"All right", thought Sarah, keep still, no sudden moves. She regarded the creature via the rear view mirror calmly. Now that the initial shock was over, reason had kicked in. First of all, the creature was seperated from her by a barrier of glass. Not just any kind of glass either. It was reinforced in case they had to take any hostiles prisoner. Secondly hissing sid had trapped himself in the back of the Land Rover. Slowly she fastened the safety belt, something that the creature couldn't do.
Slowly she started to accelerate, keeping even pressure on the pedal. The needle started to swing as the rev's built up. The creature hissed angrily and reared up higher in the seat. But now came the tricky part, hopefully she wouldn't turn the vehicle over. She floored the pedal and the vehicle surged forward like a stallion that had been spurred. Pebbles rattled off the side of the land rover and bounced off the underside. It lurched dangerously to one side as it ran over a large stone, and she fought to straighten the vehicle. But now came the crunch time. The land rover was moving at max speed, the engine close to 'red lining' as the Americans called it. Now or never she thought and prayed the glass was strong enough. She knew this was risky, foolhardy perhaps, but if Sarah could get back too the base in one piece with a live specimen of whatever the hell this was, then they'd thank her for it....hopefully.
The Doctor/Beckett studied the data carefully. With the E.M.P was something else that had all ready been detected, a radio pulse. Now he began to suspect that the object that emitted the E.M.P was part of something else. Why he thought that he couldn't say, just a gut feeling, and he couldn't be sure whether or not it was human or Time Lord intuition that was guiding him. So now what? Well the radio signal was being sent outwards into the atmosphere. No beyond that; into space! That was it! It was a beacon, a homing device! "Brigadier!" he called as he stood up sharply, knocking over the stool he had been sat on.
Sarah chewed her lower lip and mentally crossed her fingers. Now! She slammed on the brakes, hard. The vehicle stopped dead and the forward motion generated by the land rover coming to an abrupt halt, caused the seat belt to cut painfully into Sarah's shoulder and across one breast. She lurched forward in her seat, her passenger did not. It flew off the seat and caromed into the reinforced glass partition with a bone crunching impact, that is if a snake or whatever the hell it was had bones, but it did have a skull. It struck the glass head on, hissed and then landed on the floor of the land rover with a thump. The impact had jarred open the glove compartment. Maps and papers tumbled out, spilling onto the floor and the passenger seat. Sarah caught her breath and felt her heart pounding in her throat. Surely the ugly bugger had been stunned or brained senseless, maybe it was dead. But even as she hoped for that, she heard the hiss. Damn it!
Again in the rearview mirror the snake, or whatever the hell it was, reared up. Now she had done that she had given the sod an idea. The creature knew what had happened and reasoned that if it could break a tridillum shell, then this invisible barrier wouldn't be a problem. It coiled back ready for another go. Sarah knew it, and she saw the crack in the glass from the first impact. Hastily she went to unclip the seat belt and something brushed her foot. She screamed and then realised that it was metallic. She risked a glance downwards. By her right foot, partially obscured by the clutch was a large object lying in a leather holster. She heard the creature hit the glass, saw it shake it's head, but she also saw the crack had gotten bigger and now the glass was beginning to star. She bent down and her had almost knocked the object out of reach but she could now see what it was; it was a .45 calibre automatic pistol, maybe American in manufacture, but at least she now had a means of defending herself. Trouble was, she had never fired one of these things in her life before....
The Brigadier cursed mentally. He had lost two men in a helicopter crash and now two more had gone missing during a patrol. To be honest, he had only arranged the patrols to combat the boredom iof being stationed here, but now it seemed as if it would be nessecary. Suddenly he heard a distant crash and then the Doctors voice calling out. He sounded more excited than normal but then he remembered that there was somebody apparently sharing the Time Lord's body and mind. He didn't pretend to understand any of it. "Brigadier! The E.M.P! It's more than that, it's a radio signal." The Brigadier looked up with an arched eyebrow, "Distress signal perhaps?" The Doctor/Beckett sat on the edge of a desk and rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke, "No I don't think so. If it is, why transmit it alongside an E.M.P? No, it's a homing device I'm sure of it. It's a preparation for something, and it's not like me to jump the gun Brigadier, but for once I'm advising you to prepare for a possible invasion." The Brigadier sat back down, exhaling as if he'd been kicked in the stomach.
