‘My dear Sarah—an entire galaxy,’ the Doctor retorted,
‘and we must do all we can to prevent it happening.’
‘So the Sontarans
are
after Terullian deposits, Doctor,’
Harry exclaimed.
The Doctor shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, Harry,’ he replied. ‘I have an idea that they are intending to establish a vast colony in this galaxy in alliance with the Hyperioi.’
‘What are
they
? Sarah demanded sceptically. ‘Another clone species,’ the Doctor murmured, ‘from a planet in Hyperion Sigma.’
‘What chance do we have against two armies of clones?’
Harry objected.
The Doctor took Sarah and Harry by the arm and began to outline his plan of action.
‘The Sontarans are rigidly methodical creatures,’ he explained, ‘and if we can destroy Styr, there is every likelihood that the Alliance will withdraw for the present: at least until they discover what went wrong.’
‘How are we going to destroy Styr?’ demanded Sarah with an incredulous air.
The Doctor drew himself up to his full height and struck an imposing attitude. ‘I intend to take him on in single combat,’ he announced.
For a moment no one spoke.
‘You
what
?’ gasped Harry, exchanging glances of amazement with Sarah Jane.
‘Yes. It’s the only way,’ the Doctor continued cheerfully. ‘It is my guess that Styr will not be able to resist a challenge like that.’
‘He’ll murder you,’ cried Sarah after another shocked silence. ‘You’ll just be torn apart..
‘Oh, I don’t think so, Sarah,’ replied the Doctor with a brief, enigmatic smile. ‘Styr’s not accustomed to Earth gravity: for all his power he is pretty unwieldy. He has to return to his craft in order to re-energise himself at frequent intervals.’ The Doctor poked Harry gently in the ribs. ‘And that is where you come in,’ he murmured mysteriously.
Harry gave a flattered smile.
‘I do?’ he said. The smile faded, and Harry looked apprehensive.
‘Into the spacecraft to be precise,’ nodded the Doctor.
‘If I can exhaust Styr, and force him to retreat to the ship for re-charging—well, we’ve got him, haven’t we?’
‘Have we?’ chorused his nonplussed companions.
The Doctor linked arms with them and strode briskly out of the crevasse and into the ravine which led towards the hollow landing area. As they hurried along, he outlined his audacious plan...
Erak had collapsed utterly exhausted among the rocks.
Krans struggled alone, his heart bursting with effort, and tried to prevent the Terullian bar from completely crushing Vural. Styr loomed over the semi-conscious Galsec Commander with his talons hovering near the array of touch-buttons mounted on his belt. He had decided to use his victims not only for the pleasure of torturing them, but also in order to extract information about the unidentified strangers, two of whom had so far eluded his grasp. The Sontaran realised the seriousness of his own position should the invasion be disrupted as a result of their activities.
‘Why did you release the tall human?’ he bellowed down at Vural, thick oily bubbles foaming around his lipless jaws.
The Galsec leader was silent, his face bathed in sweat, his eyes rolling.
‘Three hundred kilograms...’ Styr gasped. Krans fought the crippling load of the bar on his shoulders. Just a few more kilograms and he knew he could not prevent it from sinking down and crushing Vural’s chest.
Styr frothed with anger. ‘I ask you for the last time,’ he shrieked, ‘what pact did you make with the tall stranger and his associates?’
‘We have no pact...’ rang a sonorous voice, echoing round the craggy ridges.
With a hiss, Styr wheeled round. Astride a promontory of rock above him stood the Doctor, his scarf streaming dramatically in the wind.
‘Aaaaaaaaagh...’ Styr breathed, his limbs beginning to jerk in anticipation. ‘At last...’
‘Why waste your time with riff-raff?’ the Doctor shouted, gesturing towards the three crewmen. ‘These puny creatures you are so busy “assessing” are not warriors, Styr. Why don’t you fight someone your own size?’ The Doctor snatched off his hat and brandished it with a proud flourish. ‘I represent the true Human Warrior Class,’ he challenged. ‘Assess me if you dare...’
With a roar of fury, the black vapour streaming from his nostrils, Styr raised his huge arm with its concealed weapon.
The Doctor gave a scornful laugh. ‘Is that the Sontaran way?’ he scoffed. ‘The invincible warrior cowering behind a weapon... ?’
