Isobel was transfixed for a few seconds by the awesome spectacle. Then she ran back down the steps into the basement.
The Doctor was sitting up and groggily massaging his temples.
-
'The Cybermen...' Isobel gasped. 'They're coming up out of the sewers... the invasion's begun!'
The Doctor blinked several times and then jumped to his feet, scattering his startled helpmates. 'Don't stand around like zombies!'
he shouted. 'Don't you know the invasion's already begun?'
Zoe and Jamie tried to calm him, but he resolutely ignored them.
'Is everyone else all right?' he demanded, bustling round the basement as if nothing had happened to him. 'What about the Brigadier and the rest of UNIT?'
Captain Turner hurried to the radiotelephone. At last Lethbridge-Stewart came through faint and distorted.
'Chaos here, Jimmy. Only half the crew have recovered so far..
The Doctor grabbed the receiver. 'What about the other UNIT
forces, Brigadier?'
'No hard news yet, Doctor. I'm sending Walters over there to pick you up. You'll be a lot safer here.'
The Doctor agreed. 'But be careful, Brigadier, the streets will soon be full of Cybermen.'
'Roger, Doctor. Just stay put,' the Brigadier ordered and clicked off.
Turner looked deeply disappointed. 'Sounds like a walkover for Vaughn and the Cybermen,' he muttered.
The Doctor nodded ruefully. 'And we're sitting right in the middle of the hornet's nest!' he sighed, trying to get rid of the irritating itch that was developing under the depolariser taped to his neck.
The sunrise flooded dramatically into Vaughn's office, lighting up his face with a dull red glow as he lay back in his chair listening to the incessant grating chatter of the Cyber Module.
'All areas are now covered by our transmissions. The full invasion force is mustering for despatch. Initiate ion beam for navigation.'
'All is ready,' Vaughn responded calmly.
'Prepare communication network for Cyberforce Control.'
Vaughn suddenly stood up. 'Wait. The Cyberforce must remain under my control,' he insisted.
The machine glowed brilliantly and the crystal whizzed back and forth agitatedly. 'Why do you oppose us?' it challenged him.
'I do not oppose you. We are allies,' replied Vaughn soothingly. 'But you do not understand the world as I do.'
The machine glowed even brighter. 'Humans are now under Cyber Control.'
Vaughn strode fearlessly across to the alcove. 'You will not achieve your objective unless I too get what I want,' he persisted. 'Is this agreed?'
The Cyber Module fell silent for a long time. Then it buzzed alarmingly and a smell of hot plastic filled the room. 'It is agreed,' it acknowledged eventually.
Vaughn smiled. 'Excellent. The invasion will proceed under my direction. Discussion terminated.' He twisted the pen cap sharply and the wall slid back into place.
As Vaughn subsided thankfully into his chair wiping the nervous sweat out of his eyes, the videophone bleeped and Packer appeared on the screen, his mean face pale and taut. 'Mr Vaughn, we've located the Professor...' he reported breathlessly.
'Excellent, Packer. Pick him up immediately,' Vaughn purred, hurriedly composing himself.
'But the UNIT mob, sir...'
'They will not offer any resistance. They are all under our control.'
'That's just what I'm afraid of,' muttered Packer inaudibly.
Vaughn leaned forward ominously. 'Packer, this is your last chance. Get Watkins and put him to work on the Cerebration machines at once,' he shouted.
After a terrifying drive through the chaos of disorientated humanity, Sergeant Walters skidded his jeep to a stop outside Professor Travers's house and ran up the steps. Captain Turner let him in just as the Doctor and the others came up the stairs from the basement.
'Thousands of them silver gnomes everywhere, sir,' Walters reported sturdily.
There was a scream of brakes outside. Turner slammed the door and shot the bolts home. 'It's Packer's mob,' he shouted over his shoulder. 'Out the back way quickly.'
As everybody turned and fled down the hall, a gun barrel crashed through the glass in the front door. Backing away, Turner fired his machine-pistol at the shadowy figures outside. The gun barrel fired a five second burst just as Jamie was ushering the Professor back down the cellar steps. The Professor cried out and staggered. Turner fired another burst then caught Watkins as he fell and slung him over his shoulder.
'Get out, Jamie!' he shouted, hauling the wounded Professor down into the cellar.
