DOCTOR WHO.
WARRIORS OF THE DEEP.
by Terrance d.i.c.ks.
1.
The Intruder.
The Base might have been in s.p.a.ce.
It had been built at enormous effort and expense. It was surrounded by a hostile environment into which humans could venture only with elaborate life-support systems.
The Base was the nucleus of an elaborate attack and defence system. Its inhabitants lived lives of constant tension, perpetually under the shadow of planetary annihilation.
It might have been in s.p.a.ce but it wasn"t.
s.p.a.ce stations had proved too vulnerable, too exposed to spy-satellites and the searing blast of laser-beams. In the early years of the twenty-first century, mankind concealed many of its weapons of destruction beneath the seas.
Sea Base Four crouched like a giant metal spider in the black depths of the ocean floor. It waited, like every other Sea Base, for any hint of an attack from the other side.
Such an attack would unleash a swarm of proton missiles in ma.s.sive retaliation.
East confronted West, hostile, suspicious, waiting.
Yet neither side realised that there were other enemies beneath the sea beings equally hostile to both sides alike, creatures who regarded all all mankind as primitive apes who had stolen the planet Earth from its rightful owners. mankind as primitive apes who had stolen the planet Earth from its rightful owners.
Mankind"s oldest enemies had awakened once more and they were poised to attack.
Outside Sea Base Four was only the cold green darkness of the ocean depths. Inside, everything was gleaming, modern, brightly lit. The predominating colour was a dazzling white, as if designed to counter the threatening blackness that lurked outside.
Sea Base personnel moved busily along the corridors and catwalks, wearing the distinctive cross-belted coveralls of the Undersea Service. Uniforms were colour-coded according to rank and function blue for officers, reds and greens and greys for the different specialisations. Moving amongst the brighter colours were the drab khaki uniforms of the Radiation Squad, responsible for the Base"s nuclear reactor. They alone wore side-arms and helmets in the unlikely event of the Base being attacked, they would double as marine guards.
In the central control room, referred to as the Bridge, instrument consoles hummed gently, glowing blips chased each other across monitor screens, and the steady electronic beep of scanner systems filled the air.
Commander Vorshak sat at the central command console, staring broodingly at a monitor screen. Vorshak was a tall, dark-haired man in his mid-forties. Elegant in his dark-blue coverall, Vorshak had the rugged good looks of a recruiting-poster hero, much to his own embarra.s.sment.
Cl.u.s.tered around him were his officers: the ever-calm, coldly reserved Controller Nilson; Lieutenant Preston, a pleasant capable looking woman in her twenties; Lieutenant Bulic, the burly combat officer in charge of the marine guard.
There was an emergency.
Vorshak studied the moving blip on the screen, listened to the steady accompanying electronic beep.
He looked up at Bulic. "What do you you think?" think?"
Bulic paused for a moment, a.s.sessing the data. "Too small to be a hunter-killer missile."
"Could be one of their probes, though, trying to locate our position."
Vorshak swung round to a nearby sub-console.
"Maddox, let"s have a computer scan."
The computer console stood a little apart from the rest.
Beside the console, and linked to it, stood an empty chair with a helmet-like apparatus suspended above the synch op chair. Somehow people avoided mentioning, or even looking at it. At the console by the chair, Maddox, a thin-faced and nervous young man, sat staring abstractedly in front of him. Vorshak"s sudden command jolted him into awareness. Feverishly he set to work, fingers clumsy on the instrument panel.
Vorshak watched him impatiently. Maddox was new, a temporary emergency replacement, and Vorshak had little patience with him.
From a nearby console a dark-haired young woman with attractive oriental features looked sympathetically at Maddox"s fumblings. Lieutenant Karina was the Scanner Officer, and she had been worried about Maddox for some time. The boy was close to breaking point, and Vorshak was pushing him too hard. It could be a bad mistake.
Un.o.btrusively she moved to help him.
