Doctor Who_ War Of The Daleks Part 1

WAR OF THE DALEKS.

by JOHN PEEL.

PROLOGUE: THAL s.p.a.cE.

'Exterminate! Exterminate!'

Ayaka licked her lips, held her finger steady on the trigger and watched as her in-helmet display began to relay figures to her about the wave of Daleks moving across the plain towards the Thal encampment. She didn't really need to know that there were exactly six hundred and thirty-eight Daleks advancing, or that they were approaching at a rate of twelve units per minute. She could see them, feel the ground rumbling, and hear their mechanical war cry.

She could also feel the cold trickle of sweat down her spine. One thing that never changed in their war with the Daleks was the chill of fear that always kicked in when she first saw those ominous metallic war machines. She knew she should get over this instinctive fear; after all, she was a veteran of thirty-two battles now. She was twenty-six years old, and still alive. That made her a veteran. Most of her squad was at least four years younger, the only exception, of course, being Delani, their commander. She knew she should be over being terrified of the Daleks by now.

And she knew she never would be.

'Steady,' Delani's voice said in her ear, speaking to the whole squad. 'They're too far away for a good lock yet. Let them come closer.' He didn't sound afraid, he sounded eager, which he no doubt was. Killing Daleks was his sole purpose in life.

Let them get closer... Ayaka shuddered again, watching as the Daleks trundled over the uneven ground, still chanting. She shut off her external sound, not wanting to hear their voices any more. And there wouldn't be anything worth listening to out there once the battle began anyway. She licked her lips again, and wriggled inside her suit. Battle armour was necessary, of course, but never comfortable. There were always edges somewhere that wanted to worm their way under your skin.

Cathbad lay next to her, and he glanced at her. She could see his face through his helmet, and he gave her a nervous smile. This was only his fourth battle. He was all of twenty-two, and fourth in command of the unit. She managed a watery smile back. It probably didn't rea.s.sure him. It sure as h.e.l.l didn't rea.s.sure her. She tried not to think that they were statistically bound to lose at least two-thirds of the squad in this fight. Since most of them were in their first fight, those were the likeliest casualties. Ayaka made it a habit never to get to know anyone in her squad until they'd been through three battles. It was too hard losing friends as it was.

And, of course, today could be the day when her own luck ran out...

She tried not to think about that. Dying here, on this barely surveyed world on the edge of Thal s.p.a.ce... She hadn't even heard about the planet until two days ago, when the orders to defend it had come through. Terakis. Smallish world, near normal gravity. It wasn't until the s.h.i.+p was on the way down that Ayaka discovered there was a native race here. She had no idea what they were like, or how advanced they were. It didn't matter to the Daleks, of course. Whatever the natives were, they would be good only for slaves or target practice. The Daleks had no interest in anything else.

Then the Daleks opened fire. They were still out of range, but it didn't matter to them. A s.h.i.+mmering wall of electronic disruption sprang up before their advancing numbers. Ayaka didn't know whether this was meant to intimidate their foes, or whether the Daleks simply couldn't wait to begin their killing. Either way, it meant the battle was starting, and her fear faded away. Now she had to concentrate on survival.

'Steady,' Delani called again. 'Don't let them rattle you. Wait for the command to fire.'

Ayaka waited with all the patience she could muster. Several bushes about forty units away exploded into flames as they were raked by Dalek fire. That meant the Daleks would be in range in about three minutes...

Sweat trickled down her back, and she wished there was some way to scratch. She'd have to ignore it until the battle was over. Then she'd be able to scratch herself raw if she wanted to or else she'd be dead. Either way, the problem would be solved.

The helmet display was starting to identify individual targets for her now. She could see the grey shapes clearly, their energy weapons humming as they moved forward. The worst thing about Daleks was that they had no external features to show you what they were thinking. Of course, since 'exterminate' pretty much summed up their entire philosophy, you didn't need to speculate too hard. But to see eyes, or a face, one that could show joy, hatred, or fear that would help. The plain grey finish to their travel machines gave away nothing.

'On my word,' Delani said softly, excitedly. Ayaka's helmet told her the Daleks were sixteen units away, almost in range. Her rifle was powered, and she was primed. Her heart beat faster, and she could feel the adrenalin surge kicking in.

'Fire!'

