Sunday 10 February 2013

Doctor Who (Game B) Session Write-up - Das Metallreich Part 3


N.B. What follows is a prose narration of the events that took place in a roleplaying game session. It can be regarded as a kind of Doctor Who fan-fiction, except that all the events are driven by occurrences in-game and is presented in first-draft quality. It is not intended to fully recreate any events or characters from any previous Doctor Who episode, book, radio series or comic, with the exception of some iconic villains. Even The Doctor is a reinvention, starting out as a first-regeneration Timelord with little history; Perhaps how the Doctor may appear in a different reality. It cannot, therefore, be wrong on any canonical continuity. It exists within itself and is presented purely for reading pleasure and to inform role-playing experiences. Thank you :)

You can read Part One of Doctor Who - Das Metallreich here. Part Two is here.

Chapter Eight – An Old But Unknown Adversary

    Georgie steadily plodded through the work she had been assigned. Knowing that she was assisting in the creation of more deadly metal robots, she didn't want to make too much effort or do too expert a job, even though she found the work fairly intuitive.
    The lady she had been speaking to caught her eye and gave a subtle nod. Georgie allowed her eyes to flicker with recognition but made no response more obvious.
    After a moment, the lady pixed up a box of parts and tools from the work counter and made to move around the side of the workbench. She seemed to swoon, dropping the box and sending bits and pieces of highly technical equipment scattering across the floor.
    The soldiers rushed over. One of them made a cursory effort to help the lady to her feet, while the other soldiers were clearly more interested in insuring that none of the equipment was damaged. Once all four soldiers were involved in the distraction, Georgie picked up her tray of tools and strode confidently over to the work-group on the opposite sound of the workshop.
    The lady had told Georgie that she would find a man called Klaus, who was known among the slaves for talking about getting away and defeating the robots, but somehow he hadn't been dragged away by the guards yet. He must be a fairly discrete character, Georgie thought.
    The woman had also told her that the trick to switching groups was to avoid be being seen moving. “Once you've made it over,” she had said, “it will take them a while to realise you're in the wrong place. They don't bother to look us in the faces when we're working. I think it's guilt.”
    Once she had arrived at the new group, the slaves already assembled there noiselessly made room for her, not causing any trouble. Many of the people around this table were actually quite fixated on their work, concentrating hard on construction elements that looked very complex.
    While the hubbub over at her previous station died down, she cautiously made some enquiries about which of them was Klaus. After some suspicious looks, the man beside her pointed out Klaus. He was a lot younger than the average worker, although he was by far not the youngest.
    Georgie sidled over to him. “Is it safe to talk, here?” she asked him, quietly.
    Klaus gave a bitter and quiet laugh, saying, “It is not safe to talk anywhere. What do you want?”
    “I was brought here by two guards,” she told him, “but they are, in fact, my friends.”
    A shimmer of withheld excitement crossed Klaus' face. “You mean that there are spies in the castle?” he asked, agitatedly.
    Georgie nodded.
    “That is excellent,” Klaus was struggling to contain his excitement, “Do you have a plan for getting us out of here?”
    “My friends are going to give a signal when they are ready to take over,” Georgie informed him, confidently.
    “Take over?” Klaus said, looking worried and confused, “what do you mean?”
    Georgie gave an I-don't-know-the-details shrug and said, “Kill the guards and free you all?”
    Klaus looked unconvinced. “How many of you are there?” he asked.
    “At present, there are four of us in the castle,” Georgie explained.
    Klaus tried to stifle a laugh, “four of you? I'm sorry but it can't be done with four. We'll all be killed!”
    “There is an American soldier with us and an Englishman who managed to escape London. He is called the Doctor. He is a very powerful man,” Georgie protested.
    “If there is only four of you we will need a doctor!” Klaus hissed, “The problem is no longer the soldiers. The problem is those!” He pointed to the gantry, on which stood the three deadly, black sentinels. “Even if we all banded together and manage to take down enough guards to arm ourselves and make a break for it,” Klaus explained, “those things will just mow us down and there are becoming more and more of them every day. What we need to do is to find a way to stop the robots; to slow them down.”
    Georgie considered for a moment and then looked at the complex machine parts in her hands. “Does anybody check the quality of the parts we make?” she asked, inspiration growing in her mind.
    “Yes,” Klaus replied with a warning tone in his voice, “and vigorously at that. A few people once tried sabotaging the parts. They discovered the sabotage and took the work-groups into the yard. They couldn't know who had done it, so they led a man up into front of the group and shot them in front of everybody. They did this two more times, with a woman and another man. They made their point. Many of us will risk ourselves to fight back, but when your actions cause the death of those around you, it is a different matter.”
    “But it shows they have a weakness – something they are afraid of,” Georgie reasoned with him, “does that not give people hope? If they need workers, they can't kill everybody!”
    “There is little hope here. Few will be convinced to follow your plan,” he told her, “In any case, sabotaging parts would take days to show an effect, even if you are successful.”
    Georgie stuck her chin out, proudly and stubbornly. “I refuse to believe there is no way!” she said, “even if we have to lay down our own lives for the cause.”
    Klaus could see her determination and smiled. “There is something,” he told her. “When we first started working here, they used to allow us a wireless to listen to music while we worked. On the day the Metallensturmtruppen first appeared, all of our radios were taken away. Do you think this is significant?”
    Georgie thought. This level of technology was beyond her. “Perhaps the radio frequencies affect them?” she suggested.
    Klaus nodded, “Many of the parts we have worked on appear, to me, to be radio-based controls. I would assume that they are susceptible to radio interference.”
    “Perhaps we can steal enough parts to make some sort of transmitter?”
    “Possibly,” Klaus nodded, carefully, “it is dangerous, through. They may need us to build their machines, but I'm sure they could still manage without a large number of us.”
    Georgie was determined. “It would be better than giving up,” she said.
    Klaus agreed.  “I will speak to some others and we will see what can be achieved.”

