The young woman plodded wearily into the big operations centre, being careful to shut and lock the big main door behind her, then she dropped heavily into a chair facing one of the many computer stations in the room and put her head in her hands.
She was the last one left. It still hadn't sunk in. 14 people had died in a week, the last of them this afternoon. Hester's death still filled her mind.
What was it Hester had told her only the day before, just after they'd discovered Toliver's body?
"It's just you and me, kid. Now we'll be okay. We'll just shut ourselves in and wait for the evac."
Hester had wrapped a meaty arm around her shoulder and hugged her tight. They'd become fast friends since they'd signed up for this little mission, a routine scientific survey on an exotic planet far from the stresses and strains of the space lanes. Just what she needed, time and a place to be on her own, to think things out.
Somewhere away from him.
But life was never fair or just, especially her own. Three wonderful months doing what she was always trained to do, three wonderful months of dull routine and normal conversations. Back to being a plain old computer programmer. Bliss.
Then as they always seemed to do, the monsters arrived. From where or how she still didn't know, most probably someone kicked over the wrong rock, but that didn't make any difference. They were here, and she was here, and six days after someone had disturbed that particular rock all hopes of a return to a natural way of life had been totally dashed.
Alone with Hester she thought they had a good chance of survial. Hester was solid, reliable, not like the other scientists who panicked and ran around and died. Hester was a veteran of dozens of combat missions. The only xeno-biologist with a certified combat academy gold star for marksmanship. A born last survivor if ever there was one. She'd started to feel safe. But then, this afternoon ...
They'd come out of one of the storerooms close to the ops centre, a last forage before shutting themselves in for good. Neither of them noticed the shadow drawn between the packing crate in the corridor and the wall. Then the light above them cracked and died and they knew; one of them was there with them.
Hester had shoved her aside and dropped what she was carrying, going for her weapon. She saved her life, bearing the full brunt of the attack. If she hadn't been lugging the last of the heavy maser weapons it would have had her too. She burnt out every circuit in the weapon driving it off. She doubted she killed it, though it made enough noise to suggest it. She doubted they could be killed.
As it was, she was too late to save Hester. She laid her gently on the floor and struggled futilely to stem the flow of blood from her throat. Hester had always been tough, but not invulnerable. She clung to life for five minutes, choking and kicking futilely, outraged at the sheer unfairness of it all. Then Hester was gone, and she wept long and hard, bitter for her friend, for herself.
She wanted to bury her, but going outside was suicide. She had to seal her into a bodybag and hide her in one of the storerooms. She prayed they wouldn't find the body, but knew they probably would. They'd found the others.
She took her hands away from her face and looked at her reflection in the monitor screen. Her red curly hair was bedraggled and greasy, her normally youthful and cheerful face lined and drawn with weariness and stress, eyes shrunken and bloodshot with fatigue. She looked 20 years older. There was a dark smudge across her face and forehead and when she checked she found it was blood - Hester's blood. It was all over her hands and her clothes as well. Numbly, she got up and poured water from a nearby cooler into a steel pan foraged from the mess and started to scrub the blood away. She was too drained to shed any more tears for her friend, and she resented that above everything else. "Damn you, damn you ..." she murmured as she scrubbed and scrubbed ...
She looked over at the last security monitor still functioning. They'd left it working because it showed the corpse of Laurant, strung to a tree like some horrible scarecrow. They'd used it as a decoy, with great success. Captain Grew and Dr Farraz had gone out to rescue him because he was moving and they thought he was still alive, but he was very dead, and they'd just rigged the body so it would jump around a bit. Grew and Farraz never stood a chance. Since then no one went outside but the ghastly corpse remained.
But with all the blast shutters sealed tight across the windows, it was the only way they had to tell when it was getting dark out there. When the place would be completely theirs, when they wouldn't have to just lurk in the shadows, waiting to pounce. It was getting dark out there. Night seemed to fall very quickly of late.
