[Sarah Jane Adventures 07] - The Last Sontaran

by Gary Russell

  ‘Come on,’ Sarah Jane said. ‘We have to save the world!’

  Maria and her friends had saved the world so many times. Sat just outside the Sontaran pod, she was looking at photos on her mobile. The boys after stopping the Slitheen at school. Sarah Jane and some of the kids they saved from General Kudlak’s ship. The little box that protected her from the Trickster. And then lots of pictures of them all just messing about on bikes, at the skateboard park. Clyde trying to show Luke how to climb a tree.

  How could she leave them behind? How could she leave all this adventure behind?

  But it was for her dad. He wanted to take the job in America, she knew that. Stopping him would hurt him, and she’d never do that.

  And as she looked at a photo of Luke, taken in Sarah Jane’s back garden on the day he selected his name, after being freed from the awful Bane Mother, Maria realised that nothing could ever take those memories away.

  But it was time to move on, to make some new memories.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like you again,’ she called over to Luke.

  Luke glanced up from where he was working hard on the chemicals, and grinned at her, not really sensing the meaning in her voice. ‘You won’t need to. You have me.’

  Maria took a breath and stood up and went back to the door of the pod. ‘My dad has got a new job. In America.’

  And for all her thoughts about not hurting her dad, nothing could have prepared her for the look on Luke’s face. She might as well have told him she hated him. He looked surprised, then bewildered, then hurt, then lost, all in a second. ‘Are you going with him?’ He clambered out of the pod, staring at her in dismay. ‘I don’t want you to go. You’ve always been here. Literally. You were the first person I ever saw. I ever spoke to. Without you, I…’

  ‘I know,’ Maria said, trying to be strong. ‘But it’s my dad. And I’ll miss you so much. And Sarah Jane. And Clyde.’

  And she saw a tear roll down Luke’s cheek and realised she couldn’t remember seeing him ever actually cry before. And he wasn’t hiding it like Clyde would. This was raw, emotional Luke. And Maria felt awful.

  ‘You’re leaving me?’ Luke said quietly and she reached out and wiped the tear away with a finger. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said simply Then she gripped his shoulder. ‘But all that will be irrelevant if we don’t stop Kaagh. Please, you have to make this knockout gas.’

  Luke swallowed, and sniffed, then smiled a weak smile at her and went back inside the pod.

  Maria looked back at her mobile, to find comfort in the pictures. But the battery was going and she only caught a glimpse of a two shot of Luke and Clyde grinning before the screen went blank.

  Clyde saw Kaagh before the Sontaran saw him. Clearly that damage to his eye was causing Kaagh more problems than the warrior would admit to.

  ‘Hey, Gollum,’ Clyde yelled.

  The blaster was up and firing before Clyde could move, but the aim was just off and took out a tree.

  ‘By Sontar,’ Kaagh yelled, ‘I will crush you with my bare hands, Bite-Size!’

  And Clyde once again found himself running for his life from Kaagh.

  But this time he knew where he was going, because just up ahead was the clearing that led to the long grass that in turn led to the Tycho Building. And although Kaagh was relentless and apparently never out of breath, Clyde was faster.

  Clyde was approaching the back of the building and could see a rear door. He glanced over his shoulder and to his horror discovered that Kaagh was only twenty paces or so behind. Clyde had misjudged the little alien’s agility.

  Clyde pelted down the track towards the door and reached it. Just as his body started to relax, he realised there was no handle. It could only be opened from the inside! He hoped Sarah Jane was in hearing distance as he began hammering on the door, screaming to be let in.

  Kaagh gave out a victorious war cry as he closed in and Clyde carried on frantically pounding on the door. Suddenly it swung outwards, nearly knocking him over.

  A pair of arms reached out and yanked him inside and someone else slammed the door shut again and locked it.

  Clyde looked up into the faces of Sarah Jane and Lucy. He was about to speak when a massive dent appeared in the door. A Sontaran body sized dent, followed by a pained war cry.

  ‘Quick,’ Sarah Jane said, ‘back to the Control Room. See if we can shut this thing down before Kaagh makes his way round to the front.’

  Clyde didn’t like their chances much but he followed Sarah Jane anyway. ‘Luke’s working on a knock out gas,’ he explained as they got into the Control Room.

