by Tucker, Mike
Oclar laid a scaly hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. These deaths were not my intention.’
‘I know.’ The Doctor smiled sadly. ‘But let’s see if we can make them the last, eh?’
Oclar nodded.
‘Now that you have captured the base, what are we going to do?’ the Doctor asked.
Oclar took a deep breath. ‘Speak with the humans. Only this time, we will do it on our terms, not Pelham’s.’
The Sea Devil commander, Veldac, hissed in displeasure. ‘Is that wise, Oclar? The apes have already proved that they cannot be trusted. Surely we should keep the fuel source for ourselves.’
‘But my original plan is sound. If we come to them offering the fuel as a gift then they must see that our intentions are peaceful.’
‘It is still a good plan,’ Partock stood alongside her father. ‘We shouldn’t give up on peaceful solutions, Veldac, just because of one greedy human.’
‘I’m delighted to hear that!’ said the Doctor in surprise. ‘I thought that you were the one I was going to have trouble with!’
‘I had to get my father free,’ said Partock stubbornly. ‘I couldn’t have done it without Veldac and his troops.’
‘And I am grateful,’ said Oclar. ‘In the meantime, I need to check that Pelham’s haste to extract the Fire Ice has not caused damage to our machinery.’
‘I’ll help you,’ said the Doctor.
As he followed the Silurian scientist to the main control bank, a smile flickered across Partock’s face. ‘My father is a fool, Veldac. Let him give the Fire Ice to the humans. A fine gift indeed. As soon as they use it, their species is doomed and the planet is ours.’
Chapter Nine
Lizzie peered out of the window of the storeroom where she had been locked up. Pelham’s men were starting to load the drums of Fire Ice. Ever since the storm had eased, there had been a steady stream of tractors and snow mobiles. In a matter of hours, Pelham would be showing the first sample of his super fuel to the world, and he would have won.
She thumped the windowsill in frustration. ‘Where the hell have you got to, Doctor?’ she muttered under her breath.
At first, the Doctor had been nothing more than a way of getting here, a decoy. But now she was beginning to realise just how much she owed him. He had stopped her from making a terrible mistake. The disappointment in his eyes had been more than she could bear. More than anything, she wanted to show him that he had been right about her, and that she would never have pressed that button.
A low, drumming throb filled the air, and Lizzie’s heart sank as two huge dark shapes swung low over the base. They were Navy helicopters.
The aircraft settled onto the ground in a blizzard of snow and ice. The doors of the helicopters slid open and dozens of heavily armed troops started to fan out in a well-drilled pattern.
Pelham’s back-up had arrived.
There were other eyes watching as the troops arrived, eyes that took everything in with a professional interest.
Noting the number and position of the human troops, the Sea Devil scout slipped through the neat hole that had been cut through the ice. They had cut holes like this all over the ice sheet with their heat weapons. It allowed them to spy on the humans unseen.
Adjusting the heating control on his thermal armour the Sea Devil scout swam through the freezing water with powerful strokes. The Sea Devils were far more suited to water than land. The scout wished that the heavy thermal armour was not necessary. They had far more resistance to cold than their Silurian cousins. Even so, the freezing waters of the Antarctic would quickly prove fatal if not for the heating units the armour contained.
Kicking out with thickly webbed feet, the scout made his way to the airlock deep beneath the ice. Working the controls, he made his way into the base. Veldac was already waiting for him.
‘What is your report?’ hissed the General.
‘The humans have brought in troops, as you suspected, General. A force of about thirty soldiers has arrived in two of their flying machines.’
‘The humans are predictable, but their desire to keep the Fire Ice will make them cautious.’
‘The force is small, sir, and their weapons are primitive. Shall we destroy them now?’
‘Not yet. You will return to your post, and inform me if the humans start any action against us.’
‘Yes, General.’ The scout saluted sharply, and turned back towards the airlock.
The General turned to his aide. ‘Tell Partock that our plan is entering its final stage.’