She acquired her first target, and tapped her trigger. The rifle kicked, and the smart grenade whirled through the air. It exploded about a unit from the Dalek, caught in the withering electronic fire laid down by their foes. Flashes along the line showed where similar efforts by her squad had also failed to penetrate. There were brief gouts of flame as Daleks were hit and erupted, but Ayaka ignored that, pumping further shots at the Dalek she'd sighted on. The third one penetrated the defensive fire, and the grenade sliced the top of the Dalek off. Green ooze flecked over the casing, which stopped dead, blazing.

Ayaka targeted her next victim, and fired again.

All around her, the squad was blazing at the line of advancing Daleks. She was dimly aware that Daleks were exploding, and then she heard the first scream of one of her own, as the Dalek line of fire reached the Thals.

Electronic death splashed harmlessly off her hardened armour. It was built so that it could withstand direct fire, but, if three or more Daleks concentrated their blasts on one target, even the armour couldn't withstand that kind of attack for very long. She pumped fresh sh.e.l.ls into her rifle, and blew her attacker to h.e.l.l and back.

Nothing was real for her now other than her rifle getting hot from the recoil, the blast of the sh.e.l.ls as they launched, and watching for each Dalek to explode before moving on to her next victim. More Thals were dying about her. She could hear screams through her radio, before the victims' suits stopped transmitting. There was no way to tell how many had perished, or who they were. Cathbad was beside her still, firing away. His face was strained and pale as he concentrated on dealing death while cheating it himself.

The battle computer was having trouble tallying the death count of the Daleks. Smoke from blazing machines wafted across the battle line, making it hard to see physically. Without the targeting radar in her suit, she'd hardly know where to fire. The radar locked on for her, giving her direction and range, and she fired and fired again. According to the display, over half the attackers were now destroyed.

And then a huge, silent explosion churned the ground about twenty units to her right. She felt the shockwave from the blast, but heard nothing with her external audio off.

'Special Weapons Daleks!' Delani called. 'They're moving in behind the survivors. Ayaka, Cathbad, Dyoni flank right, to the ridge. Take them out with missiles.'

'Acknowledged,' Ayaka replied, hearing Cathbad and Dyoni echo her voice. She wondered for a second what had happened to the three men stationed there for precisely this eventuality, but dismissed the thought. She already knew.

Electronic fire blazed about the three of them as they leapt to their feet and sprinted towards the ridge. The Daleks were starting to lock in on them. Ayaka's helmet wasn't quite screaming at her that she was in trouble, but it was getting quite shrill about it. That meant at least two Daleks had a lock on her. She didn't dare pause to fire back, since that would make her a standing target, so she simply launched a few mines in the right direction, praying for luck.

And it held. The suit informed her that only one Dalek was now still shooting at her. She could afford to ignore that.

The missile launcher loomed through the smoke, and she saw that the three soldiers there were dead. Two had been killed by Dalek guns, the third decapitated by some blast. She avoided looking at his or her remains, pus.h.i.+ng them aside to slip into the firing seat. Cathbad took targeting, and Dyoni loaded.

Ayaka could see nothing in the smoke and flames, but the computer-controlled radar could. Cathbad steered the cannon, and as soon as a target was acquired, Ayaka fired. The gun kicked back hard, rattling her around in her armour. And even she could see the great ball of fire that arose as the Special Weapons Dalek exploded.

But there was no time to rest or celebrate. Dyoni loaded, Cathbad aimed, and she fired. Again and again.

'Striders!' Delani called. 'Pull back, all units.'

Striders! Just how many troops had the Daleks committed to this fight, anyway? She hadn't seen Striders for the last three battles. This had to be a serious offensive, then, not just some simple backwater skirmish.

'Try to target them,' she ordered Cathbad.

'Negative!' Delani's voice cut in. 'Ayaka, your orders are to fall back immediately.'

'd.a.m.n,' she hissed, but knew better than to disobey. She jumped from the firing seat, Dyoni and Cathbad close behind her, and they moved back. As they did, the missile launcher exploded. The blast threw her, face down, into the mud, pressing her there with a fiery hand.

For a moment, she was stunned. The Special Weapons Daleks must have fired at the launcher and destroyed it. If she had still been in there... Fire rained down around her as she struggled back to her feet. Cathbad was already up and helping Dyoni. Ayaka could see a slight crack in Dyoni's armour.

'Dyoni,' she ordered, 'pull completely back. You've got a fracture.'

'I'm OK,' the other woman insisted.

'Pull back!' Ayaka snarled. If the Daleks targeted her now, her armour would split. 'Get repairs. Move!'

'Affirmative.' Dyoni's jets kicked in, and she flew towards the transports at low level.

