It was as dark as ever in here. ‘Don’t the Daleks believe in lights?’ she whispered.
‘They can see using infrared,’ the Doctor replied as quietly. ‘This place is well lit, as far as they’re concerned.’
Wonderful. Just another minor detail – she was blind, but the Daleks would be able to see her… She moved closer to David and the comforting circle of light he cast.
The sound of working machinery grew louder, and after a few minutes, Donna could see a light ahead. ‘Hallelujah,’ she muttered.
They emerged cautiously into some kind of factory. Huge machines were taking ore and crushing it, feeding it into what looked like an induction furnace. This was where the raw materials were being processed, but luckily it was all automated machinery, and there were no Daleks supervising the process. Beyond this room lay others, where the raw materials were no doubt cast and processed, until Dalek casings emerged at the far end. It was too noisy in here to hear voices, so the Doctor was forced to tug at her arm to get her attention. David turned off his torch and replaced it in his pocket, and the three of them headed for the door. On the way, the Doctor stopped at a control panel and worked there for a couple of noisy minutes. Donna wanted to yell at him to hurry up before she went deaf, but there wasn’t a lot of point in even trying to make herself heard. Finally he was done and they made their way to the door. There was a small pad beside it, and somehow the Doctor used this to get them out of the furnace room and into the corridor. The door slid to a close behind them, shutting out most of the noise.
‘Good insulation,’ the Doctor said approvingly. ‘Whatever else you say about the Daleks, you have to admit that they’re efficient.’
‘I can think of other words for them,’ Donna said drily.
‘So can I,’ the Doctor agreed. There was controlled anger in his voice. ‘Time after time I defeat them, and yet they still come back for more, spreading death and chaos everywhere. I thought these Daleks at least were finished… but I was wrong. Again.’ He looked haunted. ‘Won’t they ever let me rest?’ He glanced around, and then started down the deserted corridor. ‘This way.’
‘Where are we going?’ Donna demanded, falling into step.
‘The hatchery,’ he answered briefly.
‘Why aren’t there any Daleks around?’ David wanted to know.
‘Not needed here,’ the Doctor explained. ‘They didn’t think about the back door being open. They can’t have that many available yet, and they’ll all be on the really important jobs and guarding the front door. But we might run into a few strays.’
They rounded a corner after checking the way was safe, and started off down the corridor again. The Doctor ignored several doors as he approached the one that he had singled out. ‘Hatchery,’ he decided.
‘How can you be so sure?’ Donna asked.
He gestured to a shoulder‐high window. ‘Viewport,’ he explained. ‘Dalek embryos are grown, and they can be pretty vicious. They’re highly unsociable, and will attack anything on sight – even Daleks. It can get messy for them to haul their babies off their domes, so they like to be able to check that the little ones are still inside their vats before they go in.’ Donna started to take a look, but he was already tapping some sort of code into the lock. ‘Don’t worry, its nap time.’
The door hissed open, and they all slipped inside. Donna stared around in disgust.
The room was like one huge, raised tank filled with a seething flood. Nutrients bubbled away, flowing into pipes leading to metallic storage vats in the corners. The viscous liquid was greenish in colour.
‘The embryos are in there?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ the Doctor answered. ‘They’re cloned material, grown for the first stage of life in small jars. When they’re ready, they’re transferred to this nutrient bath, where they mature.’ There was a flurry of splashes in the centre of the tank. ‘Here they grow to full term – and fight with one another. They’re intelligent creatures,’ he added, ‘but their instincts are horribly powerful. They’re not complete until they’re taken from these breeding tanks and mated with the travel unit shell. The baby Daleks are by then fully grown. They interface with their internal computers, which gives them all the information and conditioning they need. They can be up and running in a matter of minutes, ready to go out and kill on command.’
Donna looked at the slime distastefully ‘A big job,’ she muttered.
‘They like long‐term planning.’ The Doctor glared at the vats. ‘But it’s the end of the road for this lot. This isn’t their world, and they can’t have it.’ He moved to the machinery, and started to fiddle with the computer controls.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked him. ‘Scientific abortion?’
‘Actually, the exact opposite,’ he replied. ‘I’m increasing production of the embryos.’
Donna gave him a puzzled look. ‘That doesn’t sound like it’s going to help us. You want more Daleks produced?’
‘Not produced,’ he replied. ‘Begun. I’ve increased the production rate by a thousand per cent. The power drain on their reserves will be enormous.’
She caught on at last. ‘And with no more power coming in from Haldoran,’ she realised, ‘that’s going to really hurt.’
‘Exactly.’ The Doctor gave her a bitter smile. ‘The Daleks are utterly dependent on electrical power. It keeps their shells going, and their life‐support systems working. If we can drain their power, it will kill them – this time permanently.’
‘Won’t they detect this drain and try to stop it?’ David objected.
‘Try, yes,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘But I’ve set up a logic loop in the controls here. The only way they’ll be able to stop the drain is to bypass it, and it won’t be easy. Add that to the tiny adjustment I made in the furnace, and they’re going to have a severe energy shortage in the not‐too‐distant future.’
‘So what do we do now?’ Donna asked. ‘Hide until their little batteries run down?’
‘No,’ David said. ‘Now we look for Susan.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘I’ll see if I can find any mention of a prisoner in their computer records. Failing that. I’ll check for their most sensitive area. That’s where she’s bound to be. She never could resist tinkering with things.’
‘I wonder where she gets that from,’ Donna commented drily.
The Doctor was suddenly lost in contemplation. ‘I wonder how long we’ve got before all hell breaks loose.’
Did he have to ask that question? Donna had been trying to avoid thinking about it, but he’d made it impossible. The Daleks were bound to discover the power drain pretty quickly, and they would then head down here to try to stop it. Unless she, David and the Doctor were gone before that happened, she didn’t give much for their chances of surviving this…
Barlow stared down at the communications array with growing dismay. Several of the Daleks had moved away now, leaving only four of them working. That had to mean that they were almost ready to utilise the device. ‘Sorry, Doctor, Donna,’ he muttered to himself. ‘We just can’t wait any longer.’ He could only hope they’d had enough time to do whatever the Doctor had planned, because time had just run out. He couldn’t take any more chances. He grimly gestured to his men to move out, knowing full well how high the casualty rate of this assault would be.
And would he number among them? It could be that he’d have one of the shortest reigns on record at this rate, but there was no choke. He made sure the grenade launcher was operational, and then he moved to the left, heading for the pathway down to the cutting. They were bound to be spotted soon, but nothing could be done to prevent it.