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The Dying Days - Chapter Thirteen
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Earth Attacks!
Friday, May 16th 1997 
'What's the latest from Portsmouth, Simon?' 
'Our boys have picked up about a hundred survivors, Prime Minister. There are 
some photos on your desk.' 
Greyhaven found the pictures next to the proposed new designs for banknotes. He 
stared at pictures: piles of rubble where buildings once stood, ships pitched 
over onto their sides, with great cracks and punctures in the metal. More 
victims to Xznaal's brutal efficiency. He'd never done it himself, but Greyhaven 
knew that some small children poured water over ant nests, to watch them suffer. 
The ants wouldn't be able to comprehend what was going on. Perhaps they had ant 
religion, with a complex set of beliefs regarding divine behaviour. Even if they 
found a way to communicate with their destroyer and asked him 'why?' they 
wouldn't get a proper answer. The best they could hope for would be 'why not?' 
He hadn't been back to the Greyhaven Building overlooking the Thames since the 
night the Martian ship had arrived. The cleaner would have made the bed, and 
removed every single trace that Eve had ever been there, except perhaps for an 
empty jewellery box. Watching banks of red fog rage around Adisham, Greyhaven 
could have destroyed Xznaal then and there, but he decided to wait. The Martians 
still had their uses. Xznaal had told him that he would not be manufacturing any 
more of the Red Death - although Greyhaven suspected that the decision had more 
to do with the fact that the Martians couldn't predict or control the behaviour 
of the gas. 
'Are there any of the leaders?' 
Simon flipped through the report. 'None. We've found the bodies of a couple of 
Admirals and Generals, but no sign of the resistance command staff. They must 
have been in one of the other strongholds.' 
'A package for you, Prime Minister,' a man announced. He had come into the room 
without knocking. 
When the Prime Minister looked up, he saw why. It was Alexander Christian, 
clean-shaven in a neat blue suit, holding a small parcel. 

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Simon lunged for him, and then fell back, unconscious, dragging a tea service 
onto the carpet with him. The sound of the crash brought a quick response, but 
the large man who came through the door was dealt with equally swiftly, slumping 
to the floor with a gruff groan.
Christian had kept the parcel in his right hand the whole time. Now he handed it 
over to the Prime Minister. Greyhaven didn't even try to reach for the pistol or 
panic button in his desk. 
'Good morning, Lex. Is that an axe in your pocket or are you just pleased to see 
me?' 
'You deserve to die for what you did to my crew, and what you did to me.' 
Christian said curtly. 'I spent twenty years in a cell because you sold Britain 
out to the Martians. You're not the only one who's spent twenty years making 
plans.' 
He pulled out a handgun, held it up. 
'Believe me, if I was going to kill you, you'd be dead by now. Open the 
envelope.' 
Greyhaven tugged out the videotape that had been slotted snugly inside. There 
wasn't a label on it, or a note. It had come from Crawley, according to the 
postmark. The delivery address had been scrawled out, but it wouldn't take a 
forensics team long to uncover it. 
'A picture speaks a thousand words, Prime Minister,' Christian said in a low 
voice. 
Greyhaven moved over to the little television and VCR in the corner of the room. 
The television screen rippled with thick diagonal lines. 
'The tape's blank,' he said. Then a thought occurred to him and he flicked a 
little switch on the back. It was a couple of seconds before the picture flashed 
up. When it did, it showed a flat expanse of concrete. The tape was an NTSC 
recording. He didn't look back over his shoulder. 
Instead, Greyhaven concentrated on the tape, trying to work out what he was 
watching. There was a timecode along the bottom: 5/14/97 09.05. It had been 
taken the day before yesterday. 

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The picture was jerky, the cameraman was trying to move it around in a tight 
circle. He was probably undercover. There wasn't a soundtrack. The Martian ship 
was drifting overhead, like a storm cloud. The cameraman kept it in shot for 
five or six seconds, then brought the camera around. Greyhaven could see now 
that the ship was floating over a runway. He glanced down at the envelope again. 
If it was sent from Crawley, it seemed logical that this was Gatwick Airport. 
But Gatwick had been closed since the Martians arrived. All the airliners had 
been transferred over to Heathrow to help with the repatriation of the tourists.
The picture jerked again, and there was a disorientating zoom to a row of blue 
Transit vans parked by a hangar building. There were policemen there, opening up 
the back of the vans. It was blurred, a little too far for the camera to pick 
out many details. 
The cameraman must have realised. The picture flickered, and now the timecode 
read 9.12. He had moved to within a hundred yards or so. There were about a 
hundred men lined up, all in blue and grey overalls. There must have been two 
dozen policeman watching over them, all of whom carried pistols or rifles. 
There was another zoom. The front of one of the Transit vans now filled the 
screen. The white lettering was very clear: HM PRISON SERVICE. The first two 
letters had actually been scraped away, but their outlines were still visible. 
The picture now panned back up to the underside of the Martian craft, and it 
took a moment for the cameraman to adjust the focus. A hatch was retracting at 
the front of the spaceship. As the red light began creeping out from the 
opening, Greyhaven could make out a dark shape the size of a large house. The 
shape detached itself, and began drifting downwards. It was boomerang-shaped, 
and built from glistening dark green metal. It was a shuttlecraft of some kind, 
and only took ten or fifteen seconds before it had descended the short distance 
to the runway. The picture panned down with it. 
The policemen were ushering their prisoners forwards towards the shuttlecraft. 
The picture dissolved into static. Greyhaven tried fast-forwarding the tape, to 
see if there were any more clips. The rest of the tape was blank. 
Greyhaven's face was ashen. 'What are they doing with those prisoners?' 
Alexander Christian watched him carefully. 'You don't know, do you?' 
'No.' 

