Zoe folded her arms and crossed her fingers. The Brigadier stared at the vast invasion fleet spread across the radar scanners.
'Three... two... one... Fire!' Bradwell pressed a button.
Out on the airfield, the small compact missiles streaked out of their silos in groups of ten and vanished immediately into the haze.
Inside the bunker, everyone crowded round the radar screens and held their breath. There was a long, agonising pause while teleprinters chattered out ballistic data and guidance details, but all eyes were on the multitude of white blobs on the radar.
Suddenly, one by one, and then in gradually increasing numbers, the blobs began to vanish from the screens as the Cyber fleet was blown to smithereens just above the Earth's atmosphere...
The Doctor had been keeping as quiet and unobtrusive as possible while he watched the titanic struggle of wills between Vaughn and the Cyber Module.
'You have betrayed us, Vaughn,' shrieked the machine. 'The Transporter Fleet has been attacked and virtually destroyed.'
'That is not possible,' Vaughn protested vehemently. 'You are trying to blackmail me.'
'You have failed, Vaughn. We shall take control now.'
Desperately Vaughn sought for some delaying tactic. 'Give me time. I can deal with the saboteurs,' he pleaded.
The Module sparked angily. 'There is no more time.'
Vaughn's eyes betrayed his bluff. 'I will not allow the invasion to proceed unless I control it,' he boasted.
The machine paused as if listening, its crystal bristling with millions of brilliant pinpoints of light. 'We no longer require your services, Vaughn,' it screeched. 'We shall dispatch a Megatron Bomb. We shall destroy every living thing...'
The Doctor went ashen. 'A Megatron Bomb!' he gasped. 'So this is your great vision, Vaughn... to be master of a dead world.'
All remnants of Vaughan's confident and complacent charm finally dissolved under the Doctor's scornful gaze. In an instant he shrank into a spiteful, whining dwarf. 'You can't destroy the world,'
he screamed at the Cyber Module. 'What about me?'
The Module crackled menacingly. 'You are superfluous, Vaughn. The invasion will succeed. The bomb will be dispatched forthwith.'
Vaughan laughed manically. 'You'll destroy your own Cybermen here.'
'The sacrifice will be small,' rasped the machine. Vaughn kicked the desk like a petulant child. 'I won't allow it!' he shrieked, red-faced and trembling.
'You cannot stop us, Vaughn.'
The Doctor went over to the almost hysterical figure. 'Now perhaps you'll believe the truth. You cannot make bargains with Cybermen,' he muttered grimly.
Vaughn shoved him aside. Seizing the Cerebration Machine from the desk he advanced on the alcove. 'You think you're indestructible...' he sneered. 'But I can destroy you... all of you.' He touched some switches and trained the projection horn of the device directly at the glittering crystal.
The Professor's machine emitted its clicking and then its piercing whistling noise and the Cyber Module immediately began to vibrate and strobe crazily.
'Opposition is futile...' it croaked, as smoke began to belch from its melting connections. Trickles of liquified metal ran in rivulets down the vacuum tubes and they started imploding, with sharp glass splinters flying everywhere.
Vaughn gloated over the disintegrating apparatus like some insane magician. Boosting the output of the quivering device in his hands, he laughed in a crazed, hollow voice.
The Doctor did his best to wrest the machine out of his grasp, but Vaughn simply nudged him aside, yelling at the top of his voice:
'I'll destroy them all... I'll destroy them all...'
'Turn it off, man!' the Doctor shouted. 'You're going to blow us all sky high.'
Suddenly there was a gigantic ripping sound and the crystal broke into millions of tiny fragments. Vaughn and the Doctor were hurled back against the desk and the Doctor managed to wrench the Cerebration Machine awayfrom Vaughn and turn it off. A flurry of smaller explosions burst out like firecrackers, scattering debris all over the office.
When the smoke finally cleared, all that remained of the Cyber Module was a shapeless mess of twisted silicon and glass and a tangle of swollen and slit-open wires smouldering poisonously in the gloom.
Zoe was lifted shoulder-high and cheered by the enthusiastic bunker personnel.
'Knocked every single one for six!' exclaimed Squadron Leader Bradwell. 'Quite fantastic. How did you do it, miss?'
Zoe shrugged coolly. 'All quite logical really. Just a question of speed, mass, angle of descent, angular density... Stuff like that,'
she smiled.
