1986
The old man watched the computer screen on board the Cyberman spaceship as the planet bubbled and smoked and broke into a million different pieces. Whole continents disintegrated and crumbled, the seas boiling. He couldn’t hear it from where he was, but he hoped the poor souls on the planet had a swift death. No matter what the Cybermen had done, he felt that not all of them were to blame.
But right now he was feeling very weak. He looked across to his companion, Polly, before drifting out of consciousness again.
Now
Fletcher continued to peer down into the container, studying the Cyberman figure that lay dormant inside. It frightened him. He’d heard stories of the Cybermen over the years. They’d appeared throughout various points in Human history, always bringing a wave of destruction with them, but he’d never expected to see one himself. They were almost like a legend to people back on Earth.
“So what happened to them?” asked Natalie.
“It looks like they put themselves into suspended animation,” said the Doctor, not meeting Natalie’s gaze, but looking grimly at the containers.
“They look…odd,” said Brax. “Not like the Cybermen we’ve seen in the pictures back on Earth.”
“These are different ones,” said the Doctor, allowing himself to relax a little more. “These are the originals. Cyber-Mondassians. Go back to your records - 1986. A planet moved into your solar system. Mondas. This is where these folks came from.”
Natalie nodded, remembering a little of her history. “Didn’t the planet break up?”
“It did. It absorbed too much power from Earth and exploded. The Cybermen left on Earth collapsed due to lack of power from their planet.” He put his hand on the container.
“But the Cybermen came back?”
“Offshoots of the originals, yes. Newer, more advanced ones with conquest being their only motivation. These were the original. Their means and methods were misguided, maybe, but they did what they did to try and stay alive. The Mondassians all died out.”
“Obviously not,” said Holly.
“Indeed. These are being kept alive by a separate power unit. Like a generator,” he said, examining a collection of wires that snaked from each pod to a single unit near to the centre of the room.
“Then we need to disconnect the stasis pods,” said Lilly bluntly.
“It’ll kill them,” said Fletcher. “Bit harsh isn’t it?”
“Well we can’t wake them up,” said Lilly.
“I won’t advocate murder,” said the Doctor, glaring at Lilly.
“Oh, come on, Doctor. You’ve told me about the Cybermen before. Nasty pieces of work.”
“Yes, the regular Cybermen. The every day Cybermen you see flying through space and causing misery and destruction. But these are not those Cybermen.”
“You said their methods were wrong,” said Holly.
“I said misguided. They were going to die and needed to survive. The need to survive can make everyone do misguided things.”
“Maybe we should just turn the ship around and leave this crate out here,” said Brax, his arms folded as he looked into the containers.
“I’m in agreement,” said Fletcher. “We shouldn’t have come here.”
“No,” said Natalie, “I think the Doctor’s right.”
“I beg your pardon, Flintlock?” said Fetcher, using her last name for the first time.
She suddenly remembered who was in charge. “I’m sorry, sir, but these people are in need.”
The Doctor held up his hands. “Woah there, everyone. I didn’t say we were going to help them. I just said that I wasn’t going to execute them.”
“Then what do you suggest we do, Doctor?” said Fletcher. “Because I need to get my crew back home, yet I have an obligation to make sure the Cyberman threat doesn’t have a chance of coming back to Earth.”
“That may be true, captain, but killing defenceless creatures-”
“Wait!” said Holly. “Can you hear that?”
The group stopped talking and fell silent. The Doctor’s eyes narrowed. Somewhere on the edge of their hearing, there was a humming sound, and it’s pitch was increasing.
“Where’s that coming from?” said Lilly, looking around for the source.
“From there,” said Holly, pointing at the generator that connected the containers via the cables.
The Doctor dropped to his knees and ran his sonic screwdriver over the generator. His face froze into a look of fear. “Something’s reactivated the stasis pods. They’re waking up.”
“What?!” spat Fletcher. “How? None of us have touched it.”