  ‘I’m not sure we’ve the time to wait,’ Sarah Jane said and pointed to the countdown. ‘Our jamming signal is no longer working. Lucy, you’re into computer stuff. Think you can stop this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, sitting down to try. Clyde smiled. She was good, this girl, never one to give in. She reminded him of Maria in some ways.

  Lucy slammed her hand on the desk. ‘It’s encrypted,’ she said. ‘I know all Dad’s passwords, but it’s not using one of those.

  ‘Okay,’ Sarah Jane said. ‘You said something earlier about a Transponder thing. If we can take the antenna out of action, his plan will fail. He might as well howl at the moon for the good it’ll do him. Where can we find it?’

  ‘In the Operating System Building, back outside and round the corner. Brick building. You can’t miss it.’

  Sarah Jane nodded. ‘Okay, you keep trying to break the encryption, Clyde and I’ll get this Transponder Unit out of action.’ And Sarah Jane and Clyde dashed off again.

  Unfortunately, what they missed in their hurry was the expertly concealed Sontaran warrior just out in the corridor, hiding in the shadows.

  A few moments earlier he’d come back into the Tycho Building and seen the humans in the Control Room. Where was the Professor? He had scanned the building and realised he was locked inside a small room.

  Casually, Kaagh had shoved the door, sending it crashing to the floor and found the human professor with some smashed up equipment on a table.

  ‘You miserable organism,’ Kaagh had snarled. ‘You let them trick you.’

  The Professor pointed at the junk. ‘I stopped their jamming signal,’ he said dully, as if that made up for his incompetence.

  Kaagh virtually dragged him out of the room and back towards the Control Room, where they heard Sarah Jane Smith talk about the transponder. ‘You know where this is?’

  The Professor nodded meekly.

  ‘This is good sport,’ Kaagh laughed, letting his human tool go. ‘Come, we have a trap to set.’

  Chapter Ten

  Countdown

  In the centre of the woods, two parties were making their way to the Tycho Building. The first couple were Maria and Luke. Luke had successfully he hoped anyway, created a cocktail of chemicals that, judging by the constituent elements of the probic energy aboard the pod, should knock Kaagh out for enough time to stop him.

  Coming from the other direction, unaware of what they were walking into was Chrissie and Alan Jackson, having abandoned Ivan’s sports car by the roadside when they had spotted Sarah Jane’s little green convertible parked there.

  ‘I thought you said they were at a telescope,’ Chrissie was saying.

  ‘Well, obviously it must be around here somewhere,’ Alan said. ‘And this path is well worn, so people must use it a lot coming through here.’

  ‘Oh proper boy scout,’ Chrissie snapped back, and then tripped over a branch, cursing her high heels.

  Alan was busy on his phone trying to locate Maria. There was no reply. ‘Out of range or the battery’s flat.’

  ‘So where do we go now? Maria’s in danger and I hope I don’t have to tell you whose fault that is.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do, Chrissie? Drag her away from the most exciting adventure anyone could dream of? This world’s full of dangers with or without aliens. Just think of all the amazing things she�
�s seen. The universe — oh, when you see it for real, see it through Maria’s eyes, it just takes your breath away.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, I’ve got one or two things to say to Mary Jane about the dangers she puts our daughter in, first.’

  Alan led the way forward in silence. It was never any good trying to argue with Chrissie when she was in one of those moods.

  If they’d been about a hundred metres to their left, they’d have been following Maria and Luke, but neither duo was aware of the other.

  ‘You’re sure this gas will work,’ Maria was saying.

  But Luke suddenly put up a hand to shush her — he could hear a low buzzing sound.

  ‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Maria said, and sure enough zooming through the trees towards them were three balls of energy, different coloured lights. The drones,’ Maria breathed and grabbed Luke’s hand and dragged him off away from the drones.

  A flash of laser fire, just like the Sontaran’s blaster, scorched the ground ahead of them, causing them to turn left. A couple more blasts forced them right. ‘We’re being herded,’ Luke muttered.

  They rounded a tree and realised there was no way back, they were trapped. All three drones swarmed together, and Luke and Maria braced themselves for the blasts.