The Commander of the Valdeen fleet hissed impatiently as he listened too the communication from their humanoid agent on the planet Earth. Things were going wrong, and if he was honest, it wasn't entirely this stupid female's fault but her lack of progress, coupled with excuse after excuse was beginning to wear thin. He raised a three digit hand and curtly cut her off before she could start again. "The planet needs altering for our purposes. You assured me that that would be achieved by now. I hear that this has failed, or that has failed. I grow weary of this. The only thing stopping us from landing and sweeping aside the indigenous population of that primitive world, is the fact that it's not ready. We are, but the planet is not. Now give me some prediction as to how long it will take to alter conditions!"
Miss Irna frowned. She was beginning to seriously regret the deal she had struck with these beasts. "Look if it wasn't for me, you would still be in stasis, your spaceship would still be immobilised, it's not my fault that the young brood cannot be patient enough to stay under cover. Yes they have broken free from the capsule, and that was what I have been trying to tell you.
If the human armed forces start tracking your brood, then they can stumble upon me and jeopardise my cover. The beacon is active, and when the time comes, follow it and you'll find this country ready to accept your forces. But it's now up too you, to try and use whatever you have between your ears to find a way to bring the youngsters under control. I cannot be held responsible if they start feeding on the locals before you are ready to invade can I? Now let me get on with my work, and for heaven's sake, get your part of the bargain under control.
Preferably sooner rather than later. Irna out."
Seargeant Benton walked slowly alongside a hedgerow when he stopped abruptly. The man with him almost bumped into him, but his head whipped round as he saw in the near distance, a land rover hurtling along and then suddenly come to a grinding halt. "What the hell?" he wondered. And then he heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot, rapidly followed by two more.
He broke into a run, his fellow soldier in pursuit.
Sarah wondered about the practicality of shooting the thing through the glass partition. After all once the bullets had shattered the glass, the creature was free to attack. But it was going to break through anyway so....
But that would mean nothing if she couldn't figure out how to use the damned thing! She checked the gun, and saw that by her thumb there was a slide marked safety. The slide lay under a red dot, at the other end of the slide was a green dot. "Red means stop, green means go so" she muttered as she slid it forward. "WHACK!" the creature had hit the glass, and it was beginning to buckle. That settled it. Now she just had to pray that it was loaded. As the glass finally gave way, she raised the gun, grasped in both hands, movie style and she pulled the trigger without really aiming. The recoil would have blown her off her feet if it hadn't been for the dashboard supporting her. She squealed as the blast of the shot reverberated in the confined space of the land rover, and the recoil almost caused the gun to fly out of her hands as it bucked backwards and upwards. Her wrist was now as sore as hell, she could hear nothing but a ringing in her ears and the smell of gun smoke was overpowering. She opened her eyes. Sarah couldn't see the thing. Had she hit it?
Even as she craned her neck forward, she realised something. The rear side window was open, and the thing hadn't realised it until now. It was injured, bleeding, she could see that by the blood that flowed from the bottom edge of the window. But the bastard was now squeezing through the panel and moving alongside the side of the vehicle, towards the side window of the cab. She drew breath to scream as the head appeared in the window. She raised the gun and fired a fourth shot. Was that someone yelling her name? She wasn't sure about that at all, and then she heard it, "Sarah! For God's sake get down!" That was all the prompting she needed. Sarah dropped too the floor of the cab as a sound like that of someone making pop corn rent the air, but she knew it was the sound of a semi automatic assault rifle. There was a screech and she echoed it as something spattered the cabin of the Land Rover. Cool air rushed over her as the drivers door was pulled open, and she smiled weakly at her rescuer before fainting dead away....
It's not my fault! she fumed. Irna had closed down the link and swore heartily in a strange language. It wasn't her fault that the pod had landed in Roman times and sunk into what was then swamp land, before the beacon could be launched. But both objects had landed or rather crashed, and had been buried deeply under the earth. It wasn't her fault that precious few pods that had formed the spearhead, didn't survive the arrival all those centuries ago. It wasn't her fault that the metal that their ships and armour were made of had such a bad reaction to oxygenated atmospheres. They wanted her to change the planet just enough to prevent that. They wanted her to try and not only guide the mother ships, but to get the beacons to awaken any other pods that may, by the grace of cosmic law, had survived. Judging by sensor readings, precious few had.
Certainly the answering calls from remote pods had been faint and few and far between. They were also scattered far wider than they would have liked. She had detected one in northern Italy, another in the Arctic Circle, and she knew that that was far too cold for any of them to have survived there. There was a possible signal from the Amazon Basin and another that eminated from Australasia but... too few by far. There should have been thousands, but she had detected no more than a hundred. But still these creatures bred as proficiently as rabbits or rats. So there should be some survivors for sure, but there was a theory that she had that she hadn't shared with the commander. Irna had theorised that some of the beasts would have been devoured by stronger predators, others may have 'turned native' and lost the war like instincts of their parent species. So how many were left? She didn't know. The Italian location had produced no strong evidence that although the automated signal had finally kicked in, there was no audible contact with the Valdeen that should have been there.