‘Intelligent lizards? Is this some kind of a joke?’ The Navy captain stared at Pelham as if he was mad.
Pelham gave him a humourless smile. ‘I imagine that information about these creatures is passed down on a need-to-know basis. Am I right, Admiral?’
Admiral Turner nodded. ‘The creatures exist, Captain. They are intelligent, aggressive and armed with heat weapons unlike anything that you will have seen before. Your orders are to shoot on sight.’
To his credit, the captain took in this extraordinary information with barely a flicker of surprise. ‘Sir.’
‘They will almost certainly try and stop us getting the barrels of Fire Ice to the ship,’ said Pelham. ‘That must not be allowed to happen.’
‘And the drill head?’
‘Is currently under the control of these creatures. We daren’t risk a full assault. They could simply destroy the equipment and the fuel source.’
‘Your orders, sir?’
‘Evacuate all personnel. Secure the fuel that has already been extracted, then give these lizards a simple choice. Either they surrender or we destroy them.’
The Doctor and Oclar were deep in the bowels of one of the hibernation machines when General Veldac’s aide entered the control room.
Partock hurried over to him. ‘Well?’
‘The humans have called in troops.’
Partock nodded. ‘We suspected this would happen. Does the General understand what he has to do?’
‘Yes, Partock.’
‘Good.’
The Doctor hurried over. ‘I do hope that we’re not going to do anything hasty. Troops tend to have guns and twitchy trigger fingers. We really don’t want to do anything that would upset them.’
‘Upset them, Doctor? Far from it.’
‘They are almost certainly going to try and get the first treatment of Fire Ice away from here. We need to stop them doing that if we are going to have any chance of doing a deal with them. Now, my plan is this—’
‘We’re not going to stop them, Doctor,’ said Partock. ‘We’re going to let them take it.’
‘Let them?’
‘But of course. The General will make it look very convincing, but the humans will escape with their precious fuel.’
‘I don’t understand, daughter…’ Oclar looked confused.
‘What have you done?’ The Doctor’s voice was suddenly steely. Partock stared at him in defiance. The Doctor gripped her by the arms. ‘When the security guard caught you sneaking around by the barrels, you weren’t trying to destroy them, were you? You want them to take the fuel so you must have done something to it. Now tell me what!’
Partock shook herself free. ‘I’ve added an artificial boosting agent to the barrels.’
Oclar went pale. ‘Dear Maker…’
‘What will it do, Oclar?’ asked the Doctor urgently. ‘Quickly!’
‘It will change the rate at which the fuel is released from the ice. It will speed up the process a thousand times.’
‘And what will that mean?’
‘Huge quantities of greenhouse gases will be released. It will speed up the warming of this planet. It will do precisely the reverse of what the humans hope this fuel will achieve!’
The Doctor stared at Partock in disbelief. ‘You’ll set off a chain reaction that will destroy most of the life on this planet. Not just the humans, but plant life, animal life, everything.’
‘
It will return this planet to a state where we can live properly,’ roared Partock. ‘When we extract the rest of the fuel and I add the boosting agent, it will return this planet to how it was in our own time. This is the gift that I give to the humans.’
‘Partock, please,’ begged Oclar. ‘Don’t do this!’
‘You are weak and old, Father,’ said Partock with a sneer. ‘I knew that you would never agree to this plan. That is why I revived Veldac and his troops. They at least have the courage to do what is needed.’
‘No.’ The Doctor shook his head. ‘It won’t work, Partock. This planet isn’t the same as it was when you ruled. The environment, the climate, everything has changed. You can’t turn it back to how it was!’ He turned and started towards the lift. ‘I’ve got to get in touch with Pelham. Tell him that he mustn’t ship those barrels.’
Partock stepped into his path. ‘Foolish ape.’
Her tongue spat from her mouth, whiplashing onto the Doctor’s neck.
The effect of the venom was instant. The Doctor crashed to the floor.
Chapter Ten
‘Oh, my head.’ The Doctor forced his eyelids open to find Oclar looking at him in concern.
