Prisoner of the Daleks Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Recent titles in the Doctor Who series

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter ONE

  Chapter TWO

  Chapter THREE

  Chapter FOUR

  Chapter FIVE

  Chapter SIX

  Chapter SEVEN

  Chapter EIGHT

  Chapter NINE

  Chapter TEN

  Chapter ELEVEN

  Chapter TWELVE

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  Chapter FOURTEEN

  Chapter FIFTEEN

  Chapter SIXTEEN

  Chapter SEVENTEEN

  Chapter EIGHTEEN

  Chapter NINETEEN

  Chapter TWENTY

  Chapter TWENTY-ONE

  Chapter TWENTY-TWO

  Chapter TWENTY-THREE

  Chapter TWENTY-FOUR

  Acknowledgements

  Coming soon from BBC The Dalek Project

  Also available from BBC Judgement of the Judoon

  The Slitheen Excursion

  Companions and Allies

  DOCTOR • WHO

  Prisoner of the Daleks

  Recent titles in the Doctor Who series:

  GHOSTS OF INDIA

  Mark Morris

  THE DOCTOR TRAP

  Simon Messingham

  SHINING DARKNESS

  Mark Michalowski

  THE STORY OF MARTHA

  Dan Abnett

  BEAUTIFUL CHAOS

  Gary Russell

  THE EYELESS

  Lance Parkin

  JUDGEMENT OF THE JUDOON

  Colin Brake

  THE SLITHEEN EXCURSION

  Simon Guerrier

  DOCTOR • WHO

  Prisoner

  of the

  Daleks

  TREVOR BAXENDALE

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781409070191

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Published in 2009 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing.

  Ebury Publishing is a division of the Random House Group Ltd.

  © Trevor Baxendale, 2009

  Trevor Baxendale has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  Doctor Who is a BBC Wales production for BBC One

  Executive Producers: Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner

  Original series broadcast on BBC Television. Format © BBC 1963.

  'Doctor Who', 'TARDIS' and the Doctor Who logo are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.

  Daleks created by Terry Nation.

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009.

  Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.randomhouse.co.uk.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 9781409070191

  Version 1.0

  Series Consultant: Justin Richards

  Project Editor: Steve Tribe

  Cover design by Lee Binding © BBC 2009

  For Martine, Luke and Konnie – for ever

  It was a forgotten world.

  On the very edge of explored space, the planet resembled little more than a speck of dirt floating between the stars. From the surface of this world, the nearest sun was visible only as a distant blue glow on the horizon. The planet existed in perpetual dusk.

  It had once been inhabited by men intent on pushing back the dark boundaries of the universe. The planet had been a useful staging post between the old worlds and the distant, uncharted stars beyond.

  The debris of men impatient to be gone littered the dusty surface: empty, prefabricated buildings, corroded machinery, plastic components brittle with neglect. The computers lay dormant, their purpose lost in shadowy, offline sleep.

  But even a remote and unremembered place can become important – if only to those who visit.

  There was no wind to trouble the dust that had settled over the ages, but, at a secluded point in the middle of the abandoned central structure, a breeze appeared from nowhere. Scrubby little weeds, struggling through the cracks in the paving stones, shivered and withdrew. A sudden, wild noise reverberated from the walls of the surrounding buildings, reaching a crescendo of wheezing and groaning as a tall blue box surged into existence from nowhere.

  The TARDIS doors sprang open and the Doctor leapt out, thoroughly annoyed.

  'All right! That's it!' he yelled. 'I've had enough. What's got into you?'

  The TARDIS made no reply.

  The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets and thrust out his bottom lip. 'You've been acting all funny since we left Earth. What's the matter? Bit of grit in the old dimensional stabilisers? Broken sprocket on the relative time filter?'

  Still no reply.

  The Doctor sighed. 'You're costing me a fortune in repairs, you are. How can I be expected to run a classic TARDIS if it keeps jumping time tracks every time it lands?'

  Gradually, the Doctor seemed to become aware of his surroundings, as if the silence had politely, and impossibly, cleared its throat.

  He turned on his heel. His canvas trainers were already covered in dust. He let his gaze wander around the empty buildings and crumbling machinery and then sniffed. 'So where are we?' he wondered aloud. 'And is there really any point in talking to myself?'

  He shot a black look at the TARDIS and then closed and locked the door. 'You can't even bring me anywhere interesting any more,' he grumbled. Then he relaxed a little and smiled, giving the police box an affectionate pat. 'Who am I trying to kid? There's always something interesting...'

  He wandered down a path between two prefabs and called out 'Hello!' a few times. 'Anyone home?'

  There was no reply.

  'Hello!' he called again. His voice came back to him in a mocking echo. Above him, beyond a thin grey mist, was nothing but deep space and a distant neutron star.

  'Brrr,' he said, wishing he had stopped to collect his coat before leaving the TARDIS. He trudged on until he found a steel podium, pitted with corrosion, supporting an old, scratched monitor screen. He pressed a few buttons on the keyboard but nothing happened. He tried giving it a whack with the flat of his hand, but it still wouldn't respond.