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “We must have triggered something when we came on board. Mondas was able to absorb power from Earth. Perhaps the ships work in the same way.”
There came a crackle over Fletcher’s communicator.
“Ange, what is it?”
Grant’s worried voice came over the comm system. “Captain, we’re experiencing power losses on the ship.”
“No, no, no,” said Fletcher. He looked at the Doctor. “Can you shut it down?”
“I’m trying,” said the Doctor, on his knees and checking the systems.
Fletcher turned to Roy and Brax. “You two get back to the Coronation. See what you can do over there.”
“Aye sir.”
“Any luck?” said Lilly, crouching beside the Doctor.
“No,” he said, frustration in his voice. “Even if I could disconnect these cables, they’re already starting to wake up.”
Holly looked down into one of the containers. The still, silent figure seemed to be still dormant and she felt her pulse slow slightly. And then she jumped when she saw the pale, Human hand begin to twitch it’s fingers, slowly at first, before closing and opening to a clench.
“Doctor,” said Holly, “I think you better look at this.”
The Doctor was over in a shot. Now both of the Cybermen’s hands were moving about and within the holes of the cloth-face dark eyes were staring out.
“Everybody out of here,” said the Doctor, edging away from the container. “We need to seal this ship up and get out.”
There came a huge thump from one of the other containers and Natalie let out a yelp, putting her hand to her mouth.
Fletcher was over to her, his hands on her shoulders as he guided her back. “Easy now, Nat.”
Another thump.
“I know I said I wanted adventure, but I didn’t expect to find this.”
Another few thumps.
Fletcher’s radio crackled again. “This is Commander Grant….the Coronation is dead in the water.”
Thump! Thump! Thump!
“Disconnect, Angie, disconnect!” said Fletcher as they backed up towards the TARDIS.
The thumping was coming from two containers now.
“We don’t have the power to disconnect.”
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
“Unlock the door!” yelled Lilly as the Doctor fumbled for the TARDIS key.
BANG!
The lids of the containers flew open, coming off their hinges and landing just a few centimetres away, shattering the glass fronts and landing in front of onlookers with a huge clang.
The Doctor stepped out in front of the group and urged them to stay back as he straightened his back and raised his head.
A hand emerged from within one of the containers and slowly the Cyberman struggled to sit up. It looked confused as it’s eyes looked all around the room and then locked onto the Doctor as he stood resolutely in front of it.
Then the other Cybermen emerged. One of it’s arms wasn’t working and swung beside it limply.
“Good morning,” said the Doctor, his face expressionless. “I trust you slept well.”
The first Cyberman simply looked at him, it’s mouth open, but with no sound coming out.
“Cat got your tongue?” said Lilly from back towards the TARDIS.
“Sush, Lilly,” said the Doctor.
The two figures remained in their sitting positions, watching the Doctor intently.
“Why don’t they speak?” asked Holly with a whisper.
“Maybe they can’t,” said Fletcher. “They’ve been stuck in those things for an entire century.”
“Maybe they’re waiting for the right moment to attack,” said Natalie ominously.
The Doctor took another pace towards the containers but froze in his tracks as one of the Cybermen leapt out of the container and then fell flat on it’s face.
Holly stifled a laugh. As horrible as they looked, that was possibly the most comical thing she’d ever seen. A scary, hodgepodge cybernetic man slipping and falling on it’s arse.
To Holly’s horror, the Doctor crouched down and offered a hand for the Cyberman to get up.
“Be careful,” warned Lilly.
The Cyberman looked at the Doctor’s hand with curiosity and then took it as the Doctor helped the seven-foot man to his feet.
It looked down at him, it’s eyes still transfixed on him.
“Do you know who you are?” said the Doctor.
The voice that came out of the figures mouth was not what Holly had expected. She had thought it would have some kind of robotic voice, but instead it was almost comical in a frightening sing-song type way. It’s mouth opened wide, it’s lips did not move, and the voice sing-song-ed out.