‘Take it easy, Doctor. You’re still very weak,’ said the Silurian.
‘Very weak? That’s the understatement of the year. I haven’t felt this bad since I went out on the town with Oscar Wilde.’ He shook his head, trying to clear his blurred vision. ‘Hang on a mo. I should be dead, shouldn’t I? I thought that Silurian venom was deadly.’
‘Not the venom of young Silurians,’ explained Oclar. ‘It takes time for the venom sacs to reach full strength. You were lucky.’
‘Really?’ said the Doctor groggily. ‘So this is what lucky feels like, is it? If this is lucky, then I can do without being lucky ever again.’ He gave a deep sigh and glared at Oclar. ‘What is it with the youth of today? First Lizzie and now Partock. Is it only the adults who can behave like… well, like adults?’ He shook his head. ‘How long have I been out?’
Oclar shrugged. ‘An hour, maybe more.’
‘An hour! I don’t have time to be lying around here for an hour!’ The Doctor clambered to his feet, swaying unsteadily.
He looked around at the scientists working calmly at the machinery in the control room. ‘Where are our Sea Devil friends?’
‘General Veldac is leading his troops.’ The Doctor turned to find that Partock was watching him with interest. ‘You must be stronger than you look, human,’ she went on.
‘I thought that I had killed you.’
‘Well, I’m not human, and you youngsters do tend to overestimate your abilities.’
Partock bristled. ‘Careful, Doctor. I have told the General to leave most of the apes alive on the surface. It will make their escape look more convincing. But I can always change those orders.’
‘Yes, you probably can,’ said the Doctor sadly. ‘You don’t need to do this, Partock. I can make this right, you know.’
The young Silurian ignored him and unclipped a communicator from her belt. ‘General, are you ready to start your attack?’
‘Yes, Partock.’
As Partock turned away, the Doctor’s eye dropped to the whistle-like device at her belt.
‘The Myrka control,’ he muttered to himself.
Careful to conceal what he was doing, he rummaged in his pocket for his sonic screwdriver. As he did so, his fingers touched something else. It was the trigger device he had taken from Lizzie.
A smile flickered across the Doctor’s lips.
‘What are you up to, Doctor?’ whispered Oclar. ‘If my daughter suspects anything…’
The Doctor grinned at him. ‘I know how to stop her. You’d better cover your ears, Oclar, it’s going to get noisy around here!’
Veldac turned off his communicator and watched as the last of the barrels of Fire Ice was loaded onto one of the human machines. A small convoy of vehicles was now lined up on the ice, ready to make the journey to the coast.
Each vehicle was guarded by two of the human soldiers. Veldac had fought in enough battles to tell that each man was on a knife edge.
He glanced at his own soldiers. They too were alert and ready for his signal. The Sea Devil allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. They had been too long frozen in the ice. It was good to be in battle once more.
He raised the disk of his heat weapon and took careful aim at the human soldier nearest to him. His task was only to drive the humans away, and make it look as though they had escaped. He had been instructed to keep injuries to a minimum.
He hissed in disgust. There was a time when they hunted the human apes freely. But he was a soldier and this was war. Casualties were inevitable.
He pressed the trigger, sending a blast of super-concentrated heat streaming towards the convoy. There was a brief, intense burst of flame, and a soldier was turned into a pillar of fire.
At once there was mayhem. The human soldiers dived for cover, opening fire with their weapons. Others tried to help their burning colleague. At the same time, Veldac’s troops surged from their holes in the ice, falling snow turning to steam as it landed on their heated armour.
The air was filled with the charring smell of the heat guns and the whine of bullets.
Veldac’s turtle-like lips pulled back in a contented smile.
‘Advance!’ he hissed.
Lizzie had watched in horror as the lizard things started their attack. They emerged from nowhere, taking the Navy completely by surprise. Within moments, though, the troops had taken up defensive positions. Now a vicious battle raged out on the ice.