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'That shuttlecraft was destroyed shortly after those pictures were taken. You 
didn't know that, either, did you?'
'A Martian ship was destroyed?' 
'That's the reason they attacked Portsmouth. Revenge for their loss. They are 
vicious, war-like. They'll destroy everything, you included.' 
'I can control them.' 
'You're too clever to trust Xznaal, old chap, and we know you've got something 
up your sleeve. Whatever it is, use it now. You won't get another chance.' 



Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield 
Much has been written about the Battle of London, very little of it by people 
who were actually there, as I was. The day began sitting in the officer's mess 
of the UNIT encampment, a map of Berkshire hanging on one wall, a map of London 
on the other. All of us knew that we would be writing history. We were full of 
that gung-ho spirit that seizes all sections of a population at time of war. 
Whatever your politics, whatever your thoughts about the rights and wrongs of 
the situation, you are always glad when "our boys" win and the enemy's boys 
don't. It's always been the same from the streets of ancient Uruk to the common 
room of a twenty-seventh century university. You forget that the enemy feels the 
same, you forget that every civilisation, even your own, falls in the end. I'd 
seen empires topple - including my own, but that's another story - yet I was 
swept along as much as anyone. 
'This will be a two-pronged attack,' Lethbridge-Stewart announced. He seemed ten 
years younger, I thought. There was a bounce in his step, determination in his 
voice. The other soldiers were listening to him now. 
He slapped his swagger stick against the first map. 'Step One: a small assault 
team led by Captain Ford takes out the refinery. Ray has agreed to go along, and 
he'll show you where to plant explosives for maximum effect. Primary objective 
is to destroy production facilities and any stocks of gas already prepared. The 
secondary objective is to capture the Martian scientist, Vrgnur.' 

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I raised my hand, and the Brigadier took my question. 'Could I go along with 
that group? I'm the only one who can talk to Vrgnur, and I know a little about 
Martian shuttlecraft.'
Lethbridge-Stewart nodded. 'That's where your expertise will be most useful,' he 
agreed. 'Now, we know that the warship hasn't come back to the refinery since it 
dropped off the shuttlecraft. That means that the warship doesn't have the gas 
on-board and if the Martians want to use it, they will have to go to Reading to 
collect it. Because the gas in crucial to their plans, it also means that when 
the refinery is attacked, they'll rush to defend it.' 
Lethbridge-Stewart crossed the room, passing the rows of officers. 'And that 
leads us to stage two. All Royalist units will converge on London. We'll move in 
along all major routes - our forces will head straight down the M4 and at the 
moment the bombs go off destroying the refinery, we'll be in Westminster.' 
Bambera had kept quiet ever since she'd handed over command to 
Lethbridge-Stewart, but now she was speaking. 'The Martian ship might stay 
behind to guard London, even if the refinery is threatened.' 
I shook my head. I'd talked this through with Alistair, and we had agreed what 
would happen. 'The Martians are interested in themselves, not humans. When the 
refinery is threatened, they'll move.' 
'And when that happens,' Lethbridge-Stewart said, 'our aircraft will attack it. 
They'll try to box it in, and bring it down. If that doesn't work, they should 
at least delay its return to London.' 
'That still leaves the Provisional Government,' Bambera said. 'A lot of their 
forces are committed in the north, I know, but there are plenty left behind. 
They'll know we are coming - we can't keep half a dozen military convoys a 
secret.' 
Lethbridge-Stewart smiled. 'They will know we are coming, Brigadier Bambera, 
because we will tell them. We will tell the world.' 
End of extract 



Xztaynz was showing Xznaal some 'medieval' art. The religious subject matter and 
naive rendering failed to interest him. One more day, and they would have 
visited every room in the National Gallery, and seen every painting that was not 
publicly displayed. The National Portrait Gallery sounded unpromising - all 
those rows upon rows of ugly primate faces - and so they'd skip that. Next week, 
they would scour the British Museum. The large fossils and Egyptian exhibits 
were going to be of particular interest, Xznaal could see that just from the 
catalogues that Staines had supplied. The walls of his palace on Earth, the 
White Tower, were now lined with human art from this place. 

