"Coming up for ten minutes now, Captain..."

Captain Shirley Grey took a last hit from her cigarette and tossed the butt away, then lifted her binoculars to scan the scene in the valley below once more. But it remained as still and as quiet as it had been when they had first arrived; no sign of movement on either the stretch of tarmac that marked the landing strip nor among the cluster of buildings and hangers grouped around one end of it.

"Shit," she muttered. She lowered the binoculars and turned to the man standing next to her. Like her, he was wearing black military fatigues tucked into combat boots, with a variety of equipment and weaponry strung around his body on belts, webbing and pouches. An assault rifle was slung across his back. He was holding a small scanning dish, which was pointed towards the airfield, and a bulky pair of headphones covered his ears. She tapped him on the arm to gain his attention. "Anything, Kennedy?"

He lowered the dish and pulled the earphones down around his neck. "Nothing. And I mean nothing. Just like the radio."

Grey looked back at the sleek black van parked on the rise behind them. Through the open panel door in the side a second man was sitting, hunched over some radio equipment. He glanced at Grey and gave her a thumbs-down motion. She sighed and turned back towards the airfield. "You think maybe sound is being jammed like the radio?"

Kennedy shrugged. "It's possible, though from here we could still hear the van moving around down there."

"Just not through the ear there."

"No."

"No..." Grey momentarily took off her field cap and dragged a hand through her short dark hair. "That means it's something electronic."

"Yeah, that figures."

"It also means," she added slowly, "that it's something pretty damn hostile."

Kennedy scratched his jaw. "We haven't heard any firing."

"You mean we haven't heard our guys firing. No," she shook her head. "If Lowe and his team found any kind of trouble, even with radio communication out, they would have signalled somehow - even if only by getting a warning shot off. The fact that they haven't been able to do that..."

Kennedy nodded. "Kinda worrying, yeah. Assuming of course, they aren't just sitting around down there twiddling their thumbs like we are up here."

Grey gave him a measured look. "What do you think?"

Kennedy looked out across the quiet scene below. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Grey nodded. "We have at least another two hours before the main team arrives. Our orders were that we find something down there for them to chew on before they head in. Lowe's failed, now it's our turn." She clapped Kennedy on the back and turned and started towards the van. "Bischoff! Start the engine," she called. "We're heading in."

Kennedy nodded, but hesitated long enough to give the airfield a last look. He shivered suddenly.

"God help us," he muttered.

***

The drive down the narrow, winding dirt track to the airfield was totally uneventful, but it didn't lower the anxiety level shared among Grey and her men. If anything, the stillness and silence made them all the more apprehensive.

The base - it didn't have a name, just a serial number and a map co-ordinate - wasn't a new one; it had been built sometime after the Second World War, and gave every appearance of being run-down, if not quite abandoned. Which was exactly how it was supposed to look. The military authority that controlled it - and to whom Grey and her troops answered - were firm believers in the old adage that ‘appearances were deceptive'. Appearances were definitely deceptive where this base was concerned, for the weathered and dust-blown exterior disguised the fact that the base was in fact a holding and quarantine zone for things that very definitely were not in the interests of the general public to know - or in the interests of controlling authority to be allowed to be known. They were specific about that.

Most specific.

The trouble was, of course, with it being tucked in such an out of the way place - a hundred miles or more from the nearest major population centre - and given such a low profile status (meaning few guards), it meant that if anything drastic happened, it was going to take time for the authority (even this particular authority) to do something about it. In this instance they were fortunate that Grey and her team were in the general area (give or take a couple of hundred miles) and so were able to act quickly.

Naturally, Grey and her people did not consider themselves fortunate to be in a position to tackle this assignment; but they were sensible enough to keep such misgivings to themselves.

***

"When did this thing arrive?"

Kennedy kept his attention purely on the track and on his driving as he asked the question, and Grey kept hers on the landscape and the approaching base as she answered. "Four hours ago, direct from the Cape. Fortunately it was our guys up there who found it and bought it back. Can you imagine the fuss if NASA had got it first?"

"Or the Russians."

Grey shuddered. "Don't. Anyway, as soon as they touched down they choppered it out here. I guess maybe somebody got impatient, or touched the wrong thing."