As they desperately tried to hold the creatures back, she could see the civilian members of the crew making a dash for the convoy of tractors. In the distance she could see technicians preparing Pelham’s helicopter to leave.
All this time she had been worried about what Pelham was going to do with her. Suddenly it was obvious. He was just going to leave her behind!
‘Hey!’ bellowed Lizzie, banging on the glass. ‘Wait. I’m still locked up in here! Don’t forget about me!’
A searing beam of heat suddenly blasted through the window. Glass flew everywhere and Lizzie was hurled to the ground.
A jagged hole had been blasted in the wall. There was a choking, burning smell as the walls of the storeroom charred and blistered. Icy wind swept through the hole. As she staggered to her feet, Lizzie realised that this was her chance to escape.
She struggled into one of the heavy fur-lined parkas that hung by the door then scrambled out through the side of the storeroom and into the freezing air.
As she stumbled away from the base, Lizzie realised that she was probably no safer outside. The air was filled with the zing of bullets and the harsh buzz of heat guns. There was the blast of an explosion as one of the soldiers hurled a grenade at the advancing lizard men.
Lizzie waded through thigh-deep snow, desperate to find a place of safety.
As she rounded the corner of the building a tall shadow loomed over her. Lizzie stared up in horror as a Sea Devil raised its heat gun.
Chapter Eleven
‘This could be painful, Oclar…’ The Doctor looked at the scientist with concern. ‘And I can’t promise that I’m going to be able to find the right frequency straight away. Are you ready?’
The Silurian nodded, clamping his hands over his ears.
Taking a deep breath the Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the signalling device on Partock’s belt and pressed the button.
The noise that filled the undersea base was deafening. The Silurians reeled in pain, clutching at their heads.
Partock turned, hatred in her eyes. ‘You again! This time I will kill you.’ She reached for her heat gun, and scrabbled to turn off the screaming device at her belt.
‘No, no, no!’ The Doctor frantically adjusted controls on the screwdriver. ‘Come on, come on! That frequency has got to be there somewhere!’
The noise from the signall
ing device went up in pitch, almost too high for the Doctor to hear. The effect on Partock and the rest of the Silurians was instant. They collapsed on the spot.
On the surface of the ice, Lizzie closed her eyes, waiting for the blast of heat that would end her life.
It never came.
She opened one eye nervously. The Sea Devil was lying flat on its back in the snow. So were all the others. All around her she could see the naval force slowly advancing on their floored attackers. Lizzie nudged the Sea Devil with her foot. It moved weakly. It wasn’t dead, then, just stunned somehow.
She grinned. No prizes for guessing who was responsible. Aware that she probably only had a matter of moments before the Navy moved in to secure their prisoners, she knelt by the prone Sea Devil. She lifted the gun between its webbed fingers, grimacing at the slimy feel of its skin. Attached to the creature’s belt was a small black device. A communicator.
‘Well, if the Doctor is behind all this…’ Lizzie unclipped it and pressed the transmit button. ‘Doctor? Are you there?’
‘Doctor?’
The Doctor was helping a dazed and dizzy Oclar to his feet when Lizzie’s voice rang out through the control room. He snatched up Partock’s communicator in delight.
‘Lizzie Davies! You beauty! Where are you?’
‘Out on the ice sheet with lots of unconscious sea-lizard thingies. Is that your doing?’
‘They’re called Sea Devils,’ explained the Doctor. ‘Well… They’re not actually called Sea Devils. That’s a less than flattering nickname coined back in the 1970s, but let’s call them that for the moment. Are they all out cold? They should all be out cold.’
‘Cold and getting colder by the minute.’
‘And Pelham?’
‘Getting ready to leave with his precious barrels.’
‘Listen, Lizzie,’ said the Doctor urgently. ‘This is very important. He mustn’t leave. I’ll explain everything later, but for the moment all you need to know is that the Fire Ice has been sabotaged. If Pelham tries to use that fuel, it will be the end of everything. This is what I want you to do…’