Styr lowered his arm and hesitated. The Doctor jumped down on to a lower ledge of rock, still flourishing his hat. ‘I challenge you, Styr,’ he called. ‘Single combat. Or are you afraid?’
Styr stretched out his enormous arms like a vice. ‘Come then...’ he bellowed. ‘Come to your death.’
Nimbly, the Doctor scrambled down the ridge, keeping up his repartee as he hopped from rock to rock.
‘Oh, you can’t afford to kill me, Styr,’ he taunted, ‘not yet—I know too much about your project... and why it cannot possibly succeed.’
Styr waited for the Doctor to descend, his swollen bulk quivering with impatience, his talons grasping the air and the treacly saliva trickling down his suit, where it congealed in steaming blobs.
‘Whatever you know, you will tell me,’ he hissed.
‘Everything—before you perish...’
From her hiding place among the scattered slabs, Sarah waited for the coming struggle with sinking heart. She had done her best to dissuade the Doctor from taking such a terrible risk, but all in vain. She did not see how he could possibly survive, and clasping her hands to her mouth, she peered out anxiously into the arena as the two contestants slowly approached each other.
7
Harry edged his way nervously past the inert Scavenger—
which resembled a giant crab stranded by the tide—and crept warily up the ramp towards the open hatch in the side of the Sontaran spacecraft. His wellingtons squeaked noisily against the steeply inclined metal grid, and he kept glancing back to make sure that the robot had not stirred.
‘I hope the Doctor’s right about Styr being on his own,’
he murmured as he summoned all his courage and stepped through into the faintly glowing interior of the spacecraft.
Low buzzing and humming sounds filled the air, which was warm and oppressively stuffy.
‘I wonder what kind of atmosphere Sontarans usually breathe... ?’ he murmured, feeling suddenly faint and rather sick.
Harry tried to concentrate on the long string of instructions the Doctor had given him before they split up.
The spacecraft seemed to be composed of a kind of honeycomb of modules—each about the shape and size of a small, spherical room and all interconnected—with a larger central chamber entered by a series of curving passageways.
Harry knew that he must eventually penetrate right to the central module to complete his dangerous and vital task; but first he must perform some preliminary operations—
all in the correct order.
He turned to the left and began to clamber through the modules, squeezing himself through the small circular ports connecting each one to its neighbour. The walls of the tiny cells were covered in panels of unfamiliar-looking instruments which radiated an eerie, multicoloured haze as they flashed and clicked and buzzed to themselves.
‘I wonder how Humpty Dumpty manages to move around inside this little lot...’ Harry frowned, as he counted his right and left turns through the linked modules, hoping that he was taking the correct route.
His query was soon resolved: within a few seconds he discovered that this section of the Sontaran spacecraft was inhabited not by Styr, but by a quite different creature. He became aware of a bright greenish glow, and a familiar humming sound coming from the cell ahead. Cautiously, he peeped through the circular port. There, its tentacles plugged in to various terminals in the curved wall, its electronic brain chattering away, hovered a miniature version of the Scavenger—its domed body a little larger than a football.
He watched, open-mouthed, as the tiny robot withdrew its probes with a series of snaps, revolved on its axis and quietly glided towards him...
Springing lightly down from a ledge, the Doctor landed a few paces in front of his massive adversary. He put up his guard like an old-fashioned pugilist, and danced nimbly from foot to foot, swinging first towards, then away from Styr with provocative ease as he circled slowly round him.
The Sontaran began to lash out, his heavy arms slicing through the air with surprising speed. The bristling talons just missed the Doctor’s head as he leaped backwards, a broad grin on his face.
With a menacing grunt, Styr lunged forward. The Doctor was enveloped in a cloud of sickening vapour, and he staggered back against a low slab of rock, coughing and choking. From her hiding place, Sarah gasped in dismay as the Doctor toppled and lay spreadeagled before the advancing Sontaran. With a gurgle of triumph Styr raised both arms and brought them down with the force of a pile-driver. In the nick of time, the Doctor twisted aside and Styr’s talons smashed into the slab—sending sharp splinters of rock in all directions. Again and again Styr slashed down at his opponent, and each time the Doctor rolled aside. Sarah winced as Styr’s powerful talons crashed against the hard rock, the impact echoing round the crags like gunfire.