"I heard it wasn't active when they found it..."

"It wasn't, but the trouble with these damn thing is, you never know how long they're going to stay inactive, or worse, what it takes to make them active. I was on one once, a couple of years back, when sweat - a single drop of sweat - from a technician's brow set this thing off." She shook her head. "Man, I'm telling you - we were that close -" and she made a minute pinching gesture between her forefinger and thumb - "- from taking out Houston. That close!"

Behind them in the cargo compartment Bischoff grinned crookedly. "No great loss - I used to live in Houston. It's a dump."

Grey swivelled to give him a reproachful look. "Don't let the boss hear you say that - he still lives in Houston. And he likes it."

Bischoff shrugged indifferently, but he took the hint and turned back to his equipment. He, like all of them, knew that their superiors didn't brook insubordination - even the most seemingly trivial kind. Grey returned her attention to the airfield. "Still no signs. We're going to have to go in." She pointed to the entrance to the base, not far off now. "Kennedy, take us in slow and then give us a circuit of the perimeter fast - see that stirs anything up."

Kennedy nodded, but looked dubious. "What if it doesn't?"

"Then we'll revert to plan B."

"And that is?" asked Bischoff.

Grey silently lifted up her sub-machine gun and worked its bolt. That told him everything he needed to know about what Plan B was going to entail.

***

"Did you spot Lowe's van?"

"Yeah, parked off by the main hanger. Didn't see him or any of his people though."

The final approach and circuit passed entirely, and frustratingly, without incident, though it approved Grey's initial suspicions that something sinister had befallen Lowe's team and the original occupants of the base - even though they couldn't see any evidence that anything had. No bodies, wreckage, firefight damage - nothing.

There was nothing else for it.

"Very well then - here's what we'll do. Bischoff, you and I will proceed on foot and make an inspection of the buildings. Kennedy, you will follow us up closely with the van. At the first sign of trouble, we bug out back to the ridge."

Bischoff slapped a fresh magazine into his assault rifle. "What if it's trouble we can handle?"

Grey glared at him reproachfully again. "Corporal, this base was guarded by a dozen of our best men. Between them, Lieutenant Lowe, Sergeant Ricketts and their team have put in more combat hours in these situations than anybody else in the entire unit. If it's the kind of trouble none of them could handle, then it's a shoo-in we won't be able to either."

Kennedy stirred in the driver's seat. "Captain, then why take the chance? Better that someone survives first contact than none at all, particularly with the main unit due."

Grey climbed round and slid the panel door open. "You have your orders, Sergeant," she replied coldly. "Carry them out. Bischoff, let's go."

The pair jumped down to the ground and scooted off to the shelter of the closest building. Kennedy watched them go with a shake of his head. "Orders, hell," he muttered.

But he started the van up again anyway. What choice did he have?

***

It was turning into a warm day. Already the dust-pitted concrete sides of the buildings were hot, and a heat-haze was already shimmering over the tarmac landing strip. There wasn't a cloud in the sky either, which meant it was probably going to get a lot hotter; too hot for the stealth gear they were wearing, but it was all they had, and they couldn't exactly wait for it to get dark again. Grey paused to adjust her sunglasses and glanced round at Bischoff, who was leaning into the wall next to her, tense and ready for action. He wasn't a bad guy, despite his tendency to shoot his mouth; he'd learn to curtail that. He'd have to. As a soldier, though, he was pretty good. But then you had to be to be in this outfit. She motioned forward.

"Head for Lowe's van first. Stick close to me."

He nodded. Grey took a breath and they started forward at a jog. Behind them the van started after them. She hoped Kennedy kept his wits about him. She was beginning to worry a little bit about her sergeant. She noticed that he'd questioned quite a few orders recently, though he always seemed to comply with them readily enough. That was always a sure sign that something was up. A pity; he'd been on the team almost as long as she had been and he'd proved himself well under fire. She'd be sorry to lose him, but lose him she must if he started being difficult. And it did happen; she'd seen it. It was the nature of their work.

And it was the nature of their work that meant that those who no longer fitted in with them, could no longer hope to fit in with anyone else - period.