'Can we keep her, sir? She's much prettier than a computer,'
Bradwell laughed.
The Brigadier shook Zoe's hand. 'Well done. Jolly good show,'
he said with a sombre smile.
All at once Benton's distorted voice buzzed from the polyvox in the Brigadier's pocket.
Lethbridge-Stewart whipped it out. 'What's the flap?' he demanded.
'We overheard something on the polyvox from Vaughn's place, sir... Apparently the Cyberforce is going to fire some sort of bomb at the Earth. It's called a Megatron or something. Could wipe us all out...'
The Brigadier cast his eyes wearily up to the ceiling. 'So all our efforts here mean nothing...' he muttered through clenched teeth.
A dismal silence fell over the blockhouse.
The Brigadier rallied himself with an attempt at morale boosting. 'Where there's a will...' he muttered. 'Right, Benton, tell the Wing Commander to prepare for take-off. We're coming back over at once. Out.'
'We'll keep in touch on this open line,' he told Bradwell, handing him the polyvox unit, 'then you'll know what's going on.
You might try and get a fix on that bomb...' he added doubtfully.
Bradwell grinned. 'Don't worry, Brigadier. If we do, we'll try and set it off on its way in!'
With a nod of thanks to the bunker crew, the Brigadier led Zoe and his UNIT squad back to the Hercules out on the runway.
Gradually Vaughn's manic laughter died away and he leaned on the desk muttering agitatedly. 'It's dead, Doctor... It's dead... I killed it...'
'But you haven't destroyed the Cyberforce,' the Doctor earnestly reminded him. 'They are still out there, preparing to obliterate your planet.'
'Five years work, Doctor, and all gone in less than five seconds.'
The Doctor seized Vaughn by the shoulders and shook him vigorously. 'Listen to me,' he persisted. 'You must switch off the ion beam. No doubt the Cyberforce will try to use it to trigger the Megatron Bomb!'
Vaughn stared blankly back at him, his mouth forming inaudible words.
'We are both allies now,' the Doctor argued forcefully. 'Both fighting for our lives. You must stop the beam.'
Hazily Vaughn focussed on the Doctor's wildly persuasive eyes. 'The ion beam... yes... Packer must switch...' He moved slowly round the desk like a sleepwalker and touched a button.
The monitor screens lit up. On several of them loomed the stark silver images of Cybermen.
'Packer... Packer... where are you...?' Vaughn cried in a strangled voice into the microphone.
At that moment the door slid aside and Packer burst into the office. 'Vaughn... what have you done?' he screamed. 'They... the Cybermen have taken over... They won't obey... They've killed several...' he whipped round gaping in terror at the open door.
'They're coming after us...'
Then Packer took in the devastation still smouldering in the alcove. He flew at Vaughn screaming uncontrollably: 'What have you done to us...?'
Before Vaughn could react, a Cyberman appeared in the doorway. Packer snatched out his pistol and emptied the magazine into the monster's rasping chest grille. Then Vaughn dived behind the desk and the Doctor seized the Cerebration Machine and scampered into the smoking alcove. The Cyberman's laser unit emitted a series of blinding flashes and Packer's body seemed to alternate from positive to negative in the blistering discharge. His uniform erupted into flames and his exposed skin crinkled and fused like melted toffee papers.
From the alcove, the Doctor aimed the projection horn and switched to full power, shutting his eyes and mentally muffling his ears against the intolerable whistling from Watkins's sinister apparatus. The Cyberman took a few lurching strides towards him and then slowly folded over like a broken doll with viscous smoke spurting from its joints and shrill metallic screams from its slit mouth.
With a grunt of congratulation to the absent Professor for the efficiency of his device, the Doctor switched it off and put in on the desk. Then he pulled the trembling Vaughn to his feet.
'Where is the ion beam control?' he demanded.
'We can't fight them...' Vaughn whimpered, gazing down at Packer's hideously incinerated body.
'Where? Where do we switch off the beam?' the Doctor repeated, shaking Vaughn.
'At the compound. But they'll be there too...' Vaughn murmured.
The Doctor took out the polyvox unit. 'Brigadier, can you hear me?'
'Affirmative, Doctor. We heard everything. What do you want us to do?' rapped Lethbridge-Stewart
'There are two possibilities,' the Doctor hurriedly explained.
'Either we switch off the ion beam or we destroy the Cyber Mother Craft...'