There were no shadows in the ops room. Every light was turned on full intensity and every other lantern, torch and searchlight was set up in there as well. It made it nigh on impossible to sleep, but was impossible for anything to get in and stay in - so long as the batteries held. Main power had been shut off days ago, but ops had its own generator and they'd scavenged every other powerpack from the compound.
Virtually every other light in the compound had been smashed. How they loathed the light. With more people, more resources (more warning!) they could have fought them off, but no ... she shook her head. It wasn't going to make any difference. The rescue team wasn't due for another 72 hours at least, assuming they even got the signal. She wouldn't last another day, she was certain of that.
They would get in.
There was one last hope, one she'd been dreading using since it all began.
She reached up to her neck and fingered the object hanging from the chain around it. She'd resisted all temptation to use it until now. She feared the consequences of what would happen if she did. She closed her eyes and remembered again.
Their paths had crossed again, almost but not quite by accident again, and she was once again playing a pawn in some vast unspeakable game plan. When he'd won the game and swept the remaining pieces, battered and chipped, back into the box, he stopped by in the hospital before going off in his travels to give her the object. He perched on a chair in front of her, straw hat tilted back in a failed attempt at nonchalance, rested his chin on his silly question mark umbrella and gazed at her. He didn't smile. He knew she wouldn't appreciate it.
"I have something for you. I found it by chance some time ago, but I haven't really found anyone I particularly wanted to give it to - until now."
"What is it, a suicide pill?"
She had been pleased to see him wince at the bitterness in her voice. He sighed heavily and spoke very quietly, eyes downcast. "I know I've treated you very badly."
"Me and everyone else!"
"Yes!" he shouted, suddenly angry, and for a split instant she could see all the self-loathing and resentment at what he was doing, to himself and others, and she felt sorry for him.
Almost.
"Don't you think I get tired of it as well? Do you think I really enjoy playing all these games? Half the time I don't know if I'm coming or going, staying or leaving, doing or done ..."
"Winning or losing?"
He didn't answer. She thought he was afraid to answer. He just tossed the device onto the bed and stood up. When he spoke again, his voice was very quiet, almost inaudible. And full of pain.
"It's a signalling device. Gallifreyan. It's given to novice Time Lords on field trips. If they get into trouble, they can project a mental SOS to their mentor. This one is tuned into me. All you have to do is hold it and think of me. I'll come running."
She looked at the device as though it were a snake. "I'd rather not. Give it to one of your other victims, Doctor. I want nothing more to do with you."
He looked up at her for the last time, and this time she could see tears glistening in his eyes.
"I can't. I'm so sorry," he mumbled, and hurried from the room, leaving her with the object.
Of course she took it, though she threw it away several times over the course of the year, but always recovered it. She realised she was probably stuck with it for life, thanks to some nasty Time Lord mind-meld that the Doctor had put on it.
But although she was stuck with it, she was never going to use it.
Never. Ever.
Was she?
The lights started to flicker. She looked up, reverie broken. The ops center supposedly had its own power system, but she wouldn't have been surprised to learn that they'd found some way to cut the power. They seemed to find ways of doing everything.
She heard a door slam somewhere in the compound. She strained her ears to listen. There it was, that faint whispering that seemed to accompany their presence. She knew then that they were coming for her, and all the lights and the big blast doors probably weren't going to stop them for long.
She clutched at the object. He would be able to stop them. She was never so certain of anything in her life. He'd just wave his magic wand, or in his case, sonic screwdriver, and they'd vanish. She giggled, the shrill, unnatural sound of reason crumbling into dust. It stopped abruptly when she heard the scratching sound at the door.
In that moment she almost did it. She clutched it tight, closed her fist tightly around it, squeezed her eyes shut and thought ... and thought ...
"No! No I won't!" she screamed, and tore the object from her throat and threw it towards the furthest corner. She turned and snatched up two heavy blasters from a worktop, and faced the door, eyes burning with determination.
"I don't need your help, Doctor. I can face my problems on my own. I'll show you! I'll show you!"
Melanie Bush settled behind a computer console, levelled her weapons at the door, and prepared to fight for her existence.
Alone.