But that was for another time. Now she had to worry about this situation, and how she was going to make it through it and satisfy the requirements of her superiors, who were notoriously difficult to satisfy. Kennedy wouldn't be the only one on the black list if this all went wrong.

If they lived through it, that was.

They reached the van and paused, weapons at high port, wary of every conceivable position from where an attack might come. The drivers' side door was open, and Grey crept round and warily peered inside. Nothing. The vehicle was completely empty.

"Here," Bischoff called. She came round the front of the van to find him holding up an assault rifle. "One of ours - Mulligan's, I think."

She took it from him and examined it. "Unfired. Hell."

Bischoff looked around. "So whatever hit him -"

"- Hit him fast, yeah. And presumably carried him off." She pointed towards the grey bulk of the hanger the van had parked in the shadow of. "Let's try in there. Quick recce. In and out. Right?"

"Roger that."

Grey waved to Kennedy. The sergeant poked his out of the window. She indicated to the hanger. "We're going in there," she called. "Stand by here. If we're not out in five, beat it back to the ridge and contact the main unit." Kennedy acknowledged with a wave, and Grey turned back to Bischoff. "Let's go."

***

The main doors were closed and securely padlocked, but there was a side-door that wasn't locked, and it was through there the pair made their entrance. After the glare of the morning sun, the cavernous interior of the hanger was gloomy, and the dusty atmosphere stifling. Grey removed her sunglasses and blinked around her, adjusting to her new surroundings. The hanger was half-empty, partly filled with stacks of anonymous wooden crates and cardboard boxes of various sizes, and partly filled with rows of metal workbenches - all empty. Nothing suggested the presence of anything specifically to do with airplanes. It was more like a storage area.

"I don't see or hear nothing," observed Bischoff quietly.

"Doesn't mean there isn't something," muttered Grey back. "Let's move out - and stay close."

They set off at pace through the rows, pausing every now and then to listen or examine something in passing. But there was nothing; nothing but shadows and silence. Shadows she'd grown used to chasing, but the silence... well that was something you never got used to. Ever.

Suddenly Bischoff drew up. "Wait," he hissed. Grey stopped.

"What is it?"

"There - two o'clock. Thought I heard -"

A faint tinkling sound, like a length of chain being disturbed - yes. Grey heard it too. "Move," she whispered. "Carefully!"

They glided through the gloom towards the location, senses straining. They arrived at a tall, broad stack of crates half-covered by a grimy tarpaulin.

The sound came again - very close by. Grey motioned to Bischoff. "Take the left side - I'll go right."

Bischoff nodded and the pair split. Grey edged round her side, fingers clenched around her weapon. She reached the corner, took a breath, and then jumped round it, covering the space, ready to fire -

It was empty. Nothing was there.

"Shit," she whispered. "Bischoff?"

There was no reply.

"Bischoff?"

The corporal didn't reply, nor appear. Quickly Grey skirted the stack and peered cautiously along the route she'd directed him...

Like outside by the van, there was nothing but an assault rifle lying on the floor. Of the rest of the man, there was no trace. Bischoff had vanished. Just like everyone else had done.

And she hadn't seen or heard a damn thing!

"Oh, shit!"

***

Grey made her way back to the door and outside as quickly as she considered safely to do so. There was nothing else she could do; orders or no orders, it was time to cut her losses and pull out. Whatever was happening here, whatever force had taken everyone else in this place, was well beyond her abilities to do anything about it. Even her superiors had to appreciate that - didn't they?

Her van was still parked near Lowe's van, the engine idling. She ran up to it.

"Kennedy, it got Bischoff - now we have to -"

She stopped dead in her tracks when she realised. The drivers side door was open, just like Lowe's had been, and the cab was empty.

Kennedy had vanished as well.

Stunned by this latest discovery, Grey was almost unaware until the last moment of what fate might have happened to her. But the sound, that same, tinkling metallic sound as she'd heard in the hanger, came again, and she felt a draught of air against her face. She turned sluggishly, and found she was staring at what looked like a large patch of television static forming, no, tearing, in mid air.

Something reached for her out of the cloud of static. She felt it brush the front of her battledress.