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A human came towards them, with that nervous scuttling motion that they had. 
Xznaal recognised that this was a female. They were smaller than the males on 
the whole, and wore brighter cloth. This one had red talons, and they were 
sharpened. No doubt this was to protect her offspring from predators until they 
had finished dropping from her mammal body and were able to defend themselves. 
It seemed a most unhygenic arrangement. She was holding a communicator in her 
paw.
'Good morning, Home Secretary. Er... Your Majesty.' Whenever he left the 
confines of his ship, Xznaal was always careful to wear the Imperial State 
Crown, as now, yet for some reason the humans failed to accept this symbol of 
authority. The human race lacked the discipline and respect for their leaders of 
a civilised people. 
He waved a claw. 'Good morning.' 
'This is Miss Helmond,' Xztaynz explained. 'What do you have to tell us?' 
'The Royalist terrorists have launched an attack on London, Home Secretary. Our 
spotters report that they have blocked off the M25 and they are moving in on 
most of the major routes.' 
'That's suicide,' Xztaynz objected. 'It's a co-ordinated assault?' 
'They've taken over local radio stations, there's going to be a broadcast at 
mid-day. That's the same time that the Queen... the, er, ex-Queen,' she 
corrected herself quickly, 'will address the UN General Assembly.' 
Xznaal hissed. 'What iss happening?' 
'They can't possibly succeed, your majesty. We outnumber them, we are holding a 
string of defensive positions, we have the warship, we - ' 
'Enough. We will return to the ssafety of the Tower. Have Gerayhayvun join uss 
there.' 



Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield 
Bessie streaked through the countryside at an implausible speed. The UNIT Land 
Rover following them was struggling to keep up. 
I tried to dredge up what I could remember of the local traffic laws. None of 
the carefully-designed, non-culturally specific road signs that lined the route 
made the slightest bit of sense to me. 

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Beside me, Ray was hanging on for dear life, unable to put his trust in the 
sophisticated inertial maintenance system that the Doctor had installed. The two 
soldiers in the back - Captain Ford and Sergeant Jenkins - were also looking a 
bit green.
'Professor,' Ray whimpered, 'I'd feel safer if there was a seat belt.' 
'Are we nearly there?' I asked. We'd been on the road for twenty minutes so we 
ought to have been by now. 
'Nearly.' Ray seemed subdued. 
'Are you OK?' I asked. We were all nervous - even the trained fighters. Combat 
was like public speaking or acting - if you aren't nervous, you're not only 
doing something wrong, you're too stupid to realise. 
'Benny,' Ray asked, 'Are you really from the future?' 
'Yes,' I replied. 
'So we make it? Humanity survives? We are your ancestors, and this is all 
ancient history to you.' 
'It doesn't work like that,' I said. 
'But it must do.' 
'No.' 
'So what happens if this doesn't work?' Ray asked. 
I thought about the question and tried to remember what the Doctor had told me 
about such things. The trouble was, he had said something slightly different 
every time I had asked. 'I don't know,' I admitted. 'I'll just be an anomaly, a 
glitch in the system. Something for future historians to ignore or come up with 
wild theories to explain away. I guess I'll just be retconned.' 
Ray paused for a moment. 'I don't mean just for us. We'll die, I know that. But 
what about my kids?' 
'This will work,' I assured him. 'This has to work.' 

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Ray's voice was even softer than normal. 'But what if it doesn't?' he repeated. 
'It's a fair question,' he added.
Captain Ford leant forward. 'We'll succeed,' he said, with such a sense of 
certainty that I almost believed him myself. 'But if we didn't then mankind 
would survive - the Martians can't fight us in the deserts, can they? They'll 
stick to the Arctic areas: Scandinavia, Alaska, the Falklands. We'd have 
strongholds and hideouts. Just think about all the army bases around the world, 
all the nuclear submarines. The Martians might be more advanced, but that didn't 
stop the Afghans from beating back the Russians or the Vietnamese from defeating 
the Americans. When the human race is forced to fight for its own territory, we 
fight.' 
My mind raced with images of Rome falling to the Vandals, fuel air bombs sucking 
the oxygen from Iraqi air raid shelters, Daleks killing half the human 
population of the galaxy and overrunning whole planets without even leaving 
their ships. Billions had died defending their home territory. But despite all 
the wars, all the invasions and killing, the human race had survived. Arguing 
with the Captain's sentiments seemed childish, cowardly. I found myself 
wondering how many young soldiers down the ages had died not wanting to speak up 
and say that they were scared. 
'It's almost time for the broadcast to start.' 
As the digital clock on the dashboard flipped over to midday, I turned on the 
radio. I'm copying the next bit from a history book, a fat blue paperback with a 
scary eye on the cover. As the author died five hundred and thirty one years 
ago, I doubt he'll mind, and even if he did he's out of copyright, so nerr. I 
have to resort to the history books for this part of the story, because at the 
time we were driving to the refinery, I was unaware of events elsewhere in the 
country and the rest of the world. 



SAS teams and other elite squads had secured the radio transmitters. In every 
town and city with a resistance cell, people knew that something was coming, 
that something was going to be broadcast at midday. Photocopied fliers were 
placed on car windscreens. In St Helens Square in York, the Town Crier read a 
proclamation to a crowd of Royalists. Elsewhere, loudspeakers were set up, and 
hastily-arranged press conferences were held in loyal embassies around the 
world. They were told that the resistance was going to make an announcement. 

