illusion of the daleks page 2

'Excellent.'

'Alert! Alert! Alert! Intruders have been detected. There are humans on the planet! There are humans on the planet!' screamed the metallic voices of his creations suddenly. The voices, if such a thing were possible, sounded panicked.

'What? That's impossible. The human ships have not yet made it to this system. How could there be humans on the planet?'

'Unknown.'

'Where are these humans?'

'Sector four.' A hand reached out and touched a series of controls. The Doctor and Leela appeared on the screen.

'Deal with them. At once.' For a second there was silence. Then, the voice started babbling again.

'Human ships have entered the system! Human ships have entered the system!'

'Deploy the becon.'

'Becon deployed.'

'Speed up the process. I want to be off this planet as soon as possible.'

~~~ 

Gardener sat down in his seat, and called up a tactical display. Nothing. Nothing at all. If the Daleks had a ship here there was no sign of it. Slowly, he checked the equipment, then satisfied that the readings were real, he stood again.

'Get me the other ships.' The Communications Officer's fingers sped across the board, and the tiny figures of the other Captains appeared on the screen.

'Our sensors don't show anything. Can anyone else see anything out there?' There were several negative responses. 'If they are here, where are they?'

'Captain?'

'Yes?'

'We're receiving a transmission.'

'On screen.' The picture on the screen changed. A collective shudder went through the bridge crew. There, large as life on the screen, was one of humanities deadliest enemines:

A Dalek.

Slowly, an eye stalk swivelled to look at them. Then, it began to speak. Its peculiar, clipped, mechanical voice echoing around the bridge. Shivers of fear ran through the bridge crew.

'Humans. Do not attempt to approach the planet you call Delta Omicron. Dalek forces will destroy you if you approach.' The Dalek eyestalk swivelled to look at the Captain directly. A shiver ran up his spine. Then the picture disappeared.

'Captain, look at the scanner.'

'Oh my God.' There on the scanner was a picture from his worst nightmare. A full Dalek battle fleet had appeared. 'Full stop. Tell the other ships to pull back. Transmit that message to the Ice Warriors and the Draconians.' He looked at the screen in horror. This was worse than he thought possible. 'Tell the ship Captains that there will be a meeting on this ship in ten minutes.' With that he stood and walked to the conference room. He didn't seem to hear Anderson's comment:

'There's something wrong here. Since when have Daleks given out warnings?'

~~

'Beacon has been successful. Humans are falling back. They have transmitted the data to the Draconian ships entering the system.'

'I wondered when they would turn up. Modulate the beacon accordingly.'

'Confirmed.' There was a pause, then, 'We are through to the Inner Sanctum.'

'Excellent.'

~~~

'Halt!' The voice was instantly familiar, and one the Doctor dreaded. He stopped in his tracks. Leela walked into him.

'What is it?' she asked.

'A Dalek. Don't move.' whispered the Doctor, slowly turning around. There, behind a slight ridge was a Dalek. He was square in line of fire from its gun. There was nothing he could do. There was no rabbit he could pull out of the hat, no hat to throw over the eye stalk. He had been caught cold. He had lost. This was how it would all end? Not in a blaze of glory. Not saving a planet, the galaxy or the universe, not killed by the Master or Davros but killed by an unknown, ordinary Dalek on a world whose sole defining feature seemed to be sand.

'Do not move. Why are you here?'

'Just exploring,' said the Doctor, not understanding what the Dalek was doing. Normal Dalek procedure would have resulted in him being dead by now. Why wasn't he? What was the Dalek waiting for? Something was very wrong here.

'That is not a satisfactory answer. Explain your presence.'

'Like I said, I was exploring. Just looking around.' The Doctor's eyes narrowed as he looked at the creature. On the surface it was certainly a Dalek. But the behaviour was all wrong. Daleks did not behave like this. He should know. Something was wrong here. The Dalek looked at him for a second.

'Do not come here again.' said the Dalek. Then, it turned and glided away. The Doctor watching, shocked and astonished. What was going on here?

'Doctor, what is going on?'

'I was just asking myself that very question.' he said, looking at the retreating figure. 'Come on. Back to the TARDIS.' Leela stood still for a moment, then decided that she should follow the Doctor.

'What was that thing? A day-lek?' she asked as they walked.

'No.' said the Doctor.

'But you said...'