  Instead, they heard a high-pitched screeching sound and one of the balls of light exploded, setting off a chain reaction and the two on either side of it were destroyed as well.

  As the smoke cleared, they saw Sarah Jane, sonic lipstick in hand. Their saviour. Behind her, Clyde grinned.

  But Sarah Jane was all business immediately.

  ‘Luke, I need you with me; we have to break the computers encryption. Clyde, take Maria, see if you can find this transponder thing and put the antenna out of action. And be careful!’

  ‘Always,’ said Clyde, and led Maria away.

  Not far away, Chrissie and Alan had heard the explosions but couldn’t tell where they had come from.

  Chrissie was looking at her ex-husband accusingly. ‘If anything happens to her.

  Alan said nothing but strode forward and only stopped when he heard Chrissie fall over again. Those wretched heels.

  ‘Just leave the shoes there,’ he snapped.

  Chrissie was outraged. ‘Are you mad? They’re Jimmy Choos! You want some squirrel moving into the most des res in the forest?’

  Still, she slipped them off and carried them by the straps, taking careful steps with her bare feet, not wanting to walk on any prickly bits on the ground.

  Clyde and Maria found the brick outhouse and went in. It was almost pitch black but their eyes adjusted because high in one ceiling was a small skylight.

  The building was dirty and musty, with small doors leading to smaller rooms within the building. Around them was electrical equipment, dials and meters flicking as the radio telescope monitored the stars. ‘And this is what drives the antenna?’ Clyde nodded. ‘Lucy says there’s a central control system transponder. All we have to do is pull it out, the dish stops rotating and the antenna is useless to Kaagh.’

  ‘Sounds too easy to me,’ Maria said.

  ‘Ah,’ Clyde smiled. ‘The hard part is finding it amongst this lot.’

  ‘Well, it’s got to be around here somewhere.’ Clyde looked at his watch, straining to see it in the half-light. ‘Twelve minutes,’ he said quietly.

  And then something hard and metallic crashed to the ground off to their right.

  ‘That didn’t sound good,’ he added.

  Maria shrugged. ‘We still have to find the Transponder Unit.’

  ‘You keep an eye out for it,’ Clyde said. ‘And I’ll keep an eye out for whatever else is down here —’ and Clyde got no further as Professor Skinner loomed up out of the darkness and threw an arm around Clyde’s chest, holding him tightly.

  ‘Run!’ Clyde demanded. ‘Find it,’ he added, struggling in vain against the Professor’s grip.

  Maria rushed around the operations room until she saw a notice saying TRANSPONDER UNIT above a dirty red box. She ran to it and yanked the box open.

  And where the transponder clearly should have been was nothing.

  ‘Is this what you are looking for, Female Half-Form?’

  Maria turned to see Kaagh standing there, the transponder in his thick three-fingered hand. ‘The First Law of the Battlefield, remember? Think Like Your Enemy. And the Second Law of Battle? Anticipate Them.’

  Kaagh strode forward, shoving Maria aside and replaced the transponder. ‘The Operating System remains functional,’ he announced before grabbing Maria’s arm and almost dragging her off her feet as he led her back to the door and outside.

  In the Control Room, Luke was sat at the computer, trying to understand the complex encryption, and not understanding why he couldn’t break it.

  ‘I don’t understand why Kaagh isn’t here to see his plan through,’ Sarah Jane was saying, as she placed Luke’s knock out gas canister on the floor, but Lucy was more concerned by the countdown clock. Three minutes.’

  Then Luke remembered Kaagh. And the pod. And the three-fingered entry code. ‘Of course!’ He began tapping furiously on the keys. ‘You see, it’s a bi axial algorithm, but not using human mathematics. I was trying progressing cross- referencing number bases but then remembered that Sontarans have six fingers, three per hand. So, just as we use decimals because we have ten, they use a base six system.’

  And the screen cleared and the countdown stopped at two minutes fifteen seconds. Luke relaxed. ‘Done it, I’ve disabled the program.’

  Sarah Jane hugged him, and Lucy kissed the back of his head.

  And suddenly the room filled up, as Maria and Clyde were shoved in, followed by Kaagh and Professor Skinner.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Maria said, ‘but the antenna is still operational.’