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At mid-day, they heard a voice that they recognised. An Oscar-winning actor, 
reading from Henry V. Next a recording of Ray, explaining about the poison gas 
and Adisham. After a few second's silence, Lethbridge-Stewart spoke. He 
introduced himself, then:
'I am the commanding officer of the force that will liberate London. Not just 
from the Martians, but from those that betrayed you to the Martians. I serve 
Xznaal, Greyhaven and the rest of their Provisional Government notice: this is 
their last day in office. Our army is already mobilised. It is a small force, 
but it is larger than Henry's at Agincourt, and we have right on our side. The 
Provisional Government has lied to you: its members have been in league with the 
Martians for many years in their attempts to gain power. Now they have power, 
they use it against their own people: the air-raid on Edinburgh, shooting on 
civilians in Bradford, cutting off the water and electricity supplies in Chester 
and York. Thousands of people have died, but this is only the beginning. I saw 
for myself the effect of the Martian gas on Adisham. Unless they are stopped, 
the Martians will wipe out mankind with their new weapon. 
I don't mean to scare you: rest assured that the Martians can be stopped. With 
your assistance, they will be stopped today. We would ask those Londoners 
wishing to evacuate to head south, down to Kent. Those who wish to join us are 
equally welcome - you can help us by cutting power and telecommunications lines, 
by barricading the smaller roads and by preventing the Provisional Government's 
security forces from barricading the major ones. Hopefully, we will not have to 
fire a single shot to end the Martian Occupation. It is now a quarter past 
twelve. Our tanks will be in Ealing, now. God willing, the Provisional 
Government will have fallen within the hour.' 



The speech finished, the broadcast cut to live coverage of the Queen's address 
to the United Nations. She had been informed of the effort to retake London and 
had given it her blessing. Her speech began by wishing Lethbridge-Stewart and 
his men luck. As she spoke, her advisors were outside, preparing to hand out 
press releases and lobbying ambassadorial staff. 
Without any help from UNIT, details of the damage inflicted on the Martians in 
Portsmouth and the location and plans of the EG refinery had found their way to 
New York via the Internet. Pictures, text and sound files were downloaded onto 
the new computer newsgroups and bulletin boards that had been set up around the 
world. These had eventually found their way to the world's military and media. 
At an emergency session of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President ordered that 
if the Martian ship left British airspace it was to be shot down, by any means 
necessary. 

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Unaware of events elsewhere in the world, half a dozen trained UNIT men followed 
Ray through the refinery and I followed the soldiers. Ray knew which routes the 
guards patrolled. The place was swarming with them, apparently, but I didn't see 
a single one. The troops were hand-picked by Captain Ford and moved through the 
base swiftly and silently. No doubt if we had come across any of the patrols, 
the UNIT men would have dispatched them with the same efficiency - each carried 
an automatic pistol with silencer, and enough knives to fill a cutlery drawer. 
Our main weapons were the packs of thermite explosive we carried in special belt 
pouches. Even I had three packs - each was about the size of a paperback book 
but packed enough punch to bring down a house or blow open a tank. The UNIT 
boffins had told us that the high explosive generated enough heat to incinerate 
even the most deadly nerve agents. When I had challenged them, suggested that 
they might free the Martian gas rather than destroy it, they were proud to 
announce that mankind had devised much more virulent materials than the 
substance released over Adisham. The bombs would work, if enough of them were 
planted in the right locations.
Back in Windsor Forest, as soon as Lethbridge-Stewart had finished his briefing, 
Ray had drawn a map for the refinery assault team. He'd helped to build the 
plant four years ago, and he knew virtually every pipe and wire. To me, the 
refinery complex looked like an alien city, with pressurised skyscrapers and 
pipelines instead of pavements. In a way, of course, it was an alien city: the 
first Martian colony on Earth. The silos had been designed by Vrgnur for the 
sentient gas, and duplicated conditions on Mars. Behind the stainless steel, 
Vrgnur had been propagating something entirely inimical to man. At the time I 
knew little about the Red Death. Later, I would have time to search the ancient 
Martian texts and I would learn of an assassination weapon capable of passing 
through the narrowest gap in relentless pursuit of its target. In the scarce 
atmosphere of Mars it was subtle, invisible. But when it fed on the abundant 
elements of Earth's atmosphere, it became bloated and bloodthirsty. 

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I ran my finger along a polished pipe no thicker than my arm. Just the slightest 
crack, just the tiniest break, and it would escape. Everything would die from 
the smallest microbe to the last blue whale. That didn't frighten me so much as 
the knowledge that the thing in these silos had killed the Doctor.
The UNIT force began splitting up, hurrying along carefully-prepared routes. 
End of extract 



The box on the screen informed Dave that 87% of the information he had been 
amassing had been released into cyberspace. It would be appearing on various 
bulletin boards and inboxes. 
'There's a crowd gathering,' he noted. They'd been listening to the radio, and 
they'd heard Lethbridge-Stewart's proclamation. Now a steady stream of people 
was heading up towards Whitehall. 
'The Brig's a legend,' Oswald continued. 'Some skywatchers think he's a myth, a 
codename. UNIT go in for that: the scientific advisor is always called "the 
Doct-" ' 
Dave grabbed his arm. 'Come on.' 



Lethbridge-Stewart checked his watch. 12.20 and they were in Chiswick. They were 
a little ahead of schedule. He was sitting besides Bambera in the staff car. 
Three of the tanks headed the convoy, then the armoured cars. The staff car was 
next, followed by the Land Rovers. The other two tanks brought up the rear. 
Motorcycle outriders were scouting ahead. 
Outside, crowds were beginning to line the streets. It reminded Alistair of a 
royal visit. Some people were even waving little plastic Union Flags. Ordinary 
people were falling in behind the military convoy: policemen and firemen, even 
postmen in their uniforms. Socialist Workers and members of the British Legion 
weren't walking hand-in-hand, but they at least had common purpose. 
'You were right,' Bambera conceded. 'it looks like we've got a fair few people 
on our side.' 
'There's no sign of Government forces. We'd have expected a road block by now, 
at least.' 

