Detachment Leader Kaybol's little domain had contracted within minutes of the Doctor's emergence from the TARDIS, informing the bio-vores in the Infiltration Complex that they had one last chance to get home.
Morale amongst the aliens was not good. They had, it is true, found and drained the life-energies of several hundred humans, and recovered metal artefacts that enabled more robust vehicles to be constructed. However, they had also been subjected to a bombing raid from the air, first by the frightening but ineffectual Lysander, secondly by the utterly terrifying and most definitely effectual Blenheims. Nor was that all. No reinforcements had come through by trans-mat since the rebellion back on Homeworld. No reinforcements, and no bottled algae, either. Faced with the prospect of being stranded on a world where attack from the air was commonplace, where half their detachment were dead, and where bio-morphic energy was in short supply, most of the detachment opted for Homeworld.
That left the leader-assumptant, Kaybol, and a few other bio-vores, perhaps two dozen in all. Detachment Leader Kaybol, having discovered his miniature fiefdom shrinking in numbers, had been told "It's the small alien doing it!" and set out to find and kill the small alien. That heretic Sorbusa had failed to kill the small alien, likewise Lord Excellency Sur, and several detachment leaders besides. Enough of that! Kaybol determined that he would kill the small alien.
Perhaps it escaped his attention that the small alien survived through it's own wits, not only the failings of others.
When Kaybol darted out his proboscis, threatening Thedoctor with slow death, the small alien held up a network of fibres strung between it's hands, catching the detachment leader's proboscis and trapping it between the strands. 'Cat's Cradle!' chortled the small alien. With a wrench, Kaybol dragged himself free from the trap, only to find it bound tightly around his proboscis, making his eyes water with the pain.
By the time he dragged the fibres free, Thedoctor was gone. Two more bio-vores came up to assist their leader, as he thought, gesturing towards the vanished alien.
'We must pursue!' he began. Began, and ended.
Instead of helping, the two Sub-Senior's Eviscerated Kaybol, who they felt had failed. Besides, they were hungry.
Darting away from Kaybol, the Doctor merely rounded the end wall of the small science building and circled it, aiming to get back to where he came from. He witnessed the end of Kaybol, without regret, and made his way back into the nearest science building. The paucity of bio-vores meant this was fairly easy.
Worryingly, the various life-scanners, display screens and information panels within the building were set by default on the Mediterranean coastline.
Oh, my, thought the Doctor to himself. The Mediterranean: a littoral zone with a desert hinterland – much like Homeworld. Just what these aliens would be familiar with.
Except, and a big difference here, the life-signs equipment showed a fantastic array of life in the Mediterranean. Millions of tons of fish.
Easier prey than humans, realised the Doctor. Fish might have body armour in the form of scales, and weapons in the form of teeth, yet nothing they possessed compared to human weapons technology. Bio-vores who managed to get into the Mediterranean would have an unlimited harvest to reap. Planet Earth would never be free of them.
'Doctor!' came a warning shout from outside, a voice he recognised.
'Sarah!' replied the Doctor, whirling round expecting to see her, and coming face-to-face instead with a bio-vore. Beyond, looking nervous, Sarah and Professor Templeman hovered in the building's doorway.
This alien was only six feet tall, and far thinner than any he had encountered so far. One of those energy-dependent offspring reproduced as a result of the bio-vores "harvesting" human life-energies.
'Would you like to talk about it?' tried the Doctor, holding both hands up, palms outward at shoulder-level in the universal sign for non-combatant. The bio-vore hissed loudly, stamping forward.
'Excuse me!' came a shrill female voice from just beyond the doorway, followed by a stone that struck the alien, which turned. It hissed again, until Sarah advanced, holding one hand aloft. Then it growled, preparing to attack.
The Doctor watched in horrified fascination as the alien slowly moved forward, growling and waving it's proboscis. He drew in his breath, ready to shout and divert the alien's attention.
Instead, Sarah thrust her hand forward. There came a hiss, a fine spray squirted into the air and fell on the alien, which shrieked appallingly, backed away and then ran full speed at the far wall of the building's interior, coming to a sudden and abrupt halt when it hit the wall.
Carefully, the Doctor approached the motionless body.
'Hmm. Quite dead,' he commented. 'Shock, endothermic imbalance or impact trauma.'
A pair of footfalls in the building heralded Sarah and the Professor.
'Sarah! How happy I am to see you!' exclaimed the Doctor. 'And you, too, Professor,' he added when the latter coughed diplomatically.