  The sonic screwdriver broke through the computer terminal's dormant status in seconds. A minute later, the Doctor's face was bathed in a cool light as the screen activated. A rather fuzzy graphic swirled into focus:

  WELCOME TO LODESTAR STATION 479.

  'Well, thank you very much,' replied the Doctor. 'Lovely to be here. Not.'

  He put on his glasses and started scrolling through the data.

  'Ah, now that's interesting,' he said, smiling and nodding. 'No wonder this place is deserted. No one's been here for,
ooh, absolutely yonks. No need for a refuelling station in this part of space any more, is there? And here's poor little you, the computer interface, all forgotten and alone.'

  He used the sonic screwdriver to delve a little deeper into the computer's databanks. 'Blimey, what's been going on in here, then? Your independent sub-routines have been messed around a bit, haven't they?'

  Frowning, the Doctor glanced around for the nearest doorway. 'I'd better check your operational hard drive's not corrupted,' he muttered. 'Wouldn't do for a place like this to go haywire. You'd have the Health and Safety department of the Shadow Proclamation down on you like a ton of bricks.'

  The screwdriver made short work of the door and the Doctor went inside. It was cold and smelled of metal and oil. He was reminded of old, forgotten refineries on Earth; places full of the hard edges and unforgiving angles of brutal practicality. He found a stairwell and trotted down the steps, the metalwork rattling under his plimsolls.

  He hooked out a pencil torch from his pocket and switched it on. The beam found walls studded with rivets and disused electrical cable. It was colder down here and there were cobwebs hanging thickly in the shadows. The Doctor brushed some aside, surprising a number of arachnid life forms that immediately ran for cover, their spindly legs skittering across the ceiling. He avoided some of the larger webs; he'd got on the wrong side of enough spiders in his life to know when to keep clear.

  Further down, he reached a bare corridor with a concrete floor covered in debris and grime. His torchlight roved the area until it found a sign saying:

  COMPUTER DATA CORE – NO UNAUTHORISED ACCESS

  The access door was locked but it didn't take long to pick it. The sonic screwdriver proved to be all the authorisation he needed.

  'That's odd,' the Doctor said aloud. His voice sounded flat in the confined space beyond. There didn't appear to be any computer terminals in here, and certainly no sign of any data core.

  Something lying on the floor caught his attention. It was white and smooth; half-hidden in what looked like a pile of laundry. The torchlight gleamed on bone and in that instant the Doctor recognised the shape as a human body, curled up against the opposite wall. It was a complete skeleton, held together by the last remnants of dried skin. It was wearing the remains of a one-piece overall, the decaying fabric tucked into cracked plastic boots.

  The Doctor knelt down and inspected the body but there was no way of identifying it. 'What were you doing here, then?' he wondered grimly. 'Same as me, probably. Sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong...'

  The door shut behind him with a loud clang.

  The Doctor jumped up and tried to open it, but it was locked. He tried the sonic screwdriver again but it was no use. 'Deadlock sealed and rusted,' he muttered ruefully. 'It's just not my lucky day, is it?'

  He stepped away from the door and checked the cell – because that's what it had suddenly become – for any other way out. Of course there was none. He was trapped in here, alone but for the emaciated corpse on the floor. No way out and no one to know, or care, that he was here.

  'Nice one, Doctor,' he congratulated himself. 'Now all you can do is sit and wait. Someone must have programmed the door to shut like that. They'll have to come and inspect their trap sometime, see if they've caught anything.'

  He stared mournfully at the skeleton. 'Any time soon...'

  ONE

  'Don't be such a baby,' said Stella. Scrum tried to pull his arm away, but Stella had a good grip on it.

  'Ow! I'm not a baby! Ow! Ow! Ow!'

  She dabbed the antiseptic wipe against the wound and then smiled brightly at him. 'There you are – all done.'

  Scrum withdrew his hand slowly, almost disbelievingly. The gash on his forearm looked sore but clean. 'Isn't there anything else you can do?'

  'Amputation?' Stella suggested archly.

  'I mean really. It hurts, you know...'

  Stella rolled her eyes.

  'How about a cryo-charge?'

  'What does that do?'

  'Lowers your body temperature to absolute zero in about half a second. Literally freezes you on the spot. We take you back to a planet where there are proper hospital facilities and they thaw you out and treat you.' She smiled. 'Don't look so worried, Scrum, I'm only kidding. I wouldn't waste a cryo-charge on a great oaf like you. They're for emergencies only.'

  'OK. You win.'

  'Here.' Stella tossed a plastic-wrapped bandage at him and it bounced off his head. 'Last of the field dressings. All yours, big boy.'

  'Don't make fun of me,' Scrum said. 'I'm not combat trained. I don't even like fighting. I'm a computer technician, not a soldier.'