    “Yes. You look like you must be The Doctor.”
    Commandant Jurgens was prowling up and down in front of the Timelord, leering.
    “I was told to expect you. I wasn't totally sure what to look for, but I'm sure it must be you. You have nothing to say?”
    The Doctor considered an appropriate response, for a moment. “You have a good, deductive mind,” he replied, eventually.
    Jurgens sneered, victorious, before turning his attention to the American. He looked between the two captives for a moment, before speaking to Conrad quickly in a flurry of fast and complex German.
    Conrad's basic language training had not prepared him for this. Jurgens stared at him, waiting impatiently for a response. Conrad looked at The Doctor, helplessly.
    The Doctor repeated the words to Conrad, who finally understood it as, “you are here with the American Flying Troops, are you not?” The Tardis' translation matrix making the speech perfectly clear to him.
    Conrad remained silent, but Jurgens could see that he had understood the question. “Curious,” the Commandant began, “I speak to him and I can see that he does not understand. Yet, you repeat exactly the same words I have spoken and he can understand you perfectly. Can you explain this to me? Is it one of your magic tricks?”
    “Who told you to expect me?” The Doctor asked, neatly avoiding the question.
    “Our glorious leader knows all about you, Doctor,” Jurgens told him. “He has encountered you many times in the past. We were told to expect an appearance from you at some point and to be watchful for your plots and your sabotaging ways.”
    The Doctor racked his brains for a past encounter which could give him a clue. He could think of nothing. The Doctor had, comparatively, barely begun his travels around the wider universe outside of the influence of Gallifrey – his home planet. He'd had a few disagreements along the way, but never made an enemy of this scale.
    He tried to coax a bit more information. “Your leader is?”
    Jurgens stiffened with pride, “Our leader is the glorious Fuhrer!”
    “Adolf Hitler?” The Doctor ventured, racking his brains for his knowledge of Earth history.
    “Who the hell is Adolf Hitler?” Jurgens replied.
    “Ahh,” said The Doctor. His suspicions were confirmed that history was seriously off-kilter.
    Looking again, he could see that the Nazi's office was not quite right. There was fascist iconography every, but other accurate historical details seemed missing. It was like a film set, dressed by someone with only a surface knowledge of the era.
    “Our leader indicated that you were normally so irritatingly talkative, Doctor,” said Jurgens, a little disappointed, “but I seem to be struggling to get a word out of you. It is no matter. Whatever you intended to achieve by coming here, we now have you in our custody and we will extract information out of you over the coming days.”
    “Would it be possible to meet your leader?” The Doctor asked, ignoring the threat.
    Jurgens laughed, “I'm quite certain that once we report your presence here, the Fuhrer will wish to come and speak to you themselves.”
    “Splendid,” The Doctor replied.
    “Guards!” Jurgens shouted, a little irritated by The Doctor's bravado. “Take them away. And tend to this one,” he indicated Conrad, who was beginning to sway slightly through blood loss, “he is bleeding on my carpet.”

    A bell rang for the eventual end of the tortuously long shift. Georgie followed the other slaves out of the workshop and into a low, dim common room, which was set about with bunks and bedding. The ceiling was low and the ground underfoot was mostly earth. It reminded her of the places used to grow mushrooms and it reeked of inadequate toilet facilities.
    Despite Georgie's hopes that it would be a haven for free discussion, there were two guards posted in the room to keep an eye out for trouble. While the workers made themselves comfortable, Georgie kept a keen eye on the soldiers who, to her relief, eventually tired in their vigilance and began beginning chatting between themselves.
    Klaus came over to where she was sitting. “I've had a word with the others,” he said, “They're not sure how much faith to put in you and these friends of yours, but they do agree that if they can pull some components together, we can build something. If we can find somewhere to keep the parts, that is.”
    “Is there a midden, we could hide the pieces there?” Georgie asked.
    Klaus pulled a face, then chuckled quietly, “It's certainly somewhere the Germans won't look.”
    Building a transmitter seemed like a bit of a desperate hope to Georgie. It would take time and they really needed a quicker plan. “What about the guards?” Georgie asked, “Are any of them local that may have friends or family among the prisoners?”
    He shook his head, “None of the guards are from the village. They didn't even bother drafting us. They just wanted us for slave labour.”
    “Any that could be turned?”
    “A risky strategy,” Klaus told her, “Most of them see it as just a job and can't really be bothered with us. They never speak to us.”
    Georgie sighed, she was desperate to find an advantage in her situation. “Is there any way I can volunteer for special duties?”
    Klaus flashed her a horrified look. He explained, “Well, it disgusts me, but some of the prisoners have given their bodies to the soldiers in return for extra rations and a proper wash but it's not really...”
    “That is not what I meant,” retorted Georgie, affronted, “I am trained as a nurse. They must need someone to take care of the prisoners?”
    “They may well need you,” he nodded, “There have been medical volunteers before. But it isn't any lighter a workload than what we're already doing. Some prefer it to the workshop, though.”
    “Good,” Georgie responded, her mind made up.
    She walked carefully up to the guards, who noticed her and turned immediately, their faces full of suspicion.
    “I have medical training,” she told them, “I wish to volunteer for other duties.”
    “You are a trained nurse?” the guard asked her.
    “Yes.”
    “Very well. Return to your bunk. We will report this and somebody may come to fetch you in the morning.”
    The guards waved her away with their guns, indicating that the conversation was at an end.
    Georgie wandered aimlessly through the bunk-room, taking in the human tragedy she saw around her. There were a group of people sitting and chatting, making the best of a bad situation. She sat down to join them.
    They were surprised to see Georgie. They believed the raids on the village had ended, taking everybody of value, so to see a new face was refreshing, although they were sad she had been snatched.
    They talked about their memories of life in the village. Some talked with low voices about being separated from children or young siblings that they have not seen since they were brought here.
    Georgie was thinking. She desperately needed to communicate all she had learned to The Doctor, but wasn't sure how. Either way she knew she should commit the information to paper, in case something happened to her, or she was only ably to slip a note.
    After some coaxing, she managed to get a scrap of paper and pencil from one of the prisoners, who had a stash secreted in her bunk. Trying not to draw the attention of the guards, Georgie scribbled down a note about the robots and their weakness to radio frequencies.
    She turned her attention to the mystery of the other prisoners that had been taken away. How had these slaves been separated from children and loved ones and not seen them since? The castle didn't look that big.
    “Is there anywhere else that prisoners are kept?” Georgie asked the group.
    “We don't know,” said one, “but there was a lady that used to be in service at the castle. In the old days...”
    Georgie asked where she could find this woman and was directed to her. She approached her carefully and engaged in a little social chat, before asking about her memories of life in service at the castle. The woman was pleased to talk about the old days before the war.
    “When it started, they laid us all off at the house and took it over. They came down to the village looking for slaves. I was the only one of the old staff that was still young enough to be considered for work. The place is very different, now... The soldiers here, I think they have to not care, in order to cope with the situation.”
    “Are there any secret passages in the castle?” Georgie directed her, eventually, hoping that her question would come across as idle curiosity.
    “Oh, you're straining my memory, child,” the woman told her, “Remember that I haven't worked here since I was a girl! But, I do remember that there was an underground passage leading from the kitchen to the wine cellar. It was a shortcut, more than a secret passage. I think they stopped using it and built the new cupboards in front of it, a few years before the soldiers came.”
    “Do the Nazis know about it?” Georgie asked.
    “I shouldn't think they'd bother with it,” the woman shook her head, “The wine cellar doesn't lead anywhere out of the castle.”
    Georgie smiled. The wine cellar was where The Doctor's Tardis was located. She could begin to see a way out of this place.
    “I don't suppose you don't know about an armoury then?” Georgie asked, a little jokingly.
    “Lawks, no!” the woman replied, “The only weapons I remember were the decorative ones on the walls. The master used to keep hunting rifles in his study next to the kitchen, but that's the Doctor's surgery now.” Her tone turned serious, “I hope you aren't thinking of being silly. The soldiers are just working boys like everybody else. Doctor Kruger's a good soul. He's the only man I've seen stand up to the Commandant. A shouting row, they had, about the work going on here. You'll be okay with him if you've volunteered for nursing.”
    The woman bid her goodnight and Georgie decided it was time to sleep.