Sarah held up a small glass bottle with a spray top.
'Chanel Number Five,' she remarked ruefully. 'The last of it, too.'
'Remarkably brave girl, that,' blustered the Professor. 'We came to see what had kept you, Doctor. Miss Smith insisted that you must be in trouble to be away for so long.'
The Doctor shook his head.
'Matters elsewhere kept me busy. Which reminds me - '
Under the eyes of the two humans, he went about putting a particular critical information-set into the science building's equipment. Having done that, he used the sonic screwdriver to shatter and destroy the instrument panels, one after the other.
'Time to leave,' he cautioned them.
Once outside, he headed towards the TARDIS, leading Sarah and the Professor at a moderate jog.
'What's the hurry and where's the fire?' asked Sarah. 'For your information, Doctor, I don't want to do any more running in the sand. Our truck gave up and died at the line of tents out there and we had to sneak in on tiptoes.'
Suddenly, as if struck by an idea from nowhere, the Doctor stopped.
'What is the hurry?' he asked. Neither Sarah nor the Professor knew if this was a rhetorical question, a question being asked of them or (in the case of Sarah) a question being asked of the Time Lords. 'No, I mean, where are all the bio-vores?' asked the Doctor.
None of the aliens were present in the complex. From the middle distance a machine-gun began to fire, a stuttering bang-bang-bang. Moments of silence followed, then more gunfire, then silence again.
'I think the rats have left the sinking ship,' declared Sarah. She was more correct than she realised.
No bio-vores present, and those tell-tale displays in the science building – they are headed for the shoreline! realised the Doctor.
'Look at those,' said Templeman, pointing at a triple series of tracks leading over the sand-basin walls.
Exit tracks, recognised all three witnesses. The bio-vores had fled in their black glass machineries.
On cue, a Sahariana came lurching over the crest of the basin, heading downwards with one man driving, the other next to him hugging a machine-gun. The vehicle skidded to a halt, Tenente Dominione leaning out of the driver's seat to bow and salute mockingly.
Fifteen minutes later the desert car proceeded slowly westwards, a big blue box secured on the rear decking, the Doctor, Sarah and the Professor all crammed into any available space.
'Three black tanks came out of the dig,' explained Dominione. 'We opened fire but our bullets just bounced off.'
'Head for the depot,' ordered the Doctor. 'They won't bother with it any longer.' Not when they can head for the burgeoning shores of the Med, anyway, he told himself.
They got closer to Mersa Martuba, hearing occasional bangs and rattles reminiscent of gun battles, then closer, and closer – and abruptly came across a scene of brief battle and slaughter.
The Sahariana mounting the flamethrower and a black tank were locked together, burning furiously. The Sahariana had been partly shattered, the black tank split open and roasted by and flames. Fragments of glass, metal and wood lay on the desert sands. No tracks from survivors led away from either vehicle.
Dominione clenched his fists alternately and muttered curses about Torrevechio's end in an undertone, spitting onto the desert sands.
'Not another one of us dead!' said Sarah, the shock and horror in her tone manifest without any need for translation. Tenente Dominione turned in his seat to look at her with a wondering expression.
'Human feeling for human loss, Tenente,' commented the Doctor, an undertone of iron in his voice.
Dominione brought the Sahariana to a halt, reaching for a pair of Austrian binoculars under his seat. He focussed carefully, seeing a black tank racing back across the desert, way to the south of Mersah Martuba, returning to the dig at Makin Al-Jinni.
'This is strange, Dottore. Another of the monster's vehicle's is heading east. They must be trying to get back home.'
That left the second vehicle unaccounted for. All five in the Sahariana realised that much.
Sub-Technician Tecwalata lowered his dart-gun and padded across the beaten track, to where the human had been firing his weapon.
Yes, the human was dead. Finally! The human equivalent of a Detachment Leader. Shock-haired, short and hit in half-a-dozen places by darts, the human had nevertheless managed to kill five bio-vores with that peculiarly noisy weapon-mechanism fed-by-belt. Wretched creature. In the last moments it had seemed to be trying to get across the track, away from the safety of it's emplacement. Heading for that human vehicle?
Tecwalata had only six companions left, six from the hundreds who had come through the trans-mat with him.
Well, no problem. A short drive northwards would lead to the bio-morphically blessed waters of the Mediterranean sea. There, he and his survivors would be able to replicate a thousand-fold, preying on the waterborne lifeforms there. From seven they would become seven million in a matter of weeks. That was inevitable, given the amount of bio-morphic energy available.