  They were sitting in the tiny medical compartment of the ship – it was too small to call it a sickbay. It was just big enough to hold a narrow bunk, some computers, stores, and a swivel chair for Stella. She spun round and picked up her bottle of water. 'You were lucky not to lose your arm,' she told him, taking a drink. 'A couple of centimetres either way and you'd be doing your computer programming one handed.'

  Scrum looked forlornly at his arm and then tore open the field dressing with his teeth. He seemed to have shrunk even more than usual. He was short, a bit overweight, with sad eyes and lank, prematurely grey hair tied back in a stubby ponytail. The tip was dyed green, the only remnant of an effort, long ago, to make himself look more 'interesting' to women.

  Stella put her water down. 'What's up? C'mon, you can tell me.'

  'I nearly got us all killed back there,' he said quietly. He looked up at her. 'It wasn't even a proper mission. It was just a stupid bandit trap and I nearly got us all killed.'

  'Forget it. You're alive and we're alive and that's all that counts. Like I said, you were lucky. We're always lucky.'

  He sighed. 'Some day our luck will run out.'

  'We can make our own luck. Come on, let's get something to eat.'

  She led the way down the narrow passageway to the galley. Scrum followed, pressing the bandage into position. 'Bowman doesn't believe in luck. He won't see it that way.'

  'Leave Bowman to me,' Stella advised.

  A tall, dark, muscular man in combat fatigues was doing pull-ups in the galley, hanging from a duct running across the ceiling that bent and creaked under his weight. He broke into a wide grin when he saw Stella and Scrum.

  'Hey! How goes it, my friends? How's the walkin' wounded?'

  'I'll live,' said Scrum, forcing a smile. 'Apparently.'

  Stella slumped into another chair and scooped her black hair up into a scruffy topknot, tying it off with a rubber band. 'We're seriously low on stores, Cuttin' Edge. I'm down to using some old antiseptic wipes because I haven't even got any bactoray. We're going to have to stop soon and pick up some provisions.'

  Cuttin' Edge dropped lightly to the deck. 'Man, that ain't gonna be easy. We're in deep space, right near the border.'

  'I'm going to have to put it to the captain.'

  Cuttin' Edge wiped his neck with a towel and grinned. 'Hey, rather you than me, babe.'

  Stella paused outside the entrance to Bowman's cabin. It wasn't very often the crew called on the captain. She took a deep breath and opened the door. 'Sorry to disturb you, skipper...'

  Jon Bowman dismissed the apology with a single movement of one finger. He was a big man in every sense of the word: tall, broad shouldered, a body toned and hardened by decades of combat. His face looked as though it had been hewn from a single piece of granite, deep-set eyes burning beneath a jutting brow, a slightly broken nose above thin, straight lips. His dark hair was unkempt, streaked with grey now, tied back with an old, blood-red bandana.

  'Ship's damaged,' he said without preamble. His voice was a deep, masculine growl. He never had to raise it to be heard and he never wasted a word. 'Pirates blew a hole in one of the aft fuel tanks. We're going to have to stop for repairs.'

  Stella breathed a quiet sigh of relief. What was it she had told Scrum about being lucky? 'Any suggestions on where?' she asked. />
  Bowman sat forward in his chair. He had a small desk, cluttered with old pieces of equipment, weapons, monitors, charts. There was a small 3D holopicture of a young man and a woman, grinning at the camera, their arms wrapped around a lanky, dark-haired teenager with a broken nose. He was smiling too. Stella liked to think this was the young Jon Bowman, a lifetime ago, with his parents. But had he ever smiled? Stella never dared to ask.

  Bowman tapped one of the chart screens on his desk. He moved the holopicture aside to give him more room. 'We're in the Kappa Galanga sector. There's nothing here – except pirates – and the very edge of Earth space. We're twenty light years from the nearest habitable star system, forty from what you might call civilisation. We don't have enough fuel left for either.'

  Stella frowned, peering at the charts. 'So...?'

  Bowman pointed to a single point of light on the map with one thick finger. 'There's only one option. This place. Small, forgotten, not even listed on some recent charts, but it's within range. Used to be a frontier staging world, so it's probably got what we need.'

  'It's right on the border,' noted Stella cautiously.

  Bowman looked up at her. His grey eyes were as cold as steel. 'I didn't say it wasn't risky.'

  'But you did say it's our only option.'

  'That's right.'

  Stella looked closer, reading the name attached to the tiny planet. 'Hurala. Sounds lovely.'

  'It won't be.'

  The Wayfarer was a converted naval patrol ship that had been rescued from scrap twenty years before Bowman got hold of it. It had been refitted more times than any one of its current crew could guess, and certainly more times than the entries in its log book showed. The interior of the ship had evolved in accordance with the needs of its various crews over the years, but it remained cramped and claustrophobic. As the Wayfarer came in to land on the planet Hurala, Stella grew ever more desperate to get out and get some fresh air. She was starting to feel trapped. She leant over the back of the pilot's seat, peering over Cuttin' Edge's shoulder at the craggy, brown surface of the planet as it sped beneath.