Jamie had paused to retrieve the radiotelephone unit which Turner had just dropped. As he started down the stairs after the others, another salvo from the front door caught him in the leg. He collapsed and started crawling to safety, dragging the radio behind him. The next moment, Sergeant Walters came running back up the stairs. He fired a long burst at the door and then carried Jamie out into the overgrown garden at the back of the house.
The others were waiting anxiously. Turner contacted the Brigadier on the Doctor's polyvox unit while Walters covered the rear of the house with his pistol. The girls tended the injured Professor and Jamie.
'We're in a bit of a spot, sir. Could you send us a chopper?'
asked Turner.
'Wilco,' replied the Brigadier promptly. 'Can you reach Blue Sector Five?'
'We'll do our damnedest, sir, but we've got two wounded.'
'Right. Chopper on its way. Good luck, Jimmy. Out.'
Out in the street, Packer's jeep was speeding back to Vaughn's headquarters, leaving three security guards dead on Travers's doorstep.
Soon afterwards, Packer stood in silent humiliation in front of his master's desk.
'How?' Vaughn muttered, grinding his teeth in exasperation as he gazed out over the paralysed city. 'How can they be immune to the Cyber coercion signal...?'
Packer shot him a crafty look. 'It must be that Doctor character's expertise. You should have eliminated him when you had the chance. Now he's out-manoeuvering you,' he whined accusingly.
Vaughn swung round from the window, his face a mask of contempt. 'I am still in control of the invasion, Packer,' he whispered hoarsely. 'Without me you would be wriggling like a worm in a puddle of acid.'
But Packer's defiance grew stronger and he faced Vaughn unflinchingly. 'We don't have the Professor, so we can't produce any more machines, so we can't control the Cybermen,' he rapped out harshly.
Vaughn stared at him with undisguised smouldering loathing.
'Do you still believe everything's going according to plan?'
Packer went on recklessly. 'Do you still think you can win?'
'Contact the Antenna Unit. It is time to project the ion beam,'
Vaughn suddenly snarled. 'The invasion force must be sent in at once!'
Packer's hand was resting on the handle of his pistol. He lingered for a moment as if undecided. Then he obediently picked up a telephone and rapped out an order.
The mighty Hercules whined reassuringly through the thin clouds. On the ground far below, all normal life had ceased within a matter of minutes as the millions of monolithic circuits scattered all over the world amplified and focussed the Cyber coercion beam being transmitted via the satellites from the neighbourhood of the Moon.
In the Operations Room, the Signals Officer was reporting the general situation. 'Washington's off the air, sir... Moscow and Peking dead as doornails... Nothing at all, sir.'
'Keep trying, Sergeant, all frequencies.' The Brigadier turned gravely to the Doctor. 'Seems to be a total radio blackout,' he murmured.
'Couldn't we make masses of these depolariser things and distribute them to key personnel?' suggested Captain Turner.
The Doctor shook his head emphatically. 'No time, I'm afraid, even if we could obtain the components. The Cybermen will attack us in force soon. There must be an entire fleet out there, waiting behind the Moon.'
The Brigadier thumped his desk in frustration. 'We're utterly helpless...' he groaned.
'Unless we can stop the Cyber transmissions,' the Doctor mused quietly.
The Brigadier glanced hopefully at him. Then his face fell again. 'We'd need an orbital launch vehicle... We don't have anything of that size available.'
'Only the Americans and the Russians...' Turner sighed.
Suddenly the Brigadier stood up. 'Wait a sec!' he cried, going over to a security cabinet and dialling a sequence of combination codes. A drawer clicked open and he took out a thick file marked MOST SECRET and leafed quickly through it.
'I was right!' he announced delightedly. 'The Russians had a countdown in progress at dawn... unmanned orbital lunar survey.
They must have a rocket almost ready to go.'
'So we could fit a warhead in place of their survey module,'
Turner proposed brightly.
'Possibly, Jimmy.'
They turned to the Doctor inquiringly. He looked doubtful.
'How long would all that take?' he asked.
'We should be able to get a medical and technical unit there in a couple of hours, Doctor. Once we'd fitted the Russians with your depolariser things... well, it would be up to them,' replied the Brigadier. 'How long do you think we've got, Doctor?'
The Doctor shrugged. 'I confess I'm rather surprised they're not here already,' he said with a preoccupied air.
'Well, I think it's worth a try,' said the Brigadier, handing some papers from the file to Captain Turner. 'Here's the gen on the Russian launch, Jimmy. You deal with that top priority,' he ordered decisively. 'And get your skates on.'