'Tecwalata!' called another sub-technician. 'Our transport is exhausted. No more energy remains.'
As if to prove the point, their massive black Combat Car simply sat on the ground gravel of the encampment's entrance route. Dead. Inert.
'It's all those metallic additions,' muttered a technician to Tecwalata. 'Increase the weight, decrease the endurance.'
'Yes, thank you!' grated Tecwalata. His eyes fell upon the human transport vehicle nearby. Fell, understood and gloated.
What a perfect opportunity! Just as their own vehicle ceased to function, here was a replacement. These human vehicles utilised exothermic liquids as fuel, a fuel that was in plentiful supply here in the depot. Not only that, a human vehicle would allow them to approach the coastline in perfect safety, unrecognised as aliens! They could get to the sea easily and rapidly!
'The dead human was trying to reach the transport vehicle, Sub-Technician,' declared another technician. 'This device was in it's hand.'
Tecwalata took the proffered tiny template, a ridged spur jutting from a circular handle. From a slot in the handle dangled a short length of string and a paper tag.
"PROPERTY LT R LLEWELLYN RASC
DANGER!
NOT TO BE USED!"
'Here is a matching slot,' observed a Warrior, noseying around in the cab. Tecwalata nodded and inserted the template, twitching it carefully one way and then the other. Given his strength and how weak these humans were, it wouldn't do to –
A bright orange flash lit up the whole desert for a mile around, making every occupant of the Sahariana flinch. Awestruck, they saw a great boiling cloud of smoke, flame, dust and debris rise from the depot not half a mile away.
'Ahhhh. About nought point nought two five kilotonnes yield,' estimated the Doctor, screwing up his eyes and judging from flash, intensity, duration and location.
Tenente Dominione, once again quick on the uptake, threw the desert car into reverse, skidded into a half-circle, faced them back across the sands and raced forward, punishing the clutch and gears in order to get a safe distance between them and the great crimson, curdling explosion.
Sarah looked backwards, appalled, seeing great secondary explosions and the arc of shells set off by sympathetic detonation. An enormous dusty curtain of sand and dust raced over the gravel towards them, eventually hitting the car like a hammer.
'Stop! Stop!' called the Doctor, coughing and choking in the half-light left by the passing blanket of dust and sands.
Dominione cocked an inquisitive eyebrow, braking to a slow forward.
'Before we left Makin Al-Jinni, I set the geothermal spike array to maximum intake but minimum discharge.'
People looked at each other.
The Doctor sighed.
'A self-destruct mechanism. Normally the complex staff would be able to divert the energy, usually by the pylon. Without that they'd use the instrument panels to organise energy dischage.'
'Those would be the energy-manipulating panels you destroyed?' asked Sarah, to a nod from her mentor.
The Doctor pictured the surviving bio-vores arriving back at their complex, seeking to recharge their Combat Car, only to be informed that their equipment wasn't able to recharge. The sabotage would have escalated enormously by then, without any staff on hand to restrict or remedy it. Seeking out the source of the sabotage –
An incredibly acute, purple-white flash came from the depths of the desert, at approximately where Makin Al-Jinni would have been. Two minutes later odd bits of glass and granite began to fall amongst them, the remnants of the archaeological dig.
Just to make sure, the Sahariana and crew hung around for another twelve hours. Nothing moved in the desert apart from them.
Professor Templeman stared at his scuffed, dusty shoes, the laces heavy with sand. Bourgebus had died early on, a victim of the sinister alien machines. Albert, that dark horse, had vanished over the dig at Makin Al-Jinni. The entire dig, with all its evidence, had been blasted to bits. No surviving aliens remained. He had no evidence to put forward in any thesis or paper. Dead end.
'Very well,' said the Tenente. 'Due west leads to Axis forces.'
'Indeed!' beamed the Doctor. 'And the first formation you will meet will be the Thirty Third Reconaissance Battalion of the Afrika Korps. Make sure to tell them that the depot at Mersa Martuba – codenamed "Fledermaus" if I remember correctly – that the depot has been successfully destroyed by it's defenders.'
Doretti waved excitedly.
'Sir! Sir, I can pick up Twentieth Corps! The jamming has finished!'
Dominione looked acutely at his passengers.
'Time for us to depart, I feel,' muttered the Doctor.