Then something else grabbed her bodily around the waist and pulled her backwards violently into somewhere dark. Her head struck something hard and she saw stars...

***

"Oi! Wake up! Come on! This is no time to go to sleep on the job!"

Someone was slapping her face lightly, and this made the cloud of stars that filled her vision vanish. She coughed, spluttered, and sat up, her head aching in protest. Wherever she was it was dark, though there was a light coming from somewhere. "Where am I? What the hell happened?"

"Where you are is in a van. What happened is I just saved you from being gobbled up by a very nasty inter-phasing death machine. By inter-phasing I mean of course that it exists in a hyperspace continuum running parallel to this reality, which is why you can't see it or track it, and by death machine I mean it pops out from this continuum like a trap-door spider every now and then to take one of you lot down. Drink this."

A canteen was pressed into her grasp. Gratefully she took a long swig and then splashed some of the water into her face. She started to feel a lot better - though not a lot happier. "Inter-phasing what?"

"You don't know?"

"Would I be asking?" She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision and get used to the gloom inside the van. She could just about make out where the man who'd saved her was sitting, though she couldn't see his face. His accent was strange, though; definitely not American. Probably British. But what the hell was a Brit doing here?

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Suspicious."

"Aren't you?"

"Only of you."

"You mean, who am I, what am I doing here, how do I know what an inter-phasing death machine is, is it mine, am I responsible for the deaths everyone formerly here, that sort of thing, yeah?"

"Yeah... that sort of thing."

"All right - from the top, I'm the Doctor, I was in the area - lucky for you - I know what an inter-phasing death machine is because I've fought all sorts like them before, no it isn't mine but I have no idea who it belongs to, and no I am not responsible for anybody's death here but I would like very much to be responsible for ensuring that nobody else dies because of it. Happy?"

"No."

"Didn't think you would be. Now shut up and let me get on."

The man turned away from her and moved towards the bank of radio and scanning equipment that filled the wall of the van. She heard a thin electronic warbling sound start and a faint blue glow started to play across the equipment. Grey blinked at him for a few seconds, then set the canteen down and leaned forward. There was a light on a flexible stalk close at hand and she switched it on. The man looked round and frowned at her, but didn't say anything. She studied him for a moment. He looked to be in his late thirties, a bit on the skinny side with quite gaunt, distinctive features and an almost military-length severe haircut. A bruise, quite a fresh one, she judged, darkened his right temple. He wore a battered leather jacket and black trousers over scuffed boots. He didn't look impressive, but as she well knew, appearances could be deceptive. She was certain that was the case with this guy.

"You said you were a Doctor?"

"No, I said I'm the Doctor."

"Of what?"

"Practically everything."

"Including alien beings?"

"Takes one to know one."

"Huh?"

He sighed. "I'm busy. You're distracting me. Stop wittering."

"Who do you work for?"

"I don't work for no one."

"You're British."

"No, I sound British."

"You're... Jesus, you're not Russian?"

"Why would I be Russian?" he asked in bemusement.

"Well...because..."

"Well because nothing. Don't be so daft. I'm not with anyone, I don't work for anyone, I'm just me. The Doctor. Alright?"

The guy was certainly forthright, she had to give him that. But that didn't mean she should just let him push her around like this. "Okay then, Doctor, I'm Captain Shirley Grey of -"

"Yeah, I know who you are and who you work for, Shirley, and to save a bit of time, don't come the old ‘I'm in charge' bit, because you've already demonstrated how not in charge of this situation you are."

That stung her again. "Hey, I didn't know what was going on here!"

"Then why come charging in like you did, eh?" He shook his head and turned back to what he was doing. "Typical of you lot. You don't understand something so you hide it away, surround it with guns and then panic when it pops out with a cob on."

"You said it was a death machine."

"It is."

"Then would you have rather had it pop out with a cob on here or back in the lab in Houston with all those civilian contractors to chew on?"

The Doctor stopped what he was doing and looked round at her. He smiled. "I deserved that one - sorry."

"I'll be more inclined to forgive you if you can actually do what you'd said you'd do and stop this thing. Is what you're doing something to do with that?"

