“Hold on,” said Alice, running alongside him, “do you know what that explosion was?”
“Not exactly,” said the Doctor, “but I have a few good ideas.”
“Let us in on the secret then,” smiled Alice, looking up at him.
He glanced down at her. “Actually, Alice, I’d rather suggest that you go home. It could be dangerous up here.”
“Dangerous? How?” Alice thought for a moment. “Okay, we’ve just heard a loud explosion,” she smiled up at him, “but dangerous how?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Alice managed to get in front of him and stopped him. “Don’t speak to me like I’m a child,” she said, holding her finger up to him. “I teach children, remember.”
The Doctor arched his eyebrows. “Believe me, you’re all children when it comes to dealing with things like this. Everyone on this planet is.”
They could hear police sirens in the distance and the Doctor hurried on past Alice.
Alice frowned at the Doctor’s bizarre statement. “Well, no matter what you think,” said Alice, jogging alongside him again, “I’m coming with you. At least until the police get there. It’s my school.”
They could see the school on top of the hill in the distance, but it didn’t look damaged. Instead of continuing up the lane, the Doctor took a turn to the left and walked onto the new housing area at the bottom of the chalk cliff that the school stood on.
People were standing outside their houses, gazing up at something on the cliff face.
The Doctor urged them to all stay back as he pushed his way through.
That’s when a couple of police cars appeared. The policeman got out and stopped the Doctor and Alice before they could get any further.
“That’s it, sir. It’s not safe around here.”
“My dear police constable, I am in no mood to be stopped by the likes of you.”
“There’s been a gas explosion at the back of the houses,” said the policeman. “I can’t let you go any further.”
The Doctor laughed. “Gas explosion!” He looked at Alice. “Can you believe this?”
Alice giggled nervously at the policeman and then frowned at the Doctor. “Maybe we should do as they say,” she said cautiously.
The Doctor went to the inside pocket of his blazer and pulled out what looked like an ID card slipped inside a wallet with a clear front. On it read: “UNIT. CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR. ACCESS ALL AREAS.”
He flashed it at the policeman who promptly stepped back. “Sorry, sir. I had no idea this was a UNIT matter.”
“That’s okay, constable, you’re just doing your job.” He put the ID back into his pocket. “I suggest you clear this entire area of all civilians and then contact Brigadier Winters at UNIT. Tell them to give me an hour, and then to come in and investigate.”
“An hour?”
“That’s what I said, constable,” snapped the Doctor.
“Yes, sir.” He looked at Alice. “And the young lady?”
The Doctor looked down at the small woman, her eyes big and brown and full of hope. “She’s with me.”
Alice grinned.
“Okay, everyone, step back,” said the policeman as they began ushering the crowd of onlookers away.
The Doctor gave a little grin to Alice and then they both made their way past the final row of houses that backed up against the cliff.
It was then that Alice could see just what had emerged from the explosion. About 10 foot up the rock face was a huge, gaping hole with nothing but blackness inside. The chunk of cliff that used to occupy that space was now in smaller, broken chunks and scattered all over the back gardens of the houses that backed onto it.
“What caused that?” said Alice, gazing up in wonder. “A gas explosion? Like they said?” She felt stupid as soon as she said it. As stupid as the policeman had sounded when he had said it. There would be no gas pipes running through ancient rock.
“I have a few suspicions,” said the Doctor, as he clambered over the rubble until he was at the base of the cliff.
“So you’re some kind of scientific advisor then?” said Alice. “You kept that one secret. What are you doing hanging about as a caretaker.”
“Don’t take everything at face value,” said the Doctor. “I used to work for UNIT. They investigate aliens and what-not. I don’t work for them anymore.”
“Oh,” said Alice.
“Although I do tend to do a bit of freelancing now and again. It’s always handy to have something like UNIT back you up. You don’t sound too fazed about me mentioning aliens,” said the Doctor, gazing up at the hole.
“It’s hard to dismiss the idea these days,” said Alice, joining his side. “We’ve all seen them.”
The Doctor turned and smiled at her. “A good, open mind. Brilliant!”
“It doesn’t take much of a leap to believe,” she said. “I know the government don’t like us to believe in them, but when you’ve seen spaceships in the sky and metal men in the back garden, it’s difficult to un-believe.” Alice smiled. “And you deal with them?”
“In a way, yes,” he said. “Give me a leg up.”
Alice helped him to clamber up to a small ledge sticking out from the rock face. Once he was on it he was high enough to reach the gaping hole. She passed him up his walking stick and then he reached down for Alice, pulling her up to the ledge. They then helped each other to clamber up to the hole.
“What’s the deal with the walking stick?” said Alice, brushing herself down as they faced the darkness beyond.
“How do you mean,” said the Doctor, his hand gripping the stick as if almost forgetting that he had it.
“Sometimes you need it and then sometimes you don’t.”
The Doctor smiled. “That’s because sometimes I need it, and then sometimes I don’t.”
Alice frowned, not quite believing him. “Fair enough. So, where are we going? Onwards?”
“That’s right,” said the Doctor, pointing towards the darkness with his walking stick.
They walked for a good few metres, the Doctor pulling out a strange device with a red glowing end which illuminated the cave.
“Tell me about yourself then,” said the Doctor, turning to look at her.
“Not much to tell really. This is my first secondary school job. I like to teach. I think people - children - should aim for their true potential.”
“Is that what you did?”