    In the castle, The Doctor and Conrad were taken to separate, but adjacent rooms. There was a single guard posted between the two doorways.
    The castle doctor went into Conrad's room with him and tended to his injuries himself. He worked expertly, removing the bullet fragments and stitching the wounds closed. By the time he had finished, Conrad felt much of his former strength returned. He hit the bed and fell in to a deep sleep.
    In contrast, as soon as the Doctor was left alone he began prowling the room. For a Timelord, sleep was an optional undertaking, used to explore the mental possibility of subconscious thought, rather than a biological need to rest and organise thoughts.
    These days, The Doctor had avoided even voluntary sleep. The dreams that came to him were full of visions of the day he had gone magma boarding. Once more he remembered the heat of the lava and the screams of his dying companions...
    He shook away these thoughts, searching the room for options. It had clearly once been a bedroom, converted to a cell for militaristic purposes. Makeshift bars had been bolted over the windows, inside and out. He stared at the lock of the only door into the room. He tried, unsuccessfully, to form a mental image of the mechanism within the lock, hoping to be able to use his telekinesis to open the door.
    Frustrated with his failure, he slumped on the edge of the bed, just staring at the door. Without his Sonic Screwdriver there was no way out of this room, unless it was opened from the other side.
    But, the Doctor thought to himself with a sudden smile, that might just do.

Chapter Nine – Back into the War

    The night passed uneventfully.
    As Georgie finished partaking of the meagre rations handed out to the slaves, two burly soldiers came to fetch her and take her to the castle doctor's surgery. She was being commissioned for nursing duties.
    They went into the main house to a room down a short corridor from the main hall. “Doctor Kruger,” the soldiers announced as they walked into the room without knocking, “we have a replacement nurse for you.”
    Doctor Kruger waved them away without even looking around. Once they had gone he turned to face Georgie, wiping his hands on a towel and looking her up and down, sizing her up.
    “You have done nursing?” he asked, curtly, “What experience do you have?”
    Georgie raced to think of an explanation that would make sense in this strange world. “I trained in London, several years ago,” she said, “before the … umm … disaster.”
    “You hardly look old enough!” Doctor Kruger exclaimed, “Never mind. You can make yourself useful. Most of the patients here are due to have their dressings changed. You can wash your hands in this sink. There are aprons in this cupboard.”
    Georgie wanted to ask more, but Doctor Kruger turned away from her and went back to his work, silently.
    Georgie set to work in the surgery, changing the dressings of various patients in the small number of beds they had. While she got to grips with her duties, she was studying any equipment that could be used. She noted that Doctor Kruger had a wireless set, silently sitting on the side. Much of the other equipment Georgie didn't recognise. She didn't know if it had been invented after her time, or whether it seemed alien, like the metalworking equipment in the workshop.
    “Why don't we put some music on to cheer the patients?” she suggested, brightly.
    “If you must,” Doctor Kruger replied, curtly, “I don't object to music.”
    “Thank you, Doctor,” she said with a smile, “Obviously, I am a slave and they do not allow us music in the workshop, even though it may raise our spirits.”
    “Hmmph,” muttered Kruger, “I think they are more worried about giving those metal creations headaches.”
    “Really?” Georgie replied, sensing a raw nerve, “Do you know much about them?”
    “Do not speak to me about those machines. It is inhuman.”
    Georgie changed tack, not wanting to cause Doctor Kruger to close down on her. “Are you from around here, Doctor?” she asked.
    “No. I am originally from Lichtenstein.”
    “You have family?”
    He paused for a moment. “I had a family, once.”
    “I know what you mean,” Georgie said, thinking back with sadness, “I used to have a family.”
    Doctor Kruger turned to look at her, for the first time since she had first arrived, “Where are you from, frauline?”
    “I was from Nottingham, originally,” Georgie said, truthfully, “before we moved to the Transvaal, before having to come back because of the war.” She realised she needed to invent a little more and said, “But when England was attacked, our family escaped to France.”
    “You were lucky,” Doctor Kruger told her.
    “My working experiences as a nurse began on that ship, really,” she lied, translating her real experience over from the Boer conflict, “I learned the hard way to deal with the dying and the injured.”
    “I'm sure you've seen terrible things,” Doctor Kruger said, sympathetically, “I just hope you don't have cause to see the terrible things I have witnessed in this place.”
    “I doubt there is much here that can shock me.”
    Kruger tutted, “I should think that you can't even imagine the horrors that are committed here.”
    “You want a bet?” Georgie replied, defiantly, “I have held the hand of a dying man, while he tried, uselessly, to push his own intestines back into his body.”
    “It is one thing to deal with the injured, or the casualties of normal warfare,” Doctor Kruger told her, firmly, “It is quite another to be forced into inflicting things upon people quite deliberately.”
    “You mean experimentation? Surgery?” she asked, leading him on.
    “All manner of horrors,” Kruger face seemed to glaze over as he remembered. “I tried to stop it, but what is one voice against the might of the war machine?”
    “There must be many other scientists who feel the same way as you, Doctor Kruger?”
    He sneered, “Most of them are too excited by the opportunities that this war is giving them to progress science. They do not stop to think about the moral consequences of their choices. I know it is a terrible thing for a Doctor to say, but I am glad that Doctor Von Klein's creations turned on him and killed him in his lab. It is just reward for the things he has done. I may not be able to stop what they are doing, but I will have no further part in it, even if they threaten to kill me.”
    “Is inaction not the same as supporting them with your silence?” Georgie ventured, outraged.
    “How dare you speak to me like this?” Kruger said, suddenly turning on her, “Do not forget that you are a slave. Get back to work!”
    “I am a person, Doctor Kruger!” she challenged.
    “There are no people, anymore,” Kruger said, sadly. “There is only meat for the grinder and material for the machines.”
    Georgie got up to walk away, but turned and said, “There is always hope, Doctor.”
    “Hmph,” Kruger snorted, “If you can show me some, I would grab it with both hands.”
    “Look at these patients,” Georgie appealed to him, “I could consider them my enemy, could I not? In spite of what has happened in my own country I am still here, hoping for the best. Is that not something? Why go on, otherwise?”
    “I vowed to protect life, I am bound by my vow,” Kruger replied “Anything else is for stronger men than myself. I lost the moral high ground in this castle a long time ago.”
    He fell silent.
    After a while, Georgie asked him, “Doctor... have you treated any strange patients lately?”
    Kruger shrugged, “Only that spy that was brought in with gunshot wounds last night.”
    “A spy?” Georgie asked, suddenly hopeful, “What was he like?”
    “American, blond, strong-looking.”
    Georgie's heart raced. He was talking about Conrad, surely! She decided that she must know if he was okay. “Does he need any medical attention?”
    “His dressing is probably due for a change,” Kruger told her, “You can save me a job by doing it for me, if you're curious. The room is on the first floor, to the end and right along by the windows. You'll see the guard outside who will let you in.”
    Georgie strode quickly up the stairs and along the corridor to the cells where The Doctor and Conrad were being kept.
    To her surprise, the corridor was empty. There was no sign of any guard.
    As she approached, she could see two doors hanging open. Inside one was a guard, totally unconscious on the floor.
    The Doctor and Conrad had gone!