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'Perhaps they are weaker than we thought,' Bambera suggested.
The radio crackled. 'Greyhound, this is Trap Seven.' 
'Receiving. Where are you?' 
'Tower Hill. There's quite a crowd gathering. It's like the Royal Wedding, sir.' 

'Spare me the Dimbleby commentary, Corporal. How many people and what's their 
mood?' 
'Thousands. It's a carnival.' 
'Any sign of the Provs?' 
'They are keeping a cordon around the Tower, they've sealed off Downing Street. 
Defensive positions only at the moment, sir. We've had a lot of defectors.' 
'Very good. Inform me if the situation changes.' 
'Roger that, Greyhound.' 
Bambera was smiling, not a common sight. 'It looks like we've got all sorts of 
people on our side.' 



The Prime Minister looked out over London. Through fifty-one millimetre 13 ply 
laminated glass was the familiar skyline, with its familiar Martian warship. 
It was so big. On the way to one of his meetings with Xznaal he'd stopped off at 
a newsagents by Fenchurch Street station. The shop was selling postcards showing 
the capital's latest tourist attraction. That had been on Saturday morning, not 
more than thirty-six hours after the invasion. Not that there were many tourists 
in London any longer. Before the Martians had come, the Tower of London had two 
million visitors a year - millions more buzzed around it without wanting to pay 
to get in. Now the streets and pavements around the walls were all but deserted 
for the first time in centuries. Many Londoners had fled the city to the Home 
Counties. The evacuation hadn't been orderly, dozens had died under the wheels 
of cars and vans and lorries charging away from the Capital, on both sides of 
the road. Most were living with friends or relatives, or in guest houses. All 
the foreigners had gone, too. London hotels were empty, facing ruin. Walking 
along the deserted streets, the only language you heard was English. It made the 
city seem smaller, less alive. It was alive now. Even behind the bullet 
resistant window pane - no glass was truly bullet proof, four shotgun blasts at 
close range would be enough to penetrate it - the Prime Minister could hear the 
sounds of Londoners in Trafalgar Square, demonstrating against him. 

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'Mussolini once said that ruling Italy was easy,' Greyhaven said.
'He was a friend of yours, was he?' Christian asked, adjusting his pipe. 
'He said it was easy but utterly pointless,' Greyhaven finished. He reached into 
his pocket, checking for something he knew was there. 'Mussolini had a vision 
that his country could be great again, but he was a fool and he allied himself 
with a monster. He ended up strung from a lamp-post by a mob of his own people.' 

Alexander Christian stood there, impassive. Greyhaven smiled at him, not 
expecting a response. Finally, the Prime Minister tapped at his intercom. 
'Tell me, how would I get to the Space Museum from here without those rioters 
tearing me apart?' 
'We can arrange an escort, Prime Minister.' 
'Do so. I will be downstairs in two minutes.' 
Greyhaven combed his hair into place and slipped a fountain pen into his pocket. 
'If you'll excuse me, Colonel, I have work to do.' 



Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield 
The Martian ship was unguarded. It was exactly as Ray had described it, and as I 
had expected from my excavation of the "ship's graveyard" at Tharsis. It was a 
V-wing, roughly the same size and shape as the pinnacle of human aviation at the 
time of the invasion, the B2 stealth bomber. It was built from a glistening 
green ceramic material, the name of which eluded me. I caught Ford's attention, 
and motioned that I was going in. Ford indicated that he would finish planting 
his explosives before joining me. 
There were two ways into the shuttle: the main hatch at the front, and the cargo 
doors on the underside. Both were open. I chose the latter, edging forwards. A 
couple of fork lift trucks sat snugly in the shadow of the Martian craft. 
Without even realising that I had slipped into Sherlock Holmes mode, I deduced 
from the tyre tracks that the fork lifts had been active recently. The cargo 
hatch looked like the bomb bay of a Lancaster bomber. As I approached the 
opening, the cold air from inside was wafting down. 

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I ducked underneath one of the cargo bay doors, poking my head up into the body 
of the ship. The shuttlecraft's hold was tiny, and there was only dim Martian 
lighting, but I could see that it had been packed solid with metal cylinders. 
Captain Ford was already out of sight and I certainly couldn't call out for him. 
The tiny UNIT walkie-talkie in my pocket was also useless for the moment - we'd 
agreed at the briefing that this phase of the operation was being conducted 
under the strictest radio silence.
Everything was going according to my plan - the one that I hadn't shared with 
UNIT. I took a last look around to make sure that no-one had seen me, then 
pulled myself up into the shuttlecraft. I sat on the edge of the hatch for a 
moment to congratulate myself for being so quiet. It took a moment for my eyes 
to adjust to the twilight, and I could feel the goosebumps developing on my legs 
and arms. It wasn't uncomfortably cold, though. The magnetic engines were on, 
and throbbing with power. Like every machine of its complexity, the shuttle was 
on the brink of being alive. Noises that the ship's builders couldn't have 
explained surrounded me, a hiss there, a clank here. 
I was heading for the communications rig. All Martian equipment is bulky. The 
communicator was the size of a telephone box, too big to slot into the cockpit. 
They tucked it away down here. I turned the corner. 
The vast Martian scientist filled the alcove. He had his back to me. I edged 
away, trying not to make a sound. Vrgnur hadn't seen me and was deep in a 
hissing, grunting conversation. I wasn't sure, but it was almost certainly 
Xznaal on the other end of the line. Like any language, there was a world of 
difference between the textbook Martian grammar and the colloquial form. The 
sound didn't carry very well in the thin air, either. Despite all that, I could 
tell that the conversation was coming to an end. 
I backed into something solid, the size of a tree trunk. I pulled back, thinking 
it was another Martian, but it was merely a metal tank. I caught myself from 
screaming, sighing with relief, laughing and from making all the other little 
noises I was planning at that moment. 
The gauge said that the cylinder was full to capacity. I bent over to 
double-check, resting my hand on the side of the container. Almost before my 
fingertips had touched the cold metal, whatever was inside surged towards them, 
clattering against the side like a bird in a cage. 
I realised what it was. 