'Well, Doctor, Captain Turner reports that the Russians are cooperating magnificently, but it'll take at least ten hours for their rocket to reach the Cyber ship.'
The Doctor drummed his fingers, anxiously along the casing of the polyvox unit as if it were a penny whistle. 'But their bomb could be sent at any moment, Brigadier. The ion beam's our only hope.'
He turned to Vaughn. 'Will you help us to cut off the beam?' he pleaded. 'We'll never do it in time unless you help us.'
Vaughn gazed at him cynically. 'Why should I help you?'
'To save the world, Vaughn.'
Vaughn laughed. 'And if I survive, Doctor... What future have I? What will the world do with me now?' he scoffed wearily.
The Doctor glared fiercely up at him. 'For goodness sake, stop thinking about yourself,' he shouted. 'Think of all those millions out there...'
Vaughn regained a trace of his old bland composure.
'Appealing to my better nature, Doctor?' he smiled. Then his face hardened. 'No. If I help you it will be because I hate the Cybermen.'
He turned and gazed out over the sunlit city. 'I know you think I'm insane, that I want power for its own sake. But you're wrong. The world is weak, a chaos of conflicting ideals. It needs a strong, single-minded leader. I was to be that leader...' His voice broke with emotion.
'Vaughn!' the Doctor begged him.
Vaughn turned round. 'I'll help you,' he agreed in a dead voice.
'But only because they destroyed my vision, my dream.'
Vaughn walked like an automaton over to the Cerebration Machine, stepping unseeingly over Packer's corpse. 'We must get to the compound at once,' he said mechanically.
The Brigadier's voice buzzed out again. 'Doctor, we have a chopper in the area. Can you get onto the roof?'
'Yes, Brigadier. We're on our way now. Up and away...'
'Out, Doctor.'
Vaughn picked up the Professor's device. 'Your UNIT friends are most efficient, Doctor, but we shall need this. The Cybermen will be guarding the ion transmitter.'
Eyeing the apparatus warily, the Doctor cautiously followed his unexpected ally to the elevator.
10
As the Hercules lumbered into the sky and turned slowly north-east, the Brigadier marshalled his scanty forces for a desperate last stand against the Cyberforce and their Armageddon device - the Megatron Bomb.
'Where are we off to now?' marvelled Isobel, joining Zoe in the Operations Room.
'Reinforcing the Doctor. He's going to fight his way through a couple of hundred Cybermen.'
'Golly,' cried Isobel, her eyes shining with admiration.
'I've only got a platoon,' Lethbridge-Stewart reminded them.
'No time to find more neuristors and revive more of my men.'
Just then Captain Turner came through on the radio. 'The Russians have just launched their rocket,' he reported faintly from the Nykortny Base. 'Supercooled Hydrogen Warhead. Should do the trick, sir.'
'If it gets there in time,' murmured the Brigadier pessimistically. Keep me posted, Jimmy.' The Brigadier shook his head and laughed drily. 'An American warhead stuck onto a Russian missile... There's hope for the world if only we can save it now...' he mused.
Immediately afterwards, the Doctor was heard on the polyvox unit shouting above the roar of the helicopter which had picked him and Vaughn off the roof of the International Electromatix Headquarters.
'Brigadier! We're about to land in the compound. We I must go straight in, I'm afraid.'
'That's madness, Doctor. We're right behind you. Wait for us.'
'Don't worry, Brig, we've got Watkins's machine,' retorted the Doctor. 'It's proved most effective against Cybermen so far.'
Lethbridge-Stewart realised it was useless to object. 'If you insist, Doctor.'
'Vaughn says the ion beam is transmitted from the blockhouse under the three spherical antennae shrouds.'
'They look like three giant golf balls,' added Zoe helpfully.
'Roger, Doctor.'
'Down and out,' cried the Doctor as the helicopter began its descent.
'Infuriating man!' muttered the Brigadier to himself, glaring at the polyvox unit.
The cockpit intercom clicked on. 'Ten minutes to touchdown in Red Sector One,' announced the Wing Commander.
The Brigadier turned to Corporal Benton. 'Alert assault platoon for immediate disembarkation!' he snapped.
Zoe and Isobel edged forward. 'Can we come with you?' asked Zoe.
'Please. It'll be my last chance to photograph Cybermen,' Isobel added. 'Golly, what a scoop!'
The Brigadier shook his head resolutely. Then he looked them up and down. 'I don't know about a scoop...' he muttered, relenting.