“Well, not exactly,” said Alice. “I kind of fell into this job. I was the oldest of the kids in my family. I had four sisters, all younger than me. Mum and Dad had busy schedules and I just ended up helping to look after them. Rosie used to say that I’d make a good teacher and I guess that’s what I became.”
“Interesting.”
“By the time they had all grown up, I didn’t really know anything else. My life was spent looking after my sisters, so I just felt I needed to look after others.”
“But do you enjoy it?” said the Doctor.
“Definitely,” grinned Alice. “Even if this wasn’t the path for me, well, I think I stumbled on a flipping good path.”
The Doctor smiled again. And then stopped. Standing in front of them, occupying the rest of the tunnel were two, large rocket engines. They seemed to be attached to an even larger object beyond.
“Bloody hell!” said Alice. “I knew they were out there but I never thought I’d come face to face with a real life spaceship!”
“Easy, Alice, these are just the rockets,” said the Doctor.
“But what’s it doing in here? All the way under the cliff?”
“Under the school to be precise,” said the Doctor, checking the readings on his device. “We’re directly underneath the quad. And a little more to the right is Mrs Metcalfe’s biology classroom.”
Alice gazed up at the ceiling, as if expecting to see her colleague sat at her desk marking homework.
“There has to be a rear access hatch,” said the Doctor, edging between the two engines. “It looks like these things ignited and blew that chunk of rock out. Well, most of it. Some of it must have been vaporised in the blast. I should have known that was going to happen when the ground vibrated earlier on this evening.”
“I felt that too,” said Alice, following him between the engines. “I was in the bath and it felt like the entire room was vibrating.”
“The entire village in fact,” said the Doctor. “It was the power building up ever so slightly in the engines. And then they just blew. A bit like a volcano. A few tremors and then BOOM!”
“It’s a wonder no one was hurt back there.”
“Aha!” said the Doctor, feeling around a small gap between where the engines disappeared into the ship. “It’s a doorway.” He aimed his device at the door and there was a clunk, followed by the door sliding open with a horrible, grating sound.
“Do you reckon we should?” said Alice, a little worried.
“Do you reckon we should?” asked the Doctor. “Or do you want to go back home?”
“If I step through those doors, my life’s never gonna be the same is it?”
The Doctor let a smile play across his lips. “It changed the moment I opened the gate to the back garden, Miss Stokes. So, do we go on?”
“What the hell,” said Alice, shrugging her shoulders. “We’ve come this far.”
“Just be careful and follow my lead,” said the Doctor as he tripped up on a boulder. He looked back sheepishly at Alice and then they made their way inside.
Inside was a darkened room, which housed the large, containment units for the engines. The Doctor fumbled around in his pocket again and brought out his glowing red device. He shone it around the room. There were no signs of life. Alice suspected that they must have been in another part of the spaceship.
And then they spotted it.
As the Doctor edged a little further into the engine room, the light from the device hit something. It was about 5 foot tall with a silvery domed head, lights on top and a protrusion from the front of the dome. The rest of it was shaped a little like a pepper pot. Around the “skirt” of the pepper pot were blue, hemispheres in a regular, repeating pattern. In the mid-way point was a metal pole with a sink plunger on the end, and another, shorter pole, which looked a little like a heavy-duty egg-whisk.
The Doctor’s face had dropped and there was a worried look in his eyes.
“These look strange,” said Alice, reaching her hand out to touch one. “Like some kind of tank.”
“No,” said the Doctor, grabbing her hand and pulling it away.
“What’s wrong? They look dead.”
“They’re Daleks,” said the Doctor, darkly.
Something triggered in Alice’s memory. A good few years ago, when the Earth was moved across the galaxy, these things had appeared. She had been ill in bed at the time and couldn’t really remember much of what had happened, but she was sure they had been Daleks as well. In fact she was sure of it. They were all over the papers and TV for weeks after.
“They may look dead, but it’s highly likely that they‘re not.” He peered a little closer at the dome. “They’re just hibernating.”
“It’s just sat in there, sleeping.”
“Yes. This is just the travel machine that the Dalek creature sits inside. The thing that it kills with. Like a tank.”
“But how did them and their ship get under here? There’s no sign of an entrance or anything.”
“It’s likely it trans-warped in.”
Alice frowned, clearly not understanding the term.
“Materialised. Appeared out of thin air. An accident.”
“Okay,” said Alice, laughing, “I think I get it.”
“The engines would have been that powerful that the rock that the ship replaced would have just melted away, otherwise the ship would have been crushed to nothing.”
“From what I remember, Doctor, these things are dangerous. Don’t you think we should get away?”
“What I would like to do,” said the Doctor, “is blow this ship and the Daleks up.”
“But you can’t, can you?”
“No. If I do it’ll bring down the entire cliff and the school and crush those houses outside.”
Suddenly there came a sound from the dormant Dalek. The Doctor and Alice backed up as the Dalek’s dome-like head slowly began to turn with a creaking, metallic grate.
“Run?” suggested Alice.
“Wait,” said the Doctor. “We don’t want to cause anymore disturbances. It might go back into hibernation.”
The eye-stalk began to move up and down, slowly rising and falling. It was testing it’s systems. Then there came a low, guttural grate from deep within the creature.
“EX-EX-EX-EX…”
“Oh no,” said the Doctor.
“Run now?” said Alice, her eyes wide with fear.
“EX-EX-EX….EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!!” screamed the metal monster.
“RUN!” shouted the Doctor.
Next time: The Doctor and Alice are trapped in the school...and the Daleks are coming...! Coming Saturday 18th January 2014.
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