Ayaka ignored her now. She and Cathbad scurried back to rejoin Delani and the others at the prearranged rendezvous. Dalek fire still burst all about them, but it was having very little effect at this range. On the other hand, once the Striders arrived, they would be in deep trouble.

'I've called for tactical support,' Delani told her on a secured channel. 'Air strike is on the way.'

'Why aren't they here already?' she demanded. 'They must have known the battle's begun.'

'They know.' He looked at her, his eyes bright. 'This is just one edge of the battle, Ayaka,' he explained. 'There are eighteen other squads down here, all under heavy fire.'

Eighteen others! Ayaka was astonished. She'd never been on an operation with more than three other squads before. 'Such a concentration of our forces...' she began. 'The Daleks are bound to realise...'

'That Terakis is a real prize,' he finished for her, with a nod. 'Yes. This could be one of the decisive battles for our people. Let's try to survive it, so we can join the celebrations, shall we?' He grinned. 'Here they come.'

Ayaka didn't know whether he was referring to the Daleks or air strike for a second, and then the smoke s.h.i.+fted slightly. Through the explosions that rocked the world, she could see the Striders.

These were at least ten times the size of a normal Dalek, but lacking the usual base. In its place were the eight long, flexible legs that carried them over the terrain. Around them, like smaller cousins, scurried the Spider Daleks. These were only slightly larger than the regular warriors, but with a similar eight-legged arrangement.

'What museum did they find them in?' Cathbad asked. 'I thought they'd abandoned the Spiders centuries ago!'

'On uneven terrain, they're more flexible than the regulars,' Ayaka replied. Even with their hover-capability, regular Daleks had trouble on less-than-even ground. The Spiders weren't so limited they could clamber about. And the Striders could go almost anywhere they wanted to. Their bulbous bodies housed four cannons, firing ahead and below as they moved. There was no real way for the squads to take out a single Strider, let alone the ten that her helmet told her were here.

Then she saw trails of fire in the air, and realised that the promised air support had arrived. Eight fighters whipped overhead, streaking towards the Striders, and releasing their missiles. The Striders relocked their weapons, spitting fire and destruction at the Thal fighters.

Everything exploded then, and Ayaka's helmet filters darkened her visor. When it cleared, she saw that three of the fighters were down, blazing globules of wreckage on the shattered earth. And four of the Striders had been taken out. Two were locked in position where they stood, blazing away. The other two had collapsed, and exploded.

Six were still advancing.

The first of the Spider Daleks was in range now, and Delani gave the order to open fire. Ayaka raised her rifle, and targeted the closest Spider. Though they wore tougher armour than a regular Dalek, their joints made them more vulnerable. She pumped grenades, and took out two joints causing her target to list but it kept firing back at her. Then a third and finally a fourth leg all on the same side. The Dalek crashed down, scrabbling for a way to rise again. She finished it with a shot to the dome that spread metal, electronics and green fluid over the rocks.

Then she started over again with the next.

'Don't they ever stop?' Cathbad complained, as he kept up continual fire beside her.

'Not while there are any left,' she grunted, concentrating on her shots. She tried to avoid looking at the remaining Striders as they moved towards their position.

The fighters swung around for a second pa.s.s, their missiles blazing across the battlefield. Strider fire strobed across their sleek bodies, and two more exploded and crashed. Three more Striders stumbled, exploding into fireb.a.l.l.s.

The final three Striders were now virtually upon them, their guns blazing, tearing up soldiers and ground indiscriminately.

'Fall back!' Delani called, rather belatedly to Ayaka's mind. Still, she took out one last Spider, enjoying seeing it stumble and burn, and then ran after Cathbad as the Striders approached. Fire scorched the ground about them as they dodged and twisted. She fired off two more mines, even though she knew they wouldn't be effective against their targets.

Was this the end?

Then two gravity tanks hurtled past, almost blowing Ayaka over in their wake. Their turrets opened continuous fire on the three Striders, hammering long and hard. The Striders ignored the foot soldiers now, concentrating on the more deadly tanks. Ayaka stumbled along, and saw that another tank was waiting for them. The remnants of the squad were hitching a ride on the outside.

'Transport,' Delani reported. 'We're falling back to the mountains. The Daleks won't have such a simple time of it there.'

'This was simple?' Ayaka growled, clamping her foot in a restraint and her hand about a stanchion.

'Comparatively,' he answered. 'They're taking a beating.'

'In case you hadn't noticed,' she told him, 'so are we.'

'That's only to be expected.'