    Earlier that morning The Doctor had waited in his cell, vigilantly, all night, listening to the sounds in the corridor. His patience had eventually been rewarded by the sound of the guard returning to their rooms carrying trays of breakfast.
    With ease, The Doctor used his telekinesis to lift himself over the doorway. It was little effort for The Doctor, whose mental strength allowed him to lift weights far greater than he could ever manage with his meagre muscles.
    He hovered above the door, waiting. Duly, the keys rattled in the lock and the door swung open.
    As the guard stepped into the room, The Doctor dropped from the ceiling and crashed down upon the guard, knocking him unconscious.
    He listened. There was no sound from the corridor. The guard must have been alone. Good.
    The Doctor searched the guard's inert form. There was no Sonic Screwdriver, to The Doctor's disappointment.
    He recovered the keys from the door and let himself into Conrad's cell. Conrad awoke with a start, but quickly felt a wave of relief that The Doctor had secured their freedom.
    As they stepped out of the rooms, Conrad saw the body of the guard. He bent down and took the side-arm, a Luger, from his belt.
    The Doctor put his finger to his lips and Conrad nodded, understanding. They slipped down the corridor and headed downwards to the main hall. If no-one recognised their faces, they still looked inconspicuous in their German uniforms. Even Conrad's bandages simply made him look like any other wounded soldier.
    They found their way back into the kitchen. There was a workman beavering away at fixing the broken door to the back of the main house. Conrad decided not to speak, feeling that his weak German skills may give them away. The Doctor saw Conrad's hesitation and asked the man to let them pass.
    Outside, they could see the Jeep in which they had arrived, still parked not far from the workshop where they had left it. The fuel tanker was also there, wedged against the stone wall.
    Two soldiers were staring at the tanker, scratching their heads. They seemed to be trying to work out how to move it.
    The Doctor and Conrad shared a conspiratorial look and approached the soldiers.
    “Can we help?” The Doctor asked them, innocently.
    The first soldier pointed, explaining, “that's wedged good and proper against the stone work, that it. We need to get it mobile somehow, so we can wheel it back into the yard.”
    “If I might make a suggestion,” The Doctor offered, “I believe there is a chain in the back of that jeep. We could haul it away from the wall.”
    The soldiers looked at each other, incredulously.
    “Why didn't you think of that?” the slightly older soldier said to the other, slapping his chest with an oily rag, “Bloody idiot.”
    “While we do that,” The Doctor said, giving Conrad a sly wink, “don't forget to get your wallet from the truck.”
    “Yes. I'll just do that,” Conrad replied, remembering that his Radium Pistol was stowed under the seat.
    “You get on with that,” The Doctor continued, “while I find us some crowbars to help these fine gentlemen lever the cab away from the wall.”
    Conrad felt a wave of relief as his hand grasped the familiar shape of the Radium Pistol under the seat. He tucked it into his belt, hidden under his stolen uniform jacket.
    He put the Tanker's gearbox into neutral as The Doctor helped the soldiers attach the chain and tow the cab free from the wall. The soldiers were grateful as The Doctor and Conrad helped them to wheel the Tanker back, carefully, into a safe spot. The soldiers quickly and expertly replaced the tyre that had been shot out.
    Once the soldiers had walked off, waving their thanks, Conrad moved to start the engine, enthusiastically. The Doctor placed a warning hand on his arm.
    “What exactly are we doing?” The Doctor asked him, for clarity.
    “Same plan as before?” Conrad suggested, “Drive the truck into the workshop and blow it up!”
    “But I don't have my Sonic anymore,” The Doctor warned, “Plus, Georgie could be in there, as well as all the other slaves. Without the Sonic I can't overtake the speaker system to warn everybody.”
    “You can't get a new one?” Conrad asked.
    “If I was in my Tardis,” The Doctor suggested, “I could cobble a new one together from parts.”
    “There may be tools here? Can you do anything with those?”
    The Doctor considered, “I may be able to put something together...”
    “Let's go, then!” Conrad said.
    They found a group of soldiers on a break, smoking and playing cards and asked them for directions to a tool-shed so that they could do some minor repairs on the jeep. The young and credulous soldiers directed them to a small hut, full of spare parts and tools.
    The Doctor scanned the shelves, racking his brains for the basic attributes which made up the Sonic Screwdriver's basic operations.
    “It's not going to be pretty,” The Doctor told Conrad, “but it will be something!”