"It is," he nodded. He waved towards the console, which he seemed to have reduced to a random jumble of wiring and circuitry boards. "This lot isn't perfect for what I need, but it will do the job."

"Which is...?"

"To interrupt it in mid phase, hopefully jam the transference mid stream, cause its power system to overload and POW!"

Grey winced. "How is it able to do all this phasing about? I mean, what exactly is it?"

"I can't tell you exactly what it is or where it's from, so can't exactly say how it's able to do it. But it's a pretty old-fashioned method. Any Level Eight civilisation could manage it."

Old-fashioned? Grey's jaw sagged slightly. "So it's definitely not human?"

"Not even remotely. You picked it up in orbit, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah... thought so. It's a nasty trick, that."

"What is?"

"This." He gestured toward the door and the outside beyond. "That. A nasty trick."

Grey struggled to understand. Her mind didn't seem to be working as well as it should all of a sudden. "In what sense?"

"It's not unknown for certain civilisations to trip up, or even sabotage, younger, less well advanced civilisations by sending them junk or things like that machine. You familiar with those stories about odd folk being picked up in flying saucers and interfered with?"

"Yeah... but they were all false. Crazy talk by crazy people."

"Most of ‘em were, but a few weren't. That's what I mean - wrong-footing you. People hear about these stories and stop thinking of alien races being god-like and omnipotent or evil sadistic enslavers, but more in terms of them being a bunch of weird saddo's with a probe fetish. End result, not religious fervour or outright terror in the face of extraterrestrial first contact, but more a sense of... queasy unease. See?"

Grey shook her head. "That's bullshit."

The Doctor grinned. "Exactly!"

"But that thing out there... that's not somebody's idea of a joke... is it?"

The Doctor became serious again. "No - no joke. This one is more like your old fashioned warning-off. One of your neighbours telling you to keep off their grass."

"Who?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. Level Eight... well, could be one of eighteen in this general area in this specific period. Narrow it down for, say, benevolence and indifference... call it three. Four, if the Arcturans are in the middle of another of their recessions. They don't cope well with recession, the Arcturans."

"What... they're afraid we're going to invade them, or something?"

"Or something, yeah. People are the same all over, Shirley. Just because they look different and tool around the universe in a luxury space cruiser don't mean they're not as bitter and twisted and jealous about their neighbours as you lot here are. That's all it probably is."

The casualness of how this sounded made Grey shudder. "Terrific. And you berate us for pointing guns at it!"

"You live and you learn, Shirley... you live and you learn."

She pulled a face. "Nobody here is ever going to - I presume that thing has killed them all?"

"'Fraid so."

"What about the bodies?"

"Dumped in transference." He clicked his tongue in disgust. "More flotsam cluttering up the hyperspace lanes!"

Grey's eyes flashed. "They're a little more than just flotsam to me, Doctor."

He just shrugged again, but didn't say anything, just went on working. She watched him for a moment, then asked:

"What's stopping it attacking us in here?"

He put his tools down again. "Good question. From what I've deduced, the thing doesn't have very good optic systems - it probably makes do with motion sensors to hunt people. So unless it was in here with us, in the back of this van, it wouldn't know we were here."

It was a slim straw, but she clutched at it anyway. "So... someone might have hidden, and still be alive, somewhere?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, Shirley, I'm sorry, but it got them all."

"How can you be so sure?"

He swivelled round, deep blue eyes piercing hers. "Because I've been here from the start, since I picked up the activation signal when you lot cracked its pod open. I've watched it snatch your people one by one." He inclined his head slightly. "See this bruise? Well I got that from one of you lot. I tried to warn you. Instead you hit me and locked me up."

"What did you expect?" she asked stiffly.

"Co-operation?" He sighed and turned back to his task. "I shoulda known better."

Grey stared at him thoughtfully for another moment or two. "You said you picked up an activation signal..."

"Yeah."

"You must have some pretty good equipment then."

"Pretty good, yeah," he replied distantly.

"No chance I could see it, I suppose? If only to satisfy me that you're not just a wandering nut-job?"

He grinned. "I don't need to show you my equipment to prove my credentials as a wandering nut-job! Now how about this then?" He held up a rather fragile looking patchwork of wires, circuits and silicon chips.