Turner saluted and eagerly departed to prepare for his vital mission.
Just then the Hercules banked steeply and started to descend rapidly.
The Brigadier went over to the Doctor who was sitting withdrawn and thoughtful. 'Could we intercept the Cyber fleet with anti-missile missiles, Doctor?' he asked.
The Doctor cocked his head non-committally. 'Possibly.
They'll be homing in on Vaughn's ion beacon out at the compound, I imagine.'
Lethbridge-Stewart consulted his Situation Map. 'Right.
There's an RAF base at Henlow Flats equipped with Taktik missiles...' he muttered, striding down the busy Ops Room to brief his staff.
Zoe wandered in from up front and went over to the brooding Doctor. 'I think we're landing...' she murmured.
The Doctor stirred. 'Ah... how's Jamie's leg, my dear?'
'Just a flesh wound, but he's furious because the doctor won't let him walk on it. The Professor's okay too. Isobel's looking after him.'
'Jolly good,' muttered the Doctor vaguely. 'Zoe, I suggest you give the Brig a hand... much as I detest computers I suspect your remarkable little brain could be very useful to him in the next couple of hours.'
Zoe sniffed eagerly. 'All right, Doctor. What's cooking?'
The crumpled little figure seemed miles away. 'I think it's high time I had another little talk with Mr Vaughn...' he muttered absently.
Zoe gaped at him in disbelief. 'You're joking, of course,' she cried. 'Go back to Vaughn? He'll kill you as soon as look at you.'
The Doctor grinned bleakly. 'Quite possibly, Zoe, but we desperately need more time and I'm sure I can buy us that time.'
The Brigadier had overheard the little Time Lord's insane proposal. 'This is madness. I can't afford to allow you to try it,' he snapped.
The Doctor rose. 'You can't afford not to, Brigadier,' he retorted. 'Once you attack the Cybermen they'll retaliate. We must know how and with what.'
Zoe looked sceptical and anxious for the Doctor's safety. 'How can you find that out?' she demanded.
With a mischievous twinkle in his eye the Doctor took out the polyvox unit. 'I'll leave this little toy switched on. You'll be able to hear everything that passes between me and Tobias Vaughn,' he explained.
The Brigadier snorted dismissively. 'But you'll never get near the place, Doctor. The city's crawling with Cybermen.'
'There's one place where there won't be any Cybermen now...'
confided the Doctor, tapping his nose '.... In the sewers!'
At that moment the FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign lit up and a few minutes later the Hercules touched down on a remote disused airfield.
Zoe and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart stood at the bottom of the ramp waving goodbye and good luck as the Doctor drove the landrover out of the cargo bay. Tooting a jaunty farewell on the horn he sped off across the windswept grass-clogged concrete and disappeared.
'Take care, Doctor,' Zoe whispered, biting her lip. Then a second jeep emerged down the ramp and stopped.
'The Tornadoes are due here in fifteen minutes,' the Brigadier informed Captain Turner. 'You should reach the Nykortny Space Centre in about two hours. Got enough depolarisers?'
'Yes, sir. The Professor's done us proud in spite of his wound.'
'Good luck, Jimmy.'
The jeep drove off towards some Nissen huts and the Brigadier led Zoe back up into the plane and the ramp closed behind them. In the Operations Room the Brigadier issued a string of curt orders right and left.
'Sergeant, ask Wing-Commander Robbins to take us to Henlow Flats Missile Base immediately and send a chopper to Blue Sector One in case the Doctor needs it. All UNIT operational groups Red Alert Status.'
They were soon airborne again and it was not long before the Doctor's cheery voice came crackling over the polyvox receiver, echoing eerily.
'I've just entered the sewers and I'm making my way towards Vaughn's headquarters.'
'For God's sake, be careful, Doctor,' snapped the Brigadier.
'Oh, don't worry about me, the air's surprisingly fresh down here,' replied the Doctor earnestly. 'I'll call you when I reach Vaughn's. Down and out.'
'Over and out,' sighed the Brigadier anxiously.
'Your helicopter isn't going to be much good if the Doctor does meet any Cybermen down there,' Zoe remarked with a frown.
Lethbridge-Stewart flashed her an irritated glance. 'Perhaps I should send a submarine, miss,' he retorted defensively.