“My name is Saragon. This is Chartell.”
“Good to meet you Saragon. You too, Chartell.”
The other Cybermen, who was still sat in the container, nodded it’s head once in greeting.
“And you are?”
“I’m known as the Doctor.”
“Doctor. That name is familiar to my kind. You were at Snowcap Base during my peoples landing on your planet.”
“I was indeed.”
“But our records have you with a different face.”
The Doctor gave a wry smile. “I’ve aged a lot since then.”
“Your planet burned up. It was destroyed,” said Fletcher.
“Yes. Mondas absorbed too much power and burned up.”
“Then how are you alive?” asked Lilly. “Surely your entire race was reliant on Mondas’s power.”
The other Cyberman spoke. It had a higher-pitch voice. Almost feminine. “A group of us on the planet surface had become concerned for some time about what our leaders had intended to do and so we escaped the planet before it disintegrated.”
“You became concerned?” said the Doctor, his eyes narrowed.
“Not all of us agreed with the committee and their plans,” continued Saragon. “I and a group of scientists devised power sources that could be built into our own individual ships such as this.”
“When it became apparent that the plans of our leaders had failed, a number of us broke free and escaped the solar system.”
Lilly had a glint in her eyes as she turned to Holly. “Some of them must have become the Cybermen we all know and love. Is that the right word?”
Holly frowned as she realised she was talking to herself more than to her.
“Where did you intend to go? How many of you were there?” asked the Doctor.
“There were many ships,” continued Chartell. “Our ship was critically damaged and we had to put ourselves into these hibernation pods.”
“Whilst the others became the ruthless, cold Cybermen I’ve run into time and time again and that settled on Telos.”
“Cold and ruthless?” asked Saragon.
“It doesn’t matter,” said the Doctor.
“Wait,” said Chartell, finally clambering out of the container. “Telos was the name of one of the locations for settlement. The others were Remos and Phraxin.”
“I don’t understand,” said the Doctor. “What do you mean?”
“There were a few ships,” said Chartell. “And there were three locations. Three planets. Telos, Remos and Phraxin. Our ship was bound of Remos.”
Saragon nodded. “We were divided into three groups and tasked with settling on all three planets. Surviving.”
“We never made it,” said Chartell. “Our ship was one of the first to leave. There were nine of us in total onboard. We were caught in an explosion from Mondas and the ships vital systems shut down. We had no choice but to go into hibernation and hope for the best.”
“Hope?” said the Doctor, now sat on the edge of a container and swinging his legs backwards and forwards like a child. “Hope is a very Human emotion.”
“Where’re the rest of your crew then?” asked Holly, feeling brave enough to edge a little closer.
“Take a look around you,” said Lilly.
Holly hadn’t paid it much attention before, but now she looked she could see amongst the rubbish strewn around the room, melted silver suits and puddles of goo. She felt sick again.
“Rotten corpses,” said Lilly, to emphasise Holly’s feelings. “Cabbages.” She grinned at her.
There came the sound of footsteps followed by Grant and Brax brandishing two large plasma rifles. Both of them looked terrified as they aimed at the two Cybermen and fired.
“No!” said the Doctor, as the shots screamed just past the faces of the Cybermen.
“I don’t know who you are,” said Grant, glancing momentarily at the Doctor, “but these things are dangerous. They’ve drained our ships power.”
“By accident, Angie,” said Fletcher.
“What?” said Grant, frowning at her captain.
“Their ships are designed to drain power from foreign power sources,” said the Doctor.
“That is correct,” said Saragon. “It is not intended to be an act of aggression from us. We can help you to restore power to your craft.”
“Lower the gun, Angie,” said Fletcher. “You too, Brax.”
“I hope you’re right about this, sir,” said Angie.
“I am. Now do as I say. Obey my commands.”
Slowly the two officers lowered their guns. Holly felt herself relax a little.
“So what now?” said Lilly.
“I think a few more explanations are in order,” said the Doctor.
To be continued...
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