And it certainly was not her fault that this brood had not had the patience to not go hunting anything that moved. They were out there with no weapons of their own or battle armour. Not her fault at all she repeated too herself, so how can she rectify this situation? She needed them to help her achieve her own ends. Afterwards they would share the planet, at least that had been the plan. But plans can be revised. She laughed harshly, and now wondered what she could do. There was a nagging, irritating thought that came too her. Her one hope could be the Doctor. She knew that the Master had found himself relying on his enemy to aid him when he had painted himself into a corner, but she'd be damned if she would do the same! But Irna knew that her options were few and choices were limited. She slammed the interior door of the porta cabin and prepared herself to swallow her pride.....
The Doctor looked up from his work as the sound of gunshots rang out. "What now?" he wondered aloud. He stood up and grabbed his cloak from where it was hanging on the back of the door. The work was important and he didn't want to leave it, as he still hadn't figured out what was going on. No doubt that someone, somewhere was planning an invasion, but who and where were they hiding? But concerns for Sarah made him go towards the door. After all, his holographic self had warned him that he needed to save Sarah, rather the holograph had warned Doctor Beckett, who shared his body and his mind. So was it the Doctor that reached for the cape and hurried outside, or was it Beckett that drove him on?
Back in the Quantum Leap project, Al griamced as he read the data flowing across Ziggy's tny screen. The real Doctor sat on a lab seat, feeling helpless and bored. He looked at Al as he sipped his tea. Al suddeny turned towards him, "The probabilty that Sam needs to save Sarah has dropped now to under 40% and continues to drop. It's often the case that the focus shifts, so don't raise your hopes too high about him jumping out of you anytime soon, it's not that simple. Hell it never is." The Doctor sighed and then looked at Ziggy again. "May I?" he asked. "Sure just don't take it apart" said Al, remembering the Doctor's offer to see if he could get it working properly, "please"he added, as an afterthought. The Doctor smiled as he screwed a jeweller's eye glass into his eye....
Sarah rose from the floor of the land rover's cab. Her eyes stung from the gunsmoke, her ears were still ringing and her wrists ached like crazy. She almost jumped out of her stockinged feet as a hand fell on her shoulder. "Miss?" She recognised the voice as that belonging to Seargeant Benton. "Are you all right?" She shook her head and hastily dropped the automatic pistol onto the floor of the land rover. "Wha-what was that thing?" she asked. "I don't know" said Benton, "But I'm glad we turned up when we did, and even more pleased that the little devil wasn't bulletproof. Hughes, go back too the base and see if you can't rustle up some way of carrying the brute so the Doctor can examine it. He needs to know as does the Brigadier. Come on Sarah, it looks like you need a good, strong, cup of tea or coffee."
The human's scent was strong as they approached the camp. Full of a burning hunger, they ignored the dig site, not enough fresh meat. But their instincts told them there was a group of buildings, full of meat, and beyond that, an entire village. Somewhere in their conciouss was the notion that there was another matter far more pressing than the need of food, but that instinct was being buried deeper by the minute. They entered the storm drains, some climbed the walls, growing limbs to grab and grasp the walls, and drainpipes for leverage. Betty Fowler, aged 44, swore as the water refused to go down the sink. "Bugger it! Frank, check the damned drain will you? I think it's bunged up again!" He acknowledged her request with a grunt and a wave.
The Doctor/Beckett headed toward the stairwell that lead too the parking area. As he headed towards the second landing, he heard a hissing sound, like that of escaping gas. He paused. Then there came a slow, dragging sound. "Hello?" he called, "Anybody there? Hello?" The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Then another noise reached his ears. He looked up as a grating on the wall behind him and above his head swung open and then fell too the floor with a loud clatter. Then something that resembled a blue, grey mottled snake wriggled through the opening and landed on the stairs behind him. He rused down the stairs but as he aproached the shadowy area below, he sensed before he saw the others. They were at the bottom of the stairs, beginning to slither their way up as the ones behind started to make their way down. "Hunger...sssssso hungry....." They hissed and began to close in for the kill....
The Doctor saw the words flash onto Ziggy's screen. Probability of the Doctor's life being in jeopardy, 70% and rising.
To be continued.