‘Stalemate!’ the Doctor suddenly cried, rolling right off the slab and landing on his feet in a single, swift movement. With raucous gasps of frustration, Styr advanced on the Doctor like a tank.
‘Now you will yield...’ he breathed, his talons snapping murderously and his vicious teeth glinting. The Doctor deftly wound a length of his scarf round his nose and mouth to help protect him from the Sontaran’s poisonous breath which hung in sticky clouds around them. With tireless ingenuity, he led the lumbering Alien all over the arena of fallen slabs, cleverly feinting aside or darting through narrow gaps whenever the clumsy Sontaran got too near him. Styr pursued him relentlessly, gradually exhausting his limited charge of energy.
Just as the Doctor sprang behind the enormous slab where the Galsec crewmen were tethered, something jumped out of one of his pockets and clattered among the boulders.
‘Doctor... the sonic screwdriver...’ Sarah cried in panic.
The Doctor shook his head emphatically, without taking his eyes off the approaching Styr. ‘I can’t use that, Sarah,’ he cried through the woollen mask. ‘It’s against the Geneva Convention...’ and he gave a long, taunting chuckle which made Styr hiss with fury as he grasped Erak’s end of the Terullian gravity bar and wrenched it free.
The tethers snapped like threads as Styr swung the bar from Krans’s shoulder. The exhausted crewman pitched forward on to Vural in a dead faint. Styr whirled the vibrating bar around his head as if it were just a broomstick.
‘Three hundred kilograms...’ he bellowed, as the bar buzzed through the air a few centimetres from the Doctor’s skull.
‘Very impressive...’ the Doctor murmured, choosing his moment carefully. Then, diving across the slab in a flying tackle, he grasped Styr’s thick waist. Clinging on for all he was worth as the Sontaran stamped about trying to shake him off, the Doctor quickly worked his way round so that he was behind his lumbering opponent. He fumbled among the cluster of controls set into the front of Styr’s belt, and with a sharp jerk, altered the setting of the gravity bar switches.
Styr stopped moving, as if rooted like a tree. The free end of the Terullian bar crashed to the ground; then the other end slowly slipped out of Styr’s fierce grip and crunched on to his broad elephantine boot. He uttered a thunderous roar of pain. The Doctor abruptly turned the switches in the opposite direction and, diving between the Sontaran’s quivering legs, he snatched up the Terullian bar without any apparent effort. Before Styr could react, the Doctor brought the bar down with all his strength on to the back of the Sontaran’s neck—just at the point where a small vent was inserted into the collar.
For a few seconds Styr was completely immobilised. His huge limbs stuck out rigidly at bizarre angles, his vast lungs stopped working and his glowing eyes went dim. The Doctor made the most of his momentary advantage, smashing at the section of Styr’s arm which contained the hidden weapon, and at the instrument panels along his belt. Vivid sparks crackled as the Doctor rapidly wrecked the Sontaran’s armoury of controls.
Without warning, a series of gigantic spasms shook the Alien’s colossal frame. The rubbery lungs resumed their steam-hammer beating and the eyes burned like coals as Styr started forward, grabbing at the flailing gravity bar which the Doctor kept just out of his reach as he hopped from rock to rock up towards the ridge.
Sarah had emerged from her niche among the rocks, and was watching, heart in mouth, as the Doctor backed up the narrow ridge, forcing the gradually weakening Styr to flounder in pursuit. She knew that the Doctor could not possibly keep up his dangerous tactics much longer. Unless Harry returned very soon with his mission accomplished, it seemed as if all would be lost. She could hardly bring herself to look as the Doctor leaped along the precipitous spine of rock, taunting the gasping Alien with the Terullian rod.
A moan from the semi-conscious Krans nearby prompted Sarah into action. She ran across and tugged at the thin strands of Terullian binding the three exhausted crewmen to the slab, but they could do little to help her in her frantic efforts to release them. Suddenly she thought of the sonic-screwdriver, and quickly located it between the rocks where it had fallen. Studying the familiar, but extremely dangerous instrument, Sarah tried to remember how the Doctor operated it—she had watched him many times, but knew that the slightest mistake could be fatal.
Sarah set the combination switches along the handle to what she thought would be low power, and directed the transmitter probe at the point where one of Vural’s manacles was fused into the slab.
‘What is that thing?’ muttered Krans suspiciously, too weak to restrain her.