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Outside, Captain Ford and his men were planting explosives around an empty 
refinery. The poison gas had already been piped into the shuttle. The thing that 
had killed the Doctor was in here with me.
End of extract 



'Sir,' the human female Hellmond squeaked. 'I've just had a phone call from 
Downing Street. The Prime Minister isn't going to the Tower. His car is being 
escorted to Trafalgar Square.' 
'What?' Xznaal bellowed, sweeping around. 
'Did he explain why?' Xztaynz asked quietly. 
'He is going to the Space Museum, sir,' the female said. 
Xznaal glared down at the two humans. 'Why?' 
'I have no idea,' Xztaynz muttered. He struggled with some mental activity - a 
feat of memory, perhaps. 'Unless he... he said something about an insurance 
policy, and that... the Orbiter.' 
Xznaal's eyes narrowed. 'We musst follow him.' 



Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield 
Have you ever heard the expression "her mind raced"? In adventure stories, when 
faced with insurmountable odds and imminent death, the author tells us that the 
heroine's mind "races". My mind did no such thing. It sat there, nursing the 
mental equivalent of a hamstring injury. The primal instinct in these 
circumstances ought to be "flight or fight" - kill or run away. I stood there. 
I managed to muster enough presence of mind to duck out of sight as Vrgnur 
detached himself from the communications alcove. In something akin to his native 
atmosphere, his breathing was quiet - I hoped that I could say the same about 
myself: Martian hearing was acute, possibly sharp enough to pick up the sound of 
a human heart slamming against a ribcage. Although I couldn't see or hear 
Vrgnur, I could feel his vast bulk moving across the deck of the shuttle, the 
metal reverberating with each footstep. Vrgnur paused, close to me. There was a 
wrenching sound, a pneumatic hiss and then the cargo bay doors slammed shut. I 
was trapped in here, alone with the Martian. 

Page 16 
   

Within seconds, Vrgnur was lumbering out of the hold, away from me. "Relief" 
seemed like a rather small word to describe what I was feeling. The Martian 
scientist was heading away from the hold to the cockpit. I checked my watch. I 
had only a little over a minute to get clear before Captain Ford set off the 
bombs.
I eased myself out of my hiding place and tried to find the control that opened 
the cargo hatch. It wasn't difficult - the lever was four foot long, and bright 
red. It wouldn't have been out of place in an old-fashioned signal box. To 
Vrgnur, releasing the control would have been as easy as changing the gears of a 
car. But humans found it less easy, as I quickly discovered when I tried to 
apply all my weight to get the thing to budge. 
Reader, I swore. 
The sound echoed around the cargo hold, and didn't go away however much I wished 
that it would or however much I gritted my teeth. 
Twenty seconds later, I still hadn't been killed by a Martian, so I decided that 
Vrgnur hadn't heard me. He would be safely strapped into his pilot's cradle by 
now, a chunky visor over his eyes, his claws tugging at the controls. Which 
would mean... 
The shuttlecraft lurched skywards on a column of magnetic energy. At precisely 
that moment, I could hear the rumble of explosions outside. It was like being 
caught in a tidal wave. 
As a train begins slowing at the end of every journey, when it's coming into the 
station and everyone is standing up, draping their coat over their arm ready to 
leave, there's always someone who contrives to pitch over and crash around, 
unable to manage even basic co-ordination. That person is generally me. 
I tumbled to the floor, landing heavily on the metal deck. 
Before I pulled myself up, I unzipped one of the pouches on my belt, and tugged 
out one of the thermite packs. It was wrapped up in cellophane like a packet of 
cigarettes or a box of chocolates. I located the little strip and unwound it, 
slipping the bomb from its wrapper. Like all military hardware, like most things 
designed for men, it was black and ergonomic with little LEDs and ridges in the 
plastic so that it was easy to grip. 