    Georgie was looking up and down the corridor in the main house, frantically, for signs of The Doctor or Conrad. She listened at some other doors along the corridor, but couldn't hear any other prisoners. As she moved along, past the windows, she spied something out in the courtyard. She glimpsed Conrad and The Doctor slipping furtively into some kind of shed.
    Calming herself, Georgie headed down the main stairs. She managed to orient herself to the direction the shed must be in and found herself heading out through the kitchen. Along the way she made a mental note of the shelves all around the kitchen walls. The passage to the wine cellar must be behind one of them!
    She headed outside and strolled over to the shed. As she walked in, The Doctor was triumphantly holding a gnarled metal gadget in the air.
    “Doctor!” Georgie exclaimed, happily, “Where have you been?”
    The Doctor smiled broadly to see her again. “We had a bit of trouble,” her told her, underplaying the events, “We got captured.”
    “What are you doing?” she asked him.
    “I'm just having to construct a new Sonic screwdriver, because my old one was taken from me. It's a big bigger than the old one,” The Doctor exclaimed, testing it with a cheerful buzz, “but it should do for now.”
    “I have important information, Doctor,” Georgie told him, eagerly getting out the information she had while she had the chance, “I found out from the other prisoners that the wireless radio sets were taken away as soon as the Robots appeared! Doctor Kruger suggested that the radio waves interfere with them, somehow, causing them to break down. There is a radio in the surgery. As well as lots of equipment I can't identify.”
    “That's very helpful,” The Doctor replied, encouraged.
    “I have prisoners willing to help with the effort if we can only signal them,” Georgie continued.
    “Well, we were planning to drive the tanker into the workshop and destroy it,” The Doctor said, “Your information gives us an excellent alternative plan. It might be best to look and see what equipment the good doctor has that could be of use.”
    As they walked back into the house, towards Doctor Kruger's surgery, Georgie pointed out the shelves behind which may be a hidden passage to the wine cellar. The Doctor nodded, considering the possibilities.
    As they walked into the surgery, Doctor Kruger looked up with a start, recognising the prisoners from the previous night.
    The Doctor accosted him, “I was wondering if I could take a look at your equipment, Doctor?”
    “Ah,” replied Kruger, “you're the spies. You've escaped, then?” He looked pointedly at Georgie.
    “Do we need to knock you out, Doctor Kruger?” The Doctor asked him. His words were kind, in spite of the implied threat. They had no wish to get Doctor Kruger into trouble.
    “There is no need,” Kruger told them, “Take what you wish. If you fail in your mission, I will simply say that you had me at gunpoint.”
    The Doctor, Georgie and Conrad began searching the surgery for useful equipment. Doctor Kruger suddenly spoke up.
    “Do you think you can get everybody out?” he asked, hopefully, “The soldiers, the slaves and the … medical experiments?”
    “Medical experiments?” The Doctor asked, intrigued.
    Kruger swallowed, guilt rising like bile into his throat. “Go through the door at the back of the workshop and you will see what I mean. If you can rescue those who are still able to be saved, you will have addressed a great evil that I helped. Please.”
    The Doctor nodded, gravely, “Very well.”
    From the surgery, The Doctor found a surprisingly advanced hand-held x-ray device. “I can't imagine those robots will like having this fired at them, after a bit of a boost from the Sonic,” he ventured. “Don't forget the wireless,” he told Georgie. He also spotted a very advanced Vibro-scalpel, another anachronism is this time period. The Doctor pocketed this, carefully.
    “So,” Conrad summarised as they strode out of the surgery with their stolen equipment, “we control the robots, sound the alarm to evacuate people, dash into the experimental lab and try to release anybody there and, meanwhile, drive the truck into the workshop, ready to be detonated?”
    The Doctor turned to Conrad, “when you saw those blueprints, you don't happen to remember the frequency that the robots' radio components work on?”
    Conrad considered, studying the photographic image in his mind of the creased blueprint, covered in technical data. “Yes,” he replied eventually, telling The Doctor the frequency, who fed it into his lashed-up Sonic Screwdriver.
    “Can't we bring the Tardis up here?” Georgie asked, thinking that it would be a powerful asset.
    The Doctor considered, carefully. “There's something very funny going on here with Time,” The Doctor said, remembering the very shaky journey that had caused them to land here, “I'd really rather not add any complexity to a dangerous situation. The way the Tardis is behaving I'd struggle to land it with any accuracy. We could end up anywhere. Or any when.”
    “But,” Georgie suggested, “you could broadcast the evacuation signal from the Tardis?”
    “Now that is a good idea,” The Doctor replied, “this new Sonic Screwdriver is a bit of an unknown.”
    “You two go,” Conrad told them, “I'm going to head back to the jeep.”
    “What for?” The Doctor asked.
    “I feel all wrong in this outfit,” Conrad said, indicating the Nazi uniform. “I need to suit up!”
    The Doctor smiled.
    “Besides,” Conrad explained, “I'll prep the truck and made sure we're ready to go.”
    The Doctor quickly identified a loose set of shelves and pulled them away in a fluid motion, revealing a set of stone steps heading down into the ground.
    Conrad turned to Georgie and unholstered the Luger he had taken from the guard. “Here,” he said, handing it to her, “take this.”
    Georgie took it, gingerly and nodded a thank-you, before following The Doctor down into the hidden passage.

Chapter Ten – Two Hearts Break

    The stone passageway was damp and full of stale air. The Doctor and Georgie must have been the first people to walk down it in years.
    It was completely dark, save for the pale light of the ramshackle Sonic Screwdriver's flickering 1930's era bulb.
    Eventually, the passage came to an end behind one of the massive wooden barrels full of wine. They eased around the edge of it and found themselves in the brightly lit cellar beneath the castle.
    There stood the Tardis, as blue and as beautiful to the Doctor's eye as any summer's day on Earth.
    They slipped inside and Georgie was surprised at how immediately at ease she felt inside its comforting, but confusing, walls.
    The Doctor's hands skittered over the controls on the central dais. He scanned the castle and found a frequency that would piggy-back the electronic speaker system.
    “Perfect!” he announced, “as well as sounding an evacuation signal, I can put out an inaudible sound which should paralyse those robots! Plus, with a little psychic boost from the Tardis, nobody will be able to resist the evacuation order!”
    “What about this device, Doctor?” Georgie asked, holding up the handheld X-Ray scanner.
    The Doctor took it and pointed his cumbersome Sonic Screwdriver at it. There was a bit of a wobble and a flash and then he hefted the scanner back over to Georgie.
    “A little bit of tinkering needed,” he explained, “but at close range that should fry one of those robots.”
    “Ready?” he asked Georgie, his fingers poised over a button on the Tardis console.
    Georgie nodded, biting her lip.
    The Doctor hit the button and all over the castle, to soldier and civilian alike, came the irresistible command to evacuate.