'I think it is, perhaps, time for our truce to expire,' said the Italian officer, reaching almost unconsciously for his Beretta sub-machine gun.
'What's going to happen to me?' complained Professor Templeman, nudging Sarah in the ribs. ' I'm not a soldier! You can't hold me as a prisoner of war!'
Sarah began to edge to the rear of the desert car, preparing herself for a dart around the corner of the TARDIS, only to be forestalled by the Doctor, who looked uncharacteristically serious.
'Tenente. Consider what you have experienced over the past few days. Look at your command – reduced from dozens of men to one soldier and a single vehicle.'
Doretti spat over the side of the Sahariana.
'Monsters!' he swore.
'Ah-ah,' denied the Doctor, shaking his head. 'Precious few monsters. Mostly the products of a monstrous system. A system and civilisation based on exploitation, oppression and casual murder. Does that sound particularly relevant or close to home, Tenente?'
Dominione's cheeks burnt crimson. This alleged time-traveller from the future was criticising the Italian Fascist state!
'Germany loses, you know,' chirped Sarah. 'Over-run by the Russians and the British and Americans. Of course that's after Italy gets fought over by the Allies and the Germans after it surrenders.'
Doretti stared at Sarah, then at his officer.
'Yes, thank you Sarah!' added the Doctor. 'The whole war will take a major turn for the worse when Germany invades the Soviet Union in less than three months. Twenty-second of June of this year, Tenente. The Italian Eighth Army ends up destroyed in the Stalingrad battles. Oh, not forgetting when America joins in the war.'
Feeling under information attack, Dominione responded.
'America? America is a neutral country!' Doretti nodded vehemently, aware that he had at least a dozen cousins living abroad in the United States.
'Only until December the Seventh. During – oh, what is the name now? Operation Scimitar – no – Operation Saracen – ah! I remember! Operation Crusader.'
Doretti and the Tenente exchanged glances. Doretti felt their other-worldly helper was going slowly mad. Dominione wondered which of them was going mad, because if it wasn't the Dottore then it had to be him.
'What about me!' whined Templeman, standing up in righteous indignation, and once again nudging Sarah. The Italian officer looked coldly at the professor.
'You, sir, are a non-combatant. I will guarantee that you are repatriated via the Red Cross. My word as an officer.'
'Can I have that in writing?' asked the Professor, a sly look in his eyes.
'Yes!' snapped the officer.
Having said that, Dominione looked back for Miss Smith and Doctor Smith.
They were both gone.
Not only that, the big wooden box strapped to the rear of the car began to groan and moan, gradually becoming transparent, then vanishing completely.
The Professor, Dominione and Doretti exchanged looks, not really understanding what they'd seen.
'Yes. Well. Would either of you care for a cup of tea?' asked Templeman.
Epilogue: No Thank You But Paper Instead'Mistress!' greeted K9, a sure sign that the Time Lords had finished their electronic paralysis of the robot dog.
'Don't try to curry favour with me!' huffed Sarah. 'We could have used you out there.'
Like a mother hen, the Doctor fussed and checked over the TARDIS consoles, quite oblivious to what his companions were up to.
'Oh, I say, look at this!' enthused Sarah, having come across a collection of papers lying on the TARDIS central console. They hadn't been there when the duo regained the spaceship's interior.
'Eh? Oh. Hmm. I do wish the Time Lords would stop messing about with my TARDIS,' grumbled the Doctor. 'Does it say thank you?'
'No,' replied Sarah, slowly and doubtfully.
'Typical!' muttered the Doctor, setting co-ordinates. 'A little gratitude once in a while doesn't hurt.'
Sarah perused the top document, which seemed to be taken from a sequence, since it began in mid-sentence and didn't have a title.
" elements of the 276th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, the 47th Infantry Division and the 3rd Fallschirmjaeger Brigade counter-attacked the bridgehead under cover of heavy artillery and Nebelwerfer fire. Faced with this attack, and unable to reinforce the bridgehead, Brigadier McKenzie decided to withdraw his lead battalion back across the River Corso.
'Capitane Dominione of the Co-Belligerent Forces volunteered to stay behind with a rearguard and hold off the enemy until the remainder of the battalion could retreat and be taken off the north bank by boat.
'Under Capitane Dominione's guidance, the Vickers platoon set up on the ridgeline and threw back three enemy attacks, inflicting heavy losses on the German attackers. Capitaine Dominione was badly wounded, twice, but refused to be evacuated and insisted on manning the last working Vickers gun himself. Sergente Doretti also insisted on staying. Under their covering fire the last of the rearguard were able to be brought off, completing the evacuation of the battalion.