  ‘These Half-Forms might be primitive,’ Kaagh addressed Sarah Jane, ‘but I admire their spirit. I shall remember you honourably on my return to Sontar. Earth will be a worthy sacrifice to the Empire.’

  Sarah Jane smiled grimly. ‘Oh no, Kaagh. Luke has disabled your program. You can’t take control of the satellites now.’

  And Kaagh just smiled an oily smile, and licked his lips, making Sarah Jane shudder. ‘And the Third Law of Battle, Sarah Jane Smith? Always Have a Plan B.’ He jabbed at his arm controller. ‘Activating Sleeper Agent.’

  And Lucy Skinner suddenly froze.

  And just beneath her hair, they could all see the telltale flashing red light, a control implant, just like her father had.

  ‘She was one of them all along,’ Clyde moaned. ‘And I fancied her!’

  Kaagh licked his lips. ‘The female was unaware of my control. Another Rule of War. Infiltrate Deep Within Your Enemy. Then Infiltrate Deeper Still.’ Lucy Skinner reached down and picked up her MP3 player from the Professor’s desk and took a USB cable out from a drawer, plugged one end into the player and the other into the computer Luke had stopped the countdown on.

  Sarah Jane raised her sonic lipstick. She knew she’d never use it as a weapon, but hoped Kaagh wouldn’t be so sure.

  He, however, just raised his blaster and put it to Marias forehead.

  ‘You might give your life, but would you sacrifice this Half-Form?’

  Sarah Jane looked at the countdown that had now restarted on the screen —' Lucy’s MP3 player was now downloading onto the Professor’s computer the necessary back up codes. Kaagh really had thought of everything.

  She looked at the image of Earth, crisscrossed with estimated impact zones of the crashing satellites.

  She looked at Maria. Her friend. Who had brought so much into her life over the past year. Her friend who was going away, to begin a new life, a whole new adventure. Who would discover new, fantastic things about the universe, but would always take a little piece of Sarah Jane’s heart with her.

  And she lowered the sonic lipstick. She wouldn’t be responsible for Maria’s death.

  ‘It’s me or Earth,’ Maria said. ‘Do it!
’

  ‘I can’t,’ Sarah Jane shrugged. ‘You’re my best friend. I can’t lose you. One life is as sacred as an entire planet.’

  Kaagh nodded at the download on the screen. ‘When the program reloads, it will automatically transmit to the satellites and target your nuclear installations around the world.’ He smiled the vilest smile Sarah Jane had ever seen. ‘Sontar-HA!’

  ‘Why do this, Kaagh?’ Sarah Jane asked, one eye still on the blaster pressed against Maria. ‘This isn’t conquest, this isn’t honour. It’s annihilation. Earth will be a dead rock, useless to the Empire.’

  ‘But I shall have wiped the Sontaran defeat from history,’ he replied. ‘My name will live for all eternities to come. My people will scream “Kaagh” as a battle cry!’

  ‘You’re killing innocent, ordinary people,’ Maria said, determined to be brave. She was talking to Kaagh but staring at Sarah Jane, trying to ignore the gun, and draw courage from her friend and mentor. ‘People like my mum and dad. They’re not soldiers, none of them are. They’ve never heard of Sontar. Where’s the glory in that?’

  The program was 75% loaded now, Lucy Skinner and her father just staring aimlessly at the screen. Luke and Clyde unable to do anything, for fear of Maria being shot. Just Sarah Jane, staring into the small, black eyes of the Sontaran.

  ‘Stop this, Kaagh. It isn’t battle, it’s murder. Your comrades will never cry your name in battle, they’ll deny you ever existed. They’ll be ashamed of you.’

  The program was now 85% loaded up.

  Kaagh pushed Maria away from him, towards Sarah Jane. He didn’t need her now. ‘Your planet defied Sontar. That can never be. I shall have victory over all. Nothing will stop the might of the Sontaran Empire!’

  And a new voice rang out, full of fury and shock and above all, maternal love for a captured daughter.

  ‘Try my size five, Humpty!’

  And before anyone could react, before even Kaagh could see the assault from behind, Chrissie Jackson ran across the Control Room from where she and Alan had been listening in secret and smashed the tip of her expensive high-heeled shoe right down his probic vent.