Part 45 (2/2)

'We'll have to do a lot better than that,' said Isaac.

The Doctor waved his free hand at the console. 'Look at the telemetry panel,' he hinted.

Isaac leant over it. 'It's a satellite. Look at that communication configuration - that's Dalek!'

'They're in orbit?' gasped Ms R.

'It's a spy,' said M'Kabel.

'Admiral...' said Joel, agonized. He stumbled against a wall' too frightened to keep standing up.

'The satellite's watching for the missile launch,' said Isaac.

M'Kabel didn't stop typing. 'It'll probably signal the Daleks as soon as Albinex's plan gets underway.'

'Dad?' said Benny.

'Don't stop the launch,' Isaac told M'Kabel. He grabbed the Tzun's hand. 'Don't stop it.'

'What the -' began Ms R.

Isaac looked at the Doctor' who was still holding the Navarino at bay. The Time Lord nodded.

Isaac punched in a set of coordinates.

'Everybody out!' he yelled.

They bolted from the silo en ma.s.se en ma.s.se, nearly running into Chris and Roz. Albinex shot past the Adjudicators in a purple blur.

'The Daleks have a spy satellite!' shouted Chris.

'We know that!' yelled the Doctor. 'Give me a hand!'

Chris ran over to where the Doctor was struggling with an unconscious Ogron. They hefted the hairy creature between them. 'What about the other one?' shouted Chris, over the sound of rocket engines firing up.

'He's dead,' said the Doctor. 'Come on!'

They ran after the others' carrying the Ogron awkwardly between them.

'Hit the dirt!' shouted Roz.

Around the USAF base at Greenham Common, chants and songs and shouts died away into nothing as the police and the protesters and the soldiers stopped as one body, and sixty thousand eyes watched the missile climb into the sky.

The Dalek spy satellite had been idly watching the heat traces around the airforce base, wondering why there were so many humans gathered there. It saw the missile coming and woke up a bit. That was the signal. It turned lazily, its communications disc pointing outwards, aiming for the relay satellite near Barnard's Star. The one that would contact the fleet.

It had a series of coded instructions to run. Once the nuclear weapons had done as much damage as they could, it would release cleansing biological packages into the atmosphere. Human civilization would have been completely destroyed, along with the majority of the population. The viruses would take care of anything that was left, preparing the world for its new masters.

Beyond that, the satellite didn't know and didn't care what the plan was. In its own dim way it was aware that the Daleks didn't care much either. They'd been contacted, made an offer: if it didn't come to fruition, it was no skin off their implants. Earth would keep.

The satellite knew it was invisible to the planet's primitive sensors, the stumbling radar on the surface and the clumsy satellites in orbit.

If it had been bright enough to understand surprise, it would have been astonished when a cruise missile smacked into it from behind and ripped it to shreds.

Denouement

'Where's Albinex?' said Benny.

'I don't know,' said Roz. 'Get your foot out of my mouth.'

'Sorry,' said Benny.

'Last seen as a purple dot on the horizon,' said Chris.

'Are we still alive?' said Joel.

'Yeh,' said Isaac.

Silence for a bit.

'Don't say it,' said Benny.

Joel said, 'Only way to be sure.'

Albinex pressed a lumpy fist into the remote control. A hundred feet up, the airlock cycled, and the ladder gracefully lowered itself into the forest.

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