'Yes,' she agreed silently. 'But it doesn't mean I like it.' She and Cathbad had been the last, and the tank lifted off, shaking slightly with all their weight, and then set off away from the battle zone.

Ayaka looked back, her helmet doing its best to make sense of what she was seeing. One of the Striders erupted as a clean shot ripped open its belly. The fuel cells went up, turning it into a miniature sun. Then a tremendous explosion lit the ground as one of the tanks was finished. The second tank whirled, turret blazing continuously, and the penultimate Strider faltered and then fell, spouting fire and metal.

The final Strider was on top of the last tank, battering, pounding down with electronic fire. The tank surged forward, slamming into one of the great legs, and then mushroomed into a huge fireball that enveloped the Strider, too. The pilot had detonated the tank's remaining ammunition, taking the Strider with it.

Now only the warrior Daleks and Spider Daleks were left, following the transport. They seemed determined to allow no survivors. This was one of the longest and worst battles Ayaka had ever been in. Most lasted no more than fifteen minutes, and this had been playing for almost twice that. She was exhausted, emotionally drained. And there was no end in sight yet. She saw Cathbad's face through his helmet, just as tired as she must look. She wanted to give him an encouraging smile, but couldn't get the right muscles to work.

A few minutes later, the transport mounted a ridge of rocks, and drew up to a barricade that had been raised. There were other Thals there, survivors of some of the other squads. They helped Delani's troops to safety, handing out whatever grenades and mines they could spare. Ayaka glanced around, seeing that there were no more than about a hundred of them. One was Dyoni, her armour still cracked. She'd not been able to get restored.

Clearly, they were losing this battle.

'Any chance of a pull-out?' she asked Delani on their private channel.

'We're not finished yet,' he told her, grinning almost cheerfully, it seemed to her. 'We've still got a trick or two to play. Let's just wait and see what happens, shall we?'

'What other choice do we have?' she grunted, and turned her attention back to the plains they had just left. The transport had vanished, probably going after some more survivors. There were pitifully few of them, but she'd weep later. If she survived.

Cathbad tapped her shoulder, and then gestured backward. Puzzled, she looked around, and gasped in shock.

She'd known the planet was inhabited, but she hadn't realised how close they had come to one of the native settlements. The ridge they were on backed towards a river, some twenty units below them. And on the other side of the river was an encampment. It looked pretty crude wooden buildings, some canoes in the river, and large communal cooking fires. There were only a couple of the natives in view, and her helmet automatically focused on them.

They were tall, slender, and a rich brown in colour. They had large eyes, slits for mouths, and four arms. They were all carrying spears and some kind of bows. Hunter-gatherers, she realised. Barely on the first steps towards civilisation. But intelligent and aware. And undoubtedly very, very frightened. They could have no possible conception of what was happening to their planet.

Ayaka almost wept for them. If the Daleks wiped out the squads and this looked very likely then the settlement would be next.

'Poor wretches,' Cathbad muttered. 'The G.o.ds are making war, eh?'

'That's probably what they think, yes,' she agreed. 'It's world's end.'

'Here they come,' Dyoni called, levering herself into position on the barricade.

Ayaka ignored the natives, and turned back to the fight.

There should have been about a hundred Daleks, the ones who had been chasing the remnants of her squad. But they'd obviously joined up with the forces that had faced the other squads. There were probably a thousand of them on the plain, heading deliberately for the barrier. Spiders tapped their way forward. Warrior Daleks rumbled along. Many were damaged, but none were slowed.

Unless Delani had something very, very clever up his sleeve, they were doomed. She opened fire anyway, knowing she had no other option. All around her, the survivors joined in, strafing the oncoming horde with whatever they had left.

'Careful!' Delani called. 'Strike one is coming in. On my signal, down and harden your armour.'

What? Ayaka couldn't understand him for a second, and then his meaning hit her. 'You've ordered a nuke?' she exclaimed.

'd.a.m.ned right,' Delani agreed. 'The electromagnetic pulse will fry their inboard computers.'

'Haven't you looked behind us?' she demanded. 'There's a native village there. And they don't have hardened armour.'

'Then they'll die,' Delani said, unconcerned. 'If the Daleks get past us, they'll die anyway. This way will be quicker and a h.e.l.l of a lot less painful for them. And it'll give us a chance to live. Maybe you can avenge them.'

Ayaka didn't know what to say. To deliberately order a strike that would kill civilian targets... She couldn't think straight. All she could do was fire at the oncoming Daleks, blanking out her mind.

This is war, she reminded herself. They're dead whatever happens.

'Down!' Delani yelled.