Page 17 
   

I checked the timing mechanism - usually the first thing to go on the things. 
The bomb was working. I slid the control on the top, arming it. I could set the 
timer by tapping the little buttons, just like setting a digital watch or a VCR, 
or I could just press the red button and save myself the wait. One explosion 
would be enough to depressurise the shuttle. However much Vrgnur struggled with 
the controls, the ship would drop like a stone and dash itself against the 
English countryside. I was actually reaching for the button when I remembered my 
plan to end the invasion. I glanced back at the communications rig. There was an 
adhesive strip on the back of the bomb. I attached the device to the nearest 
metal cylinder. For a few seconds the gas scuttled away at it, but I was already 
crossing the hold.
Vrgnur had deactivated the communicator. I examined the display and tried to 
twist one of the dials. It took a moment for my puny human wrists to get the 
dial to turn, but the holoplate began rezzing up. Martians had different colour 
and depth perception to a human, but I had seen enough Martian murals to work 
out what was going on. 
I flicked a stiff switch, establishing the interplanetary carrier wave, then sat 
back - it was going to take a while before I would be able to tell whether it 
was working. I didn't have a while. The logo of the Martian Communicators Guild 
appeared in the hologlobe. I selected an open channel, cleared my throat and 
began speaking in what I hoped the Martians would recognise as their own 
language. 
'This is Professor Bernice Summerfield of the clans of the United Kingdom. Our 
world has been invaded by the Lord Xznaal. Unable to win in combat, he formed an 
alliance with traitors and now skulks in his warship, afraid to leave its 
confines. We have heard legends of the mighty warrior race of Mars, and frankly 
we are shocked by this cowardly behaviour. He now loots and plunders our world 
for its weapons, raw materials, and best soldiers. I can't imagine what he's 
planning to do with all of them. He said something about going back to Mars and, 
er, what was it again? Oh yes "showing that stunted git Paxaphyr where he can 
stick the sword of Tubarr". Anyway, as I say, his warship is here now, along 
with his finest warriors. All of them here. And not there. Just thought you 
would like to know that. Er... byeeee.' 
End of extract 
I tugged the 'off' control, took a deep breath and waited. I had done all that I 
could for the moment. What happened now depended on others. 



Greyhaven parked his Aston Martin on a double yellow line and bounded up the 
steps of the National Space Museum. The five-minute car journey had taken three 
times as long - they'd had to take a different route to avoid the crowds of 
people converging on the Square as if it were the venue for the cup final. The 
Prime Minister was waved through the various security barriers and into Mission 
Control. He paused to catch his breath. Theo Ogilvy, the Mars 97 mission 
controller, was there. 

Page 18 
   

'Prime Minister, this is - '
Greyhaven swept past him, slotting a computer disc into a terminal and tapping a 
few keys. 
Xznaal grabbed him and threw him against the back wall. 
Greyhaven struggled to concentrate. They had got here first, but he had managed 
to reach the terminal. Was his program running? Staines was staring at the bank 
of monitors. 'The Orbiter is still holding its position.' 
Greyhaven stood. The Martian towered over him. 'I know of your planss. Xztaynz 
told me.' Xznaal raised his huge right claw and fired the gun on his wrist. The 
computer terminal pulsed and shattered. 
'Staines isn't bright enough.' 
'Oh but I am,' the Home Secretary said, stepping forwards. 'You were planning to 
send a signal to the Mars Orbiter. You opened the airlocks before by remote 
control. You were planning to drop a bomb or something.' 
Greyhaven looked over at him, and when he spoke there was a tone of respect in 
his voice. 'The Mars 97 is powered by two atomic reactors. If the computers 
receive the right signal they can be set to misphase, and send each other 
critical. From this room, by sending a simple command sequence, it is possible 
to pilot the Orbiter to any point on the Martian surface and then detonate it. 
The explosion would be the equivalent of a one hundred megaton bomb. You can 
probably guess which part of Mars I targeted.' 
'The Argyre,' Xznaal grunted. The territory of his own clan. He checked the 
instruments once again. 'The Orbiter has not moved. You have failed.' 
The Martian pointed at Greyhaven's legs and fired his sonic disruptor. Every 
bone below the knee joints shattered. The Prime Minister buckled, unable to do 
anything but scream for the first couple of seconds. 
Staines was smiling. 'You thought I was stupid, didn't you Teddy? You 
underestimated me, you see.' 
Xznaal ignored him. 'Why?' he asked. 

Page 19 
   

'Because you killed Eve,' Staines explained, trying to get back into the 
conversation. 'That blonde slip of a thing. Really, Teddy, I told you that she'd 
be trouble.'
'Staines, you really are an idiot,' Greyhaven said through clenched teeth. 'The 
fact that my so-called ally tried to murder an entire village full of innocent 
people, including a woman I was fond of didn't help, but I've always known that 
this... thing would try to betray me. He thinks that we're animals. What were 
you going to use those prisoners at Gatwick for? Medical experiments? Target 
practice? Food?' 
The Home Secretary bent over him, smiling. 'The Martians need a workforce. You 
said so yourself.' Greyhaven could feel himself blacking out, but forced himself 
to remain conscious. 'Their population has seen rapid decline over recent 
centuries. Those criminals would have been put to useful work on Mars.' 
Greyhaven's body was screaming at him, telling him that his only hope for 
survival was to lapse into unconsciousness. Greyhaven knew better than that: he 
wasn't going to survive. He only needed a minute more. 'Do you remember the 
words to "Rule Brittania"?' 
Staines laughed. 'Of course. I even prefer it to "Martian Albion".' 
'"Britons never shall be slaves."' 
'Xznaal and myself are partners, Teddy. We knew that you'd try to double-cross 
us. The Martians are helping to solve prison overcrowding - those men are the 
lifers, the habitual criminals, the least desirable of the undesirable.' 
'The scum of the Earth,' Xznaal hissed in agreement. 
Staines was smiling his idiot grin. 'The Martians are our natural rulers, Teddy. 
They are superior beings. Do you know how long Martians live? There are some 
alive now that were born when Shakespeare was writing.' 
Xznaal stepped forward. 
'And you think that the Martians will let you have any power?' Greyhaven rasped. 
'They see our state-of-the-art science - our computers, lasers and nuclear 
reactors - and they sneer at them. To Xznaal, the pinnacles of human art are 
finger paintings. Our greatest philosophers speak platitudes not fit for the 
playground.' 

