong. Then she spotted one of Emma’s hands that I had not disposed of. She began to scream.’

  ‘So you killed her. Sucked all the electricity out of the building, and zapped her with it. The first power cut.’ The Doctor spoke in a matter-of-fact way, to hide how he was really feeling. ‘Before hiding poor dead Emma’s hand down a grating.’

  ‘Yes. After that, I was ready. I filled myself with electricity before I tried to swim. That way, I could protect myself if anyone found me.’

  ‘You didn’t stop at two deaths. Did Laura’s boyfriend suspect something? What about Joe the sprinter?’

  ‘He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then I saw the electrician poking around as I was on my way to the pool. I knew I would have to get rid of him. It was a close thing, though. I had to wait until he’d taken off his silly boots. I couldn’t shock him while he was wearing those.’ She laughed. ‘Talking of shocks – guess how I felt when your ship appeared!’

  The Doctor stood up and turned to face the TARDIS. He hadn’t really looked at it since he’d landed. First there had been the power cut, then it had been electrified.

  He walked round to the back of the police box. There was only a small gap between the ship and the wall. It was just big enough to hold the body of the electrician. He had been a short, dark-skinned man with black curly hair and a tiny moustache.

  ‘I electrified your ship to stop you finding him,’ the Rutan Emma said, joining him. ‘Well, partly that. I would be put to death if I left without completing my mission, and I needed your help. To defeat the Sontarans, I mean. I didn’t think you’d help me wipe out the humans.’ She laughed.

  The Doctor didn’t laugh. He wasn’t finding any of this funny.

  ‘I have a question too,’ she went on.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘If you’ve known for so long that I’m not Emma the human, why didn’t you say something before?’

  This time the Doctor did laugh. ‘Because I’m a fool!’ he said. ‘I thought you might be trying to change. You were helping me. Oh, I know you just wanted me to defeat the Sontarans for you, but you were still helping. At times, you seemed to show concern for the humans here. Helping Holly when she was hurt, that sort of thing.’

  He paused and looked sadly at her. ‘I thought if I treated you kindly, you might realise that my way is better. You might stop the killing. For a moment, I even thought you’d given your life for us all. No human could have survived what happened to you in the arena. Then I realised that you could just absorb the power.’

  ‘If you’d looked up, you would have seen me in my own body,’ she told him. ‘I hadn’t got a grip on being Emma again. You see, I’d shifted into Sontaran form to get out of the gym. One of them nearly found me when I was talking to you through the cupboard door. Luckily, we shape-changing elite are made to learn Sontaran as a default form.’

  ‘Lucky for me, I suppose,’ the Doctor agreed.

  ‘The blast made me revert to my own body, then launched me right across the arena. I stayed out of sight until it was all over. You didn’t need my help any more. You could deal with the Sontarans yourself.’ She smiled at him.

  The Doctor didn’t smile back. ‘And now what? We all live happily ever after?’

  ‘Well, why not?’

  ‘Because I don’t know if you have ch
anged. You don’t seem sorry that you’ve killed six people here. Emma. Laura. Andy. Joe. Jess. The electrician. Do you still plan to win Earth for the Rutans?’

  ‘They would kill me if I did not,’ she said.

  The Doctor shook his head. ‘Not if I took you away from here in the TARDIS. I could give you a second chance.’

  There was a flash of green light. The Doctor flung up his hands to shield his eyes. When he could see again, Emma had gone. In the girl’s place was a large green jelly-like blob, pulsing with white veins. Hairy white fronds floated from its body, like a beard made of seaweed.

  ‘Showing your true colours?’ the Doctor asked. ‘Mainly green, I see.’

  The Rutan spoke. It was no longer using Emma’s voice, the sound it made was low and grating. ‘I could kill you and take your craft,’ it said.

  The light bulb hanging from the ceiling

  flickered, and energy crackled across the alien’s skin.

  ‘I think I could learn to fly it,’ the Rutan went on. ‘My mission would be easy with a time ship. My people would reward me for it.’

  The Doctor waved a booted foot in the air. ‘Just try it,’ he said. ‘You can’t give me any deadly shocks while I’ve got my special rubber boots on! Now come on. What’s it going to be? This is your last chance to take your last chance.’

  He braced himself, not sure that even the boots would protect him if the alien attacked. But the Rutan seemed to be thinking about his words. The green glow within its huge round body went darker, then became lighter again. ‘I . . .’ it said slowly. ‘I . . .’

  ‘Death to Rutans!’

  The shout came from the doorway. The Doctor spun round. Major Stenx staggered into the room. The broken tip of a javelin was still sticking out of his probic vent. The Doctor couldn’t believe the Sontaran was still alive.

  ‘Sontaran!’ The Rutan was rushing across the room towards its enemy. The lights went out, but the Doctor could still see. Tendrils of power whipped around the Rutan’s body, lighting up the room.