    Panic rippled through the slaves' workshop. The soldiers, too, seemed conflicted between their duty to guard the prisoners and their instinctive desire to run.
    The prisoners were also struggling. Some of them began to flee into the courtyard while others were immobilised by fear, convinced that either the soldiers or the robots would begin shooting them, if they moved.
    It was Klaus who recognised Georgie's hand in events. He had enough initiative to tip the balance and get the prisoners moving. Once he'd convinced his own group to run, it began an avalanche of escape, in which all but the most terror-stricken prisoners fled from the workshop and kept running. They sprinted all the way out into the courtyard and past the panicking guards at the gate.
    The soldiers were also running, by now. There was an urgency in the evacuation order which seemed to compel their feet, forcing them to run as far from the castle as they could manage.
    Conrad heard the alarm and saw the bodies streaming out of the workshop. He revved the motor of the tanker and pushed the truck forward. The panic-stricken soldiers were too disorganised to challenge him. The tanker crashed into the workshop, smashing into workstations and tipping over tools and materials. The few remaining slaves who had been immobilised so far, too scared or too institutionalised to run away, now seemed to be woken up by this titanic terror, and ran from the workshop to escape the careering fuel tanker.
    The black robots, the Metallensturmtruppen, were not responding to the escaping prisoners. They seemed to be swaying back and forth, clutching at their heads and evidently in agony from the electronic interference as well as their audio-based sight being blinded by the emergency klaxon which filled the room with sound.

    The Doctor and Georgie ran back through the passage as quickly as they could and bounded out into the kitchen. They also crashed into a soldier, who seemed suddenly very familiar.
    It was the Apothecary. He recognised them at once and blurted out, in a mix of relief and desperation, “Doctor! All the workers have escaped, but I still can't find my daughter!”
    “There's one place still to look,” Georgie said, catching the Doctor's quickly darkening face. “The experimental lab.”
    The Apothecary's face filled with hope, “you must take me there!”
    As they ran across the courtyard, Georgie pointed and shouted, “Doctor! The Jeep!”
    The Doctor nodded, “we may need it to get away quicker!”
    The three of them jumped into the jeep and they drove it into the workshop alongside the Tanker, ready for a quick getaway.
    “Doctor,” Conrad said, greeting them, “I've found the door to the lab, but it's sealed with some kind of electric lock.”
    The Doctor didn't say a word. He just strode purposefully toward the door and pointed the Sonic Screwdriver at it. It burst open in a shower of sparks and The Doctor kicked the door open.
    “My god,” was all he could say.
    Even though he was expecting the worst, the inside of the experimental lab still came close to breaking both of The Doctor's hearts. Despite his love for humanity, the horrors he saw there shook his faith in humanity's worth as a species. He knew that, in the years to come, he would struggle to let go of what he had seen here.
    The low, dark room was full of surgical tables. On each of these was a human body, or what was left of them. Pipes fed into them and computer consoles beeped and monitored the effects of drugs, surgery and other invasive techniques.
    At the back of the room, hanging on a maintenance scaffold was one one of the black robots, the Metallensturmtruppen; the Metal Stormtroopers. The main breast plate was not fitted, exposing the hollow cavity inside.
    Placed inside the shell was the body of a child. Her own arms and legs had been surgically removed in order to fit the body inside the metal shell.
    “Doctor Kruger was right, wasn't he?” Georgie asked, the words almost sticking in her throat.
    “Does this mean that all the robots we've been fighting have children inside?” Conrad asked the Doctor, quietly.
    He nodded silently.
    “The missing villagers...” Georgie stammered.
    “They must have failed to master the radio controlled artificial intelligence,” The Doctor explained, slowly, “and turned instead to human controllers. It's monstrous. This technology is way beyond them. Beyond even the tools we've seen in the workshop and surgery. The skill required to interface flesh with machinery is decades away.”
    “Why would anybody create that technology?” Georgie asked, aghast.
    “On my world, technology such as this was once regularly used to replace missing limbs, or to provide mobility to those with birth defects,” The Doctor told her, “It was eventually swept away by genetic manipulation, but it lasted for years. There is no good or bad technology. Only how people use it. And your people always seem to use it for the most unforgivable evil.” He trailed off.
    “Can they be saved?” Georgie asked.
    The Doctor examined the limbless child in the robotic suit. “The child is still alive,” he said, “I don't have the means to restore the limbs that were taken, but the child could survive, with help.”
    “What can we do?”
    The Doctor considered, “Doctor Von Klein believed he was creating a means to provide mobility to the sick. With a bit of tinkering, this suit could still serve that purpose and eventually the child's brain will assume control if its functions.”
    The Apothecary's face was ashen, taking in the implications of this revelation alongside his daughter's disappearance. He was searching from table to table, but could not find her among the victims.
    The room fell suddenly silent. The Doctor's evacuation siren had been cut off.
    “We should get out of here,” Conrad said, the change suddenly spurring him into action, “I vote we get out of here and blow the entire place away.”
    Georgie could see Conrad's logic but was torn. “Doctor...?” she asked, searching for guidance.
    The Doctor swallowed and said, quietly, “One. We have to save at least one.”
    Georgie searched around the papers scattered on the tabletop near the exposed robot. “There are papers here describing the medical procedure,” she said, “Can you use these to get her out?”
    The Doctor looked at them and said, simply, “yes.”
    Using the Sonic Screwdriver, The Doctor released restraining clamps in the robot body and gently lifted the child's fragile and limbless torso down.
    He strode out of the laboratory in silence. Eventually the others followed him.