Grey stared at it in bemusement. "How about that?"

"This is gonna blow our friend out there into a million pieces, that's what!"

Grey sat up at that. "Um - look, okay, assuming that does work -"

"It will," insisted the Doctor, brow furrowed.

" - Do you actually have to destroy it? I mean, my people would quite like to have a look at it."

The furrows in the Doctor's brow deepened. "Oh yeah, I see. I shoulda seen it all long. The answer's no, Shirley. No."

Grey feigned bewilderment - it wasn't difficult. "What?"

"I'll tell you what. You're not here to destroy it, you're here to capture it for your Special Weapons Division or some such. That's why you were brought out here to the back of beyond in the first place, isn't it? Well, stuff that - this thing is lethal. It'll kill everything and everyone who comes in here. You've as much chance of capturing the bloody thing intact as I have of pulling a rabbit from my hat. And I don't even own a hat!" He stood up, lifting his invention gingerly. "I'm going to destroy it, Shirley - and you're not gonna stop me!"

With that he flung the panel door open and jumped down into the sunlight. After a momentary hesitation Grey followed him, one hand resting on the sidearm holstered at her hip...

***

"So where is it?"

"I told you - lurking in a hyperspace continuum."

They were wandering around the base, in between the buildings. Grey looked as worried by this strategy as the Doctor very evidently wasn't.

"So we just wander around and wait for this thing to jump out?"

"Basically... yeah."

"But this thing is fast!"

The Doctor grinned easily. "So am I!"

"Yeah, but - oh shit!"

Grey stopped dead as that metallic tinkling sound began to sound and sure enough the same cloud of static started to form in mid air. Something was already stirring within it.

"Get back," the Doctor yelled, and shoved her aside - just in time. Something that looked like a metal tentacle shot from the static and whipped through the air where only an instant before Grey's head had been.

The cloud vanished. The Doctor seethed.

"Cobblers! I knew I should have left you in the van. It's got its sights set on humans as a priority." He shook his head. "Shirley, you're causing a distraction again!"

But she didn't seem to hear that bit. "What do you mean, humans as a priority? You were close as me and - look out!"

The cloud swirled open again, and another tentacle lashed out. Only this time, it didn't go for Grey - it went for the Doctor...

***

Grey's warning came too late for the Doctor to duck the attack, but at the last moment he was able to fling an arm up and stop the tentacle from wrapping completely round his throat and probably choking him to death in an instant. Even so, it pinned his arm painfully to his throat and the Doctor began to choke. The tentacle, target acquired, began to drag its victim back towards the cloud...

Despite being choked and only having one arm free, the Doctor didn't panic and didn't loose control. Juggling his electronic patchwork carefully with his free hand, he waited until he'd been dragged practically into the cloud and then hurled the device directly into it.

The result was spectacular. The metallic tinkling deepened into a steady labouring pounding sound and the static blurred and fizzed with dazzling intensity. The tentacle went limp and flopped to the ground, the Doctor falling clear, then suddenly went rigid again and was yanked back inside. There was deep groaning, ripping sound, a bright flash of light, and the cloud dissipated in a blur of pixels.

Silence and stillness descended again. Grey just stared, not quite comprehending what had happened... but slowly starting to realise it.

And what she was going to have to do now.

Rubbing his throat, the Doctor picked himself up and brushed himself down. He looked at Grey and beamed at her like a big kid who'd just done a clever stunt on his bicycle. "Fantastic, eh?" he rasped. "Told you I'd do it, didn't I? Eh? Eh?"

"Oh yeah," replied Grey slowly. "You said you'd do it. Even I after I said I didn't want you to do it. Now what am I going to do?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Go home. Back to barracks," he said cheerfully. "Wait for another war to start. Knowing you lot, there's bound to be one soon -"

He closed his mouth with a snap, as Grey drew her pistol and pointed it at him.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," she said. "But what else can I do?"

"Not this, Shirley. Not this."

Her aim didn't waver. "My superiors are expecting to take delivery of an alien, Doctor; or at least a piece of alien technology. They were most specific about that."

The Doctor folded his arms defiantly. "Then they're gonna be disappointed, aren't they?"