Page 20 
   

The Martian raised his arm.
'It's going to kill the human race like a farmer sprays his crops, and with the 
same compassion for the insects. I knew that all along. I also knew that the 
Martians were weak - most of them are impotent, those that aren't are diseased 
or disordered. Look at that thing. Ask him why he needs constant blood 
transfusions. Ask him whether that massive brain of his can function without 
stimulants.' 
'Marss iss dying, itss people are dying.' Xznaal admitted. 'But we have thiss 
world, we will adapt it to our needss. Vrgnur has prepared plans for the first 
colonies. Within a century, this planet will be Aress-formed - its temperature 
lowered, its atmosphere thinned. We will ssurvive. You think that your puny 
human intellect iss a match for mine?' 
Greyhaven laughed. 
'Iss he deliriouss?' 
'No, I'm not,' Greyhaven snapped. He tried to stand up, but couldn't. He settled 
for straightening his tie. 'King Genius, you have overlooked one small detail.' 
'Indeed?' Xznaal hissed scornfully. 
'Yes,' Greyhaven said, only needing to block out the pain just long enough to 
finish one more sentence. 'The fact it takes five minutes to send a radio 
message from Earth to Mars.' 
Staines and Xznaal spun to face the monitors. 
Greyhaven winced as he tried to grin. 'My signal should be arriving... now.' The 
room was becoming dark, it was closing in on him. 
The Orbiter's telemetry began to alter, the altitude was dropping. The retros 
were firing. The nuclear reactors began redlining. 
The computer interpreted the data, plotting the course of the Orbiter as it 
skipped down through the thin Martian atmosphere. It was past the equator, 
streaking over the Vallis Marineris and the Noctis Labyrinth, crossing the Mare 
Erythraeum several times faster than the speed of sound. 
If the Martians lived underground, Greyhaven reflected, they probably couldn't 
hear the Orbiter slicing its way down. The atmosphere there was so thin that 
sound wouldn't carry too well. But the perpetual Martian twilight would be gone. 
The Martians were scared of fire, and now their sky was ablaze. 
The Orbiter detonated, right above the Argyre. The signal ended abruptly. 
Greyhaven was still laughing when Xznaal broke his neck. 

Page 21 
   




Page 22 
   

From the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield
A little over ten minutes after I had sent my message, a Martian Lord appeared 
in the hologlobe. Unlike Xznaal, he wore his armour streamlined, complete with 
cloak. Moving in his own gravity, and breathing Martian air, he was graceful as 
a dancer. 
'Bernicesummerfield,' it said, 'I am Balgrar of the clan Thaumasia. Your news is 
grave. We Martians value honour above all. Xznaal has shamed our race, and let 
me assure you that he does not represent our people. He is the leader of but one 
clan, the Argyre, and their attack on your world was not sanctioned by the Grand 
Marshall. Know then that all on Mars stand with you against the Argyre and that 
a punitive expedition of war-barges is even now on its way to - ' 
The picture disappeared, vanishing in an explosion of static that almost made me 
jump from my seat. 
'What the f- ' 
Martian hieroglyphs were flashing up across the screen. It told me that there 
wasn't a problem with the hardware at this end and that it was trying to 
re-establish a link with the Martian communications network. I bit my lip. 
The screen flashed up an answer: there had been a massive electromagnetic pulse 
and all communications would be impossible until the equipment was reset or 
replaced. I stared at the hologlobe, and all I could think was that the static 
swirling around the three dimensions of the hologlobe looked like maggots in a 
bucket. 
There had been a nuclear explosion on the surface of Mars. Either the Argyre 
were firing them, or the rival clans had launched them in retaliation. Either 
way, millions of Martians were dying as I sat there. When Xznaal discovered that 
his home world was at war, that there would be nothing to go back to... 
I had one option left. I was back across the room in seconds, my finger stabbing 
towards the detonator. I didn't even think. It didn't occur to me that this 
might be the action that released the Red Death, that the bomb might only crack 
the cylinder casing rather than obliterate the gas completely. 
The merest moment's consideration and I might have realised that pressing the 
button would destroy mankind. 
I truly thought I had nothing to lose. But as one claw caught my wrist, another 
encircled my neck and I was yanked into the air and away from the bomb, I 
realised that I was wrong. It could get worse. And at that moment, as I felt 
Vrgnur's cold breath on the back of my neck, I knew that it was over. Whatever 
we tried to do, however bravely we fought, wherever we hid, the human race was 
going to be hunted down and driven to extinction by creatures such as this: a 
species cleverer than we were, stronger than us. More relentless, more powerful. 
This was the end. 
End of extract 
NEXT WEEK: Benny confrons Xznaal. 