    Back in the workshop, they could see that the robots seemed to be a bit more able to see now that the siren had ended, but they were still struggling with the hidden radio interference. Seeing their arrival, the cyborgs feebly attempted to lift weapons to aim at The Doctor and his companions.
    The Doctor regarded the ailing cyborgs with sadness in his eyes.
    The cyborgs started firing, their shots going wild and wide.
    “Quick!” The Doctor said, “Any stray shot could detonate the tanker! Get aboard the jeep.”
    He passed the child to Georgie while Conrad jumped behind the wheel of the jeep. Georgie placed the child carefully on the back.
    “I'll buy us some time,” The Doctor said, morosely and led the Apothecary over to stand beneath the gantry. Slowly, he raised the x-ray device up to directly beneath one of the cyborgs that was firing its weapon, blindly. Gritting his teeth he pressed the button.
    There was no flash, or sound, but the cyborg froze, suddenly rigid and crashed to the gantry floor.
    Georgie turned away and snapped her moistening eyes shut.
    “Georgie!” Conrad called, snapping her out of it, “you'll have to take the shot!”
    She nodded and carefully took the Radium Pistol from him.
    The Doctor started to move back toward the jeep.
    “Wait!” said the Apothecary, refusing to move, “we still haven't found my daughter!”
    The Doctor shook his head, sadly, “I'm sorry. Surely if she was here, we would have found her by now?! If she's alive, she may have already been evacuated! You must come with us!”
    All the colour drained from the man's face. “I can't,” he said and before The Doctor could stop he he had burst out through a small door in the side of the workshop and disappeared deeper into the castle.
    The Doctor was about to give chase when a shot from one of the other Metallensturmtruppen landed very close to his feet.
    He ran toward the jeep, waving. “Just do it!” he yelled.
    Conrad hit the accelerator and the jeep lurched forward as the Doctor dived into the passenger seat.
    Despite the swaying, Georgie levelled the Radium Pistol at the tanker and squeezed the trigger. A ball of green energy blasted out of the weapon and sailed towards the tanker's fuel container. The green light seemed to radiate across the metal flank as radioactive energy spread into the fuel within.
    A wave of heat and light washed over the escaping jeep as the tanker erupted into a ball of orange fire and black smoke. They seemed to be driving away from a wall of flame which poured out of the workshop entrance and incinerated every scrap of technology within. Holes punched out through the metal roofing and fire engulfed the main house and the fuel dump behind.
    A second explosion blasted out as the fuel dump ignited, shattering the back of the castle's main house. The building collapsed into a pile of dust and red-hot bricks launched through the air, exploding like grenades where they impacted into the castle walls and courtyard floor.
    The shock-wave overturned the jeep, spilling The Doctor, his companions and the unconscious child into the courtyard. Fire spread quickly around them and The Doctor realised they were in danger of getting cut off.
    “We need to get back to the Tardis!” The Doctor shouted.
    Conrad argued, “what is this Tardis? We need to get out of the castle!”
    “I think the kitchen route will be on fire!” Georgie guessed, looking at the main house which was, by now, a raging inferno.
    “The Tardis is our best way out, I assure you,” The Doctor told Conrad, “Based on the layout of the castle, it must be this way...”
    The Doctor pointed to a door in the bailey wall. He tried it, carefully. It was locked.
    Georgie pulled the Luger out of her belt and emptied the magazine into the door. With a single kick, the door fell open.
    The Doctor, nodded, approvingly and picked up the child from beside the stricken jeep. “Let's go,” he urged and they headed through the door.
    It led into another courtyard. Fire was spreading all around them, but it definitely looked like the courtyard in which they had originally found themselves after leaving the wine cellar.
    They hurried across but realised they were being confronted by a familiar figure.
    Standing in the centre of the courtyard, ringed by fire, was Commandant Jurgens.
    He raised a shaking and smouldering arm at them, holding his pistol. “Doctor!” he yelled in a croaky voice. “You will not defeat us again!”
    The Doctor waited to see what he would do.
    A look of determination came into Commandant Jurgens' eyes. “The Fuhrer will deal with you personally,” he announced.
    The air around Jurgens seemed to glow suddenly. His head flicked back as his body was consumed by a luminescent aura. When he face dropped back to stare at them, his eyes were aflame with a blue gleam.
    “Doctor!” came a strange, otherworldly voice from the possessed Nazi, “Once again you have returned to me and once again you have ruined my plans. I will see you destroyed.”
    The Doctor still had no idea who this alien presence could be.
    “20 years I have waited for you to return,” the alien hissed, “and now I will have my vengeance on you!” Jurgens' eyes flashed.
    The Doctor noticed a little beep from the Sonic Screwdriver. His interference signal had been negated, somehow.
    There was a crash of burning boxes from nearby. A black metal arm raised up out of the flames and grabbed the wall for stability. One of the Metallensturmtruppen hoisted itself to its feet and lurched towards them.
    Conrad quickly aimed his Radium Pistol and fired, once.
    A sickly green glow spread out over Commandant Jurgens' chest. The blue light in his eyes died as he dropped to the floor.
    The black cyborg advanced upon them all with murderous intent. The Doctor, Georgie and Conrad backed away steadily. Conrad raised a shaking arm to fire at the hybrid machine, unsure if his energy weapon would even work against this shielded monster, thinking of the poor child inside.
    He was about to fire when a charred figured lurched through the flames beside him and knocked his aim astray.
    “No, you mustn't!” yelled the figure.
    It was the Apothecary. He ran forward and put himself between the group and the deadly machine.
    The Metallensturmtruppen seemed to stop at the sound of his voice, confused. There came a whining, grating noise from inside the shell, followed by a distant and tinny voice.
    It simply said, “Fa...ther?” seemingly conflicted between smashing the Apothecary with its arms or embracing him.
    The Doctor hoisted the X-Ray device and fired a low-powered shot. The mechanical limbs of the cyborg seemed to freeze and it fell to the floor with a clatter.
    The Doctor passed the Apothecary the Vibro-scalpel he had liberated from the surgery. The old man carefully sliced open the edges of the carapace and gazed in conflicted joy at the face of his tragic daughter. He stroked her cheek, tenderly, overjoyed to have found her, in spite of her injuries.
    Georgie asked, desperately, “Doctor, is there anything you can do for her?”
    “We need to get out,” Conrad shouted, as a section of the bailey tower crashed down, “this whole place is coming down around us!”
    “Get her to my Tardis!” The Doctor ordered.
    Georgie and the Apothecary picked up his daughter, still inside the robotic suit. It was surprisingly light, Georgie thought, the metal must weigh hardly anything. They headed quickly over to the wine cellar steps and raced along the passage to the Tardis.
    Conrad stopped in surprise and shock. “Doc,” he said, “there's no way that box will save us when the castle collapses!”
    Georgie tutted and muttered, “Americans!” under her breath.
    “You'll see,” The Doctor told him with a wink, pushing the door open.
    Conrad stood and stared, incredulously.
    “He's right, you know,” Georgie said and followed The Doctor, carrying the Apothecary's daughter inside.
    Conrad stepped inside to the cavernous Tardis control room, suddenly taking in the expanse of blinking lights and the low hum of machinery. “Wow,” he exclaimed, “This is massive!”
    The Doctor nodded, proudly, “It even has a swimming pool.”
    Georgie placed the metallic husk down carefully and raced over to The Doctor's side by the console. “Do we need to take off?” she asked him.
    He shook his head, “No need. The interior of the Tardis exists within a totally different universe. This castle can collapse around us and we will barely feel it.”
    Georgie considered this, thinking back to the flight here which had been so rough and had injured her. “What was that shaking when we came here, then?” she asked him.
    “That was something else,” The Doctor said, “Something very disturbing.”
    “Doctor,” the Apothecary pleaded, “My daughter... I know she'll never walk again, but is there anything you can do?”
    The Doctor nodded and instructed him to help him through to the Tardis' medical bay with his daughter and the other child victim.
    Meanwhile, Georgie and Conrad stood in silence and listened to the banging and clattering as the castle collapsed around them.