The undersea vessel that was causing so much concern on Sea Base Four was long, slender and cigar-shaped, and it was travelling away from the Base at incredible speed.
Its greenish hull had a rough, irregular surface, like something grown rather than manufactured.
The vessel sped to the centre of a low range of undersea volcanic mountains. For a moment it hovered over one of the larger craters, then sank down slowly out of sight.
The interior of the vessel too had a strangely organic look.
Certainly there was a control room, with instruments roughly equivalent to those on a human ship. Yet, like the craft itself, these oddly shaped instruments seemed grown rather than built, and the atmosphere here was one of dark and shadowy gloom, shot with greenish light.
The ship was not human in origin, and neither were those who inhabited it. The immensely tall, robed figures were brown-skinned with great crested heads and huge bulging eyes. Their slow, almost stately movements, their coldly measured speech-tones gave evidence of their reptilian origin. They were Silurians.
The eldest and the most high-ranking was Icthar; he was the sole survivor of the Silurian Triad, the warrior-scientist elite that had ruled Earth in the days before man.
His two companions were Scibus and Tarpok.
Scibus looked up from an instrument console and spoke with the calm dignity that Silurians gave every p.r.o.nouncement. "No hostile movement is registered. There is no pursuit."
"Excellent," said Icthar, in the same deep, impressive tones.
Tarpok said, "Is it wise to risk provoking them, Icthar?"
The great crested head swung round towards him. "We shall continue to monitor the activities of the humans, Tarpok. But we shall also take care to remain undetected until we are ready to strike."
"We"ve lost it, Commander," reported Lieutenant Karina matter-of-factly. "The trace got fainter and fainter then suddenly it cut out."
Vorshak looked across at Maddox. "Computer a.n.a.lysis?"
"Seems to be organic organic in structure. There was some heat radiation.. in structure. There was some heat radiation..
"Could it have been volcanic debris?"
Controller Nilson said, "It"s more than possible, Commander. We"re close to the oceanic fault here."
Vorshak touched a switch and the monitor screen punched up a view of the exterior of the Base. The sea-bed stretched into the distance, its monotony broken by occasional volcanic rock formations. Vorshak knew that Sea Base sensors were almost too too efficient. Warning signals could be triggered by a particularly dense shoal of fish, an outsize shark or by the missile that might one day blow them all to eternity. Vorshak wanted desperately to accept the rea.s.suring explanation, and this very fact made him somehow suspicious of it. The trace efficient. Warning signals could be triggered by a particularly dense shoal of fish, an outsize shark or by the missile that might one day blow them all to eternity. Vorshak wanted desperately to accept the rea.s.suring explanation, and this very fact made him somehow suspicious of it. The trace could could have been a fish, or volcanic debris or it could have been something else. have been a fish, or volcanic debris or it could have been something else.
This was a particularly dangerous time in Earth"s long and stormy history. A period of maximum tension, between two colossal powers. The different warring groups and countries and philosophies had solidified into two ma.s.sive groupings, East Bloc and West Bloc. There was no communication, no trust between them. Each poured out a steady stream of propaganda, blackening the other side.
Worst of all, each side had come to believe in its own propaganda, to believe that the opposing BIoc was populated not by human beings much like themselves but by cold-hearted ruthless monsters.
Armed satellites filled the skies, each side observing the other with constant suspicion. There were human spies too espionage and sabotage flourished as never before. Each side had one overriding fear, that the other would come up with some advantage, some new weapon, that would make its aggressive use worthwhile.
Strangely enough, the invention of the proton missile had made matters worse. In the days of the atomic stalemate there had at least been the hope that no one would be fool enough to start a war that could only end in an uninhabitable planet. Now that check was removed.
The proton missiles destroyed life, not property, and they were radiation-free. Now perhaps it might be possible to win a global war if if you struck first, and struck hard enough. Dividing the Earth between them, East Bloc and West Bloc scrutinised each other with paranoid fear. you struck first, and struck hard enough. Dividing the Earth between them, East Bloc and West Bloc scrutinised each other with paranoid fear.