'When the battalion was able to recross the river and pursue the retreating German forces several days later, the graves of Capitaine Dominione and Sergente Doretti were found, presumably interred by the Germans.
'German prisoners subsequently taken informed Brigadier McKenzie that the two Italians had fought on, surrounded, outnumbered and outgunned, refusing to surrender and thus holding up the German advance, which reached the river over half an hour too late to intercept the retreating battalion.
'It is my contention that, without the splendid efforts of Capitain Dominione in leading the rearguard, and finally holding off the Germans himself, several hundred members of the battalion would have been killed or captured. I have no hesitation in recommending him for the Silver Cross of Valour, and in recommending Sergente Doretti for the Bronze Cross of Valour."
In pencil an unknown hand had scribbled in the margin: "Bloody unusual for the Hun to bury Eyeties fighting for us! Must have impressed them no end. See if you can add this to Rgt dispatches. Pass on to Alex for info."
Sarah dropped the paper to the floor, feeling stricken.
'They died! After going through all that we did, and surviving the bio-vores, and they died!'
The Doctor picked up a slip of paper from beneath the typed sheet.
'You missed this,' he said softly, passing it to Sarah.
This was a much smaller piece of card, with an embossment and lots of red ink.
"Father: Capitane Lucio Mario Dominione
Mother: Maria Donatella Dominione
Christian Name: Angelina
Surname: Dominione
Date of Birth: 18/2/1944
ISSUED BY ORDER OF AMGOT NAPLES 21/2/1944"
An illegible scrawl lay along the bottom.
'Oh! A birth certificate!' realised Sarah. 'So – he went back to Italy. He got married and had a daughter.' Her tone lightened a little. A child, something positive to come from this particular adventure.
'If he was in the Co-Belligerent Forces, he was fighting alongside the British in the Eighth Army. Must have volunteered to fight,' mused the Doctor. 'Bit ironic, really – ending up alongside the men he'd been fighting against.'
He caught the look in Sarah's eye.
'Now, now, Sarah. They didn't die in vain. Together they helped to save Earth from a pestilential alien threat.'
What the Doctor wondered, and might never discover, was why the two Italians had changed sides, volunteering to fight against their former allies and in concert with former enemies. Perhaps his parting words about what the future held for them bore fruit. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
'Did – or does – Professor Templeman survive?' asked Sarah. She wasn't especially fond of the big old oaf, but someone from their comrades ought to survive.
'Eh? Oh, the Professor. Yes, he does. Never quite the same afterwards, the university establishment always thought of him as "odd" after his desert adventure. Went to Israel, if my memory serves correctly.'
'And - ' began Sarah, before the Doctor waved an irritated hand.
'Yes! Yes, the bio-vore Farmers will successfully overthrow their slave-and-cull society. Might take as long as a year, but it will happen. Hopefully without too much bloodshed.'
With a nod of approval, Sarah headed off to have a shower. She was filthy, dirty, sandy and dried-out. Emotionally she felt wrung-out. She now began to understand why the Doctor hated war and conflict so much. Before she closed the door the Doctor caught her with a verbal Partian shot.
'Oh, you might care to know, Angelina Piccoli will have a son who helps to establish the North African Irrigation Project. Imagine that, wheatfields in the heart of the Sahara. Angelina Piccoli, nee Dominione.'
'How I can appreciate that!' said Sarah over her shoulder. 'Water, precious water.'
'Water?' asked the German NCO of the liaison officer, Captain Hertz, waving a water bottle under the officer's nose.
'No, not yet,' replied the lanky officer, climbing up on the back of the big armoured car.
He'd come out here to Mersa Martuba with the leading elements of the 33rd Reconaissance Battalion, to see what they could capture from the British supply depot reported to be located there.
Well, "nothing" seemed to be the answer. Von Dem Borne, not to mention Rommel, wouldn't like that, however true it was. The depot didn't exist any more, having been flattened totally. No mud huts, palm trees, water or anything else, just half a square kilometre of what looked like a great glass crater, now crazed and split by the elements.
Hertz sighed.
'Nothing to see, nothing to steal. Nothing happening here at all, Feldwebel. Let's get back to the rest of the battalion.'
Behind them the desert gravel, sand and stone remained baking in the sun, untouched.
A real waste of time! judged Hertz. There was nothing out here.