'I know what I said. I was wrong. I don't know what that thing is, but the last thing it is, is a Dalek.'

~~~ 

'Daleks don't give warnings.' said the Ice Warrior helmsman as he looked at the message. 'I don't like this. I don't like this at all.' He looked at the message again, studying it. 'This is a trick. The humans can not be trusted.'

'No. The humans would not trick us like this.'

'Can you be sure? There is nothing on the long range sensors. No Dalek fleet. Nothing. Humans are treacherous. They have proved that before.'

'The Draconians are also here. Why would they be involved in a plan to destroy us? They have more in common with us, than they ever will with humans.'

'The humans could be planning to destroy both of us.'

'I doubt that.'

'But, it is possible.'

'Yes, it is possible. Continue the sensor scan. As soon as the short range sensors confirm that there is no fleet. We shall act. If this is a trick, then the humans will pay.'

~~~

'Gardener,' the voice rang through the conference room, stirring his memory. He hadn't truly forgotten, he couldn't but he had buried the memories in the rush of the moment. Now they came spiralling, unbidden, to the surface of his mind. For a second he had travelled in time,back to the halcyon days of his youth, back to Mars, the open air, the cafe, the sunlight dancing across his face as he stared into her eyes...

Reality reasserted itself. Those days were once more long gone, buried in the past and he was here, in the dull grey spartan conference room of his ship, trying to work out what the Daleks were up too, and trying to disentangle himself from a hug.

'Poule' he said, just about managing to disentangle himself. 'Good to see you.' He said with genuine warmth. Suddenly he was rather embarrassed. Now was not the time for such things.

'Sorry,' she said, drawing back. Then she smiled. She didn't seemed to be anything of the sort.

'I presume you two know each other?' said the hissing sibilant voice of one of the Draconians. If you could apply such human concepts to Draconians. It appeared to be amused. It seemed that he would burst into laughter any moment.

'You could say that, yes.'

'Good. Otherwise, that could have been quite embarrassing.' The Draconian was amused, damn it. He could have done without that. As he watched though, the light of laughter faded from the Draconian's eyes to be replaced by the cold harsh look of someone with an unpleasant task to do. 'Unfortunately, much as reacquainting yourselves is pleasant, we have other things to do. These Daleks...'

~~~

'Are we leaving?' asked Leela as the Doctor strode purposefully towards the TARDIS. The Doctor shook his head.

'No,' he said rather emphatically. 'We're not leaving.' He opened the door and ushered her inside.

'Then why are we here?' she asked. The Doctor didn't respond immediately, instead walking over to the control console. He started tapping controls.

'I need to find out what those things were. And what they are up to.'

'And coming here would help?'

'Yes,' he said, distractedly. He tapped some more controls and frowned at the readings. Then he looked up, that strange expression he wore when worried plastered all over his face. 'Now that's odd. The TARDIS should have detected power emissions of that level as soon as we landed.'

'Perhaps the TARDIS is broken.'

'Don't be ridiculous. The TARDIS isn't broken!' he snapped, before turning back to the controls. He patted them reassuringly. 'You're fine aren't you old girl.' he muttered, before he started examining them carefully again.

'If the TARDIS is not broken, then why did you not see those readings before?' asked Leela. She had the patient tone of someone who knew she was right. It would only be a matter of time before everybody else agreed with her.

'Maybe they weren't there, I wonder...' he said, moving across the console and tapping some other controls. 'Ah,' he said, then he frowned. 'That's most interesting.'

'What is interesting?'

'That is.' said the Doctor, pointing to the screen.

'What is it?'

'A satellite. It's transmitting something. I wonder what it's transmitting? More to the point, I wonder who it's transmitting to?'

~~~

'The behaviour of these Daleks is most definitely erratic.' said the Draconian from the other side of the table. 'It does not fit with any of our experiences of them.'

'But what does it mean?'

'It may have something to do with the civil war. Davros' forces may not behave like the other Daleks.'

'What civil war?' asked Gardener, leaning forward. Obviously the Draconians knew something that he didn't. He wasn't quite sure that he liked that.

'Our latest intelligence reports indicate the reason we lost contact with the Daleks is because they became involved in a civil war. This attack could mean that one side has finally won. It would enable them to switch all their attention back to us.'

'How come we didn't know about this?'

'Perhaps your intelligence service is not as good as ours.' Gardener look at the Draconian and frowned. If he didn't know better he would have sworn that the Draconian was human. That was the second or third time now he made a joke. Or something that could have been interpreted as one anyway. Draconians weren't exactly renowned for a sense of humour, or at least a human one anyway. He leaned forward.

'What else do these sources say?'

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