Suppose some new weapon had had been invented, thought Vorshak. Some super-missile, some invincible submarine with the power to knock out the Sea Bases. Perhaps the East Bloc been invented, thought Vorshak. Some super-missile, some invincible submarine with the power to knock out the Sea Bases. Perhaps the East Bloc was was preparing to strike first... preparing to strike first...
Vorshak became aware that his fears were running away with him. He would watch and wait, he decided. And at the first sign of hostile action, he would strike.
The Doctor looked complacently round the newly refurbished TARDIS control room. The time rotor was rising and falling smoothly, the instruments showed them to be on course. Could it be that for once something was going right?
The Doctor, in his fifth incarnation, was a slender, fair-haired young man with a pleasant, open face. He was dressed, somewhat incongruously, in the costume of an Edwardian cricketer striped trousers, fawn frock-coat wth red piping, white sweater and open-necked shirt.
He looked up as another, much younger man came in.
Turlough, one of the Doctor"s current companions, wore the dark blazer and flannels, and straggly striped tie of the perpetual public schoolboy. There was something a little off-key about Turlough, a hint of the shifty and unreliable. Thin-faced and red-haired, he looked as if he might be the school bully or the school sneak.
He nodded towards the console. "How are we doing?"
"On target, it seems." Without looking up the Doctor went on casually, "Why did you change your mind about going home?"
"I thought I would learn more if I stayed with you."
The Doctor looked up, raising an eyebrow. There was something ambiguous about the answer he thought, just as there was about Turlough himself.
"It"s true," said Turlough defensively.
"Of course."
"I mean it!"
Perhaps he did, thought the Doctor. You never knew with Turlough. "All right, I believe you. But I"m a bit doubtful about how resolute you"ll remain."
"Time will tell."
"Yes, indeed," said the Doctor thoughtfully. "Aboard the TARDIS it always does."
The console buzzed and the Doctor flipped a switch.
"Where are we going?"
"Earth."
"What for?"
"I promised to show Tegan a little of her planet"s future."
There was another beep. "Almost there. Could you go and find Tegan, let her know?"
Commander Vorshak looked on as Bulic made a quick check of all the Sea Base warning systems. "Nothing?"
"Nothing," grunted Bulic. He scowled at the monitor screen.
"What"s bothering you then?"
"I think we should launch a reconnaissance probe."
"Forever cautious, Bulic!"
"I"ve served too long in Sea Bases not to be. Given how unstable the current political situation is... well, an unexpected attack would not be unexpected."
"Very well, Bulic, have it your way. We"ll launch an unmanned probe."
Somewhere in the side of the Base, a hatch slid open and a slender swordfish-like missile sped away into the blackness of the sea.
It would patrol the area around the base in a random pattern, collecting and transmitting data and bringing it back for evaluation if it returned, that is.
Vorshak grinned ironically at his subordinate. "Happy, Bulic?"
"Yes sir. Thank you, sir."
Vorshak glanced across at Maddox. "Better stay alert. If there is is activity outside the Base we could go to missile run. So stand by." activity outside the Base we could go to missile run. So stand by."
"Yes, sir," said Maddox.
Vorshak glanced curiously at him, wondering if the boy was ill. He was pale and shivering, like someone fighting off a fever.
Suddenly Maddox jumped to his feet, and almost ran from the Bridge.
Maddox took refuge in the main computer bay, a peaceful area just off the main control room, where row upon row of computer banks hummed peacefully to themselves.
Maddox had never wanted to be a synch op. Unfortunately for him, he was one of the few people with the ability to mesh his mind with a computer. Once his talent had been discovered in one of the regular Government tests, he had little choice but to volunteer.
The position was well paid, it carried a great deal of prestige, but the strain and responsibility were enormous.