She shook her head. "No, Doctor. You said you knew who I was and who I worked for. If you really do, then you'll know that they don't tolerate disappointment - or those who cause it."

"Life can be full of disappointments, Shirley."

"Not to their way of thinking."

"Their way of thinking is wrong. Realise it, Shirley."

She didn't seem to hear him. "They want an alien, and I'm going to give them one. You, Doctor. If I didn't know who or what you are before, I do know."

"Then if you know who I am, you'll know I'm not about to let you lot capture me like this."

"But I already have."

"You haven't." He nodded towards her gun. "I zapped it with me sonic screwdriver while you were spark out. The firing pin is fused. Go on, try it. It won't work."

With a worried frown, Grey tried the trigger. The gun didn't work. She worked the slide, tried replacing the magazine... it still wouldn't fire.

The Doctor shook his head. "I hate guns, Shirley. Hate ‘em. Particularly in the hands of someone I don't particularly trust. I hoped you'd be different; I hoped you might learn something from all this, move on and become something better." He spread his arms and put on a pleading expression. "You still can, Shirley. Show me you can. Go on - show me."

A smile spread across Grey's face. "Show you... sure." She dropped her pistol and reached instead for her knife, drawing it and holding it out. "Tell me you zapped my knife with your gadgets, Doctor. Tell me that."

The Doctor started to back away, eying the blade warily. "Don't be daft, Shirley."

"I'd prefer you alive Doctor, but I imagine your body would tell us quite a lot. How do you want to go?"

He narrowed his eyes. "I've already seen how I'm going to go, Shirley. And certainly bloody isn't like this!"

And he lunged towards her, surprising her before she could react. He grabbed both her wrists and they whirled round and round until he slammed her hard into the side of a building, knocking the breath from her body. His face dipped in close towards hers and for a surreal instant she thought he was going to kiss her.

"I'm sorry, Shirley," he whispered. "But I did give you a chance..."

Then he head-butted her, hard.

She blacked out.

***

She came too with the feel of another hand slapping at her face. This one was more forceful, less friendly. And it wasn't followed with the offer of a canteen.

"Captain Grey... Captain Grey."

Grey opened her eyes, and tried not to flinch. Her CO was kneeling over her, impassive face darkened with anger, though his eyes were shielded behind sunglasses. Not a good sign.

"Sir," she muttered.

"Report, Captain."

She swallowed. "Sir, the... the artefact appeared to go active and... and went on to wipe out the guard unit. By... by the time we arrived, they were... were all dead. I... I sent Lieutenant Lowe and his squad in first, but they were wiped out too, then... then I followed them in myself. I... I am the only survivor."

"The artefact was destroyed..."

"Yes sir."

"That was contrary to your orders, Captain."

"I... I did not destroy it myself, sir."

"Who did?"

"There... there was someone else here. Someone... someone unauthorised."

"Who?"

"The... the Doctor."

The CO slowly took his sunglasses off. His eyes were cold and hard. "The Doctor?"

"Yes sir."

"You let him get away." It wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact.

She swallowed again. "Yes sir. I'm... sorry, sir."

"So am I, Captain."

Cold eyes still fixed upon hers, he stood up and drew his sidearm, aimed it at her face, and pulled the trigger.

When the echo from the report died away, he turned to an aide waiting nearby.

"Major, tell the forensics unit they have another forty minutes, then tell them to set the charges. I want nothing left of this place but ashes."

"Yes sir."

He indicated back towards the body on the ground. "And have that taken back for an autopsy, just in case." He shook his head and sighed heavily. "Damn it, we were close... we were so damn close!"

With that he stalked away, not giving the corpse of Captain Shirley Grey, blood pooling beneath her shattered head, a second thought.

***

On the ridge of the valley overlooking the airfield - ironically the same one occupied earlier by Captain Grey and her team - the Doctor stood staring down at it, hands in pockets, just brooding. When the sound of a solitary pistol report drifted up, the Doctor winced.

"When will they learn?" he murmured. Then he shook his head. "No... when will I learn?"

Shaking his head again, he turned and trudged sadly back to where he had landed the TARDIS.