    The Doctor and the Apothecary had been gone for a long time. The sound of destruction from outside had long since ended.
    Eventually, The Doctor reappeared with a surprisingly jubilant expression on his face, wiping his hands on a towel.
    “Well,” he announced, “I'm rather pleased with that. Using the robotic technology, along with a few bits and bobs I have lying around the Tardis, we've done a pretty good job on both of them. Fully dressed, they'll both pass for human. Although I'd suggest she keeps to herself if or when the Bikini gets invented. I doubt humanity will be ready for cyborg sunbathing. Still, in most other respects, she has her life back. They both do. A kind of life, anyway...”
    “The best we can give her?” Georgie suggested. The Doctor nodded, sadly.
    The Apothecary was standing behind him. “That is all any parent asks for,” he said, gratefully.

Epilogue

    Conrad approached The Doctor, who was studying the Tardis' displays.
    “Doctor,” he said, “I need to see that the robot factory is destroyed. That is my mission, after all.”
    The Doctor pulled a few controls on the console. “I daren't try de-materialising the Tardis before we've dropped the Apothecary and his daughter off,” he explained, “Who knows where we could end up! But, I think moving 100ft straight up is safe.”
    He pulled a lever and The Tardis lurched upwards, exploding out of the smouldering rubble which had covered it. He pulled a second lever and the exterior door swung gently open, revealing a sunny afternoon.
    The Doctor strode over to the doorway with Conrad and stood on the edge. The Tardis was hanging in the sky, about 80 feet above the ground.
    Spread out below them was the shattered remains of the castle. A few sections of wall were intact but, for the most part, the castle was a complete ruin.
    “I think you can tick that box, Captain,” The Doctor told Conrad with a smile.
    “Well then,” Conrad said, offering The Doctor a hand, “I should return to my squad. Doctor, it's been a pleasure!”
    The Doctor ignored the hand and walked back over to the Tardis controls. “Of course your mission is only half complete, Captain Seager...”
    Conrad gave him a quizzical look.
    “There's still there question of where that technology came from.?” The Doctor explained, “and I'm sure your army would thank you for uncovering the root of the problem?”
    “But I'm expected back!” Conrad protested, “If I don't return I'm either MIA or AWOL, neither of which I want telegraphing home to my girl, Jenny!”
    “But this is a Time Machine!” Georgie interjected, “just like the one in Mr Wells' novels! We can return you whenever you are needed back! Or even a couple of days before, if you want a day off!”
    “A Time Machine?” Conrad exclaimed, “Where the hell would you have gotten a Time Machine?”
    “That is not the question,” The Doctor replied, enigmatically, “The question is: is the Captain amenable to persuasion? What do you say? Do you want to see this mission all the way through?”
    Conrad considered these words as he watched through the open door. Trees sailed by  as The Doctor guided the Tardis skillfully down the hillside to the village. It had been a remarkable adventure, he thought, and this Tardis would be an amazing asset in the ongoing war...
    In the village, the streets were full of delighted people, hugging each other and shouting with the joy of reunion. In front of amazed faces, The Doctor landed the Tardis carefully and neatly in front of the Apothecary's house.
    The daughter and the other cyborg child were led hypnotically into the house. The Doctor gave the Apothecary a kind smile. “Their minds will return to them,” The Doctor assured him, “they haven't lost those.”
    “I will do what I can to find the child's parents,” the Apothecary promised, solemnly.
    The Doctor gave him a knowing look. “And if you don't,” he suggested, “there is plenty of room at your house?”
    The Apothecary smiled at him as he stepped out of the Tardis and into his home.
    The Doctor flicked a switch and the Tardis door closed quietly behind him.

    Thank you for reading. I hope you have enjoyed this adventure, based on the actions of a roleplaying group playing Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space by Cubicle 7.

    The Doctor, Georgie and Conrad Seager will return in Gods of War (2012 Christmas Special).

    Christopher J Jarvis, 9th February 2013

Doctor Who (Game B) Session Write-up - Das Metallreich Part 2


N.B. What follows is a prose narration of the events that took place in a roleplaying game session. It can be regarded as a kind of Doctor Who fan-fiction, except that all the events are driven by occurrences in-game and is presented in first-draft quality. It is not intended to fully recreate any events or characters from any previous Doctor Who episode, book, radio series or comic, with the exception of some iconic villains. Even The Doctor is a reinvention, starting out as a first-regeneration Timelord with little history; Perhaps how the Doctor may appear in a different reality. It cannot, therefore, be wrong on any canonical continuity. It exists within itself and is presented purely for reading pleasure and to inform role-playing experiences. Thank you :)

You can read Part One of Doctor Who - Das Metallreich here.

Chapter Four – The Metallensturmtruppen


    Georgie's mouth was frozen in an open gape of horror. None of the group moved.
    The robotic soldier stopped still for a moment, craning its head this way and that, taking in the surroundings. The Doctor wasn't sure if it could see them, or if its sensors were based on sound on some other kind of sense. The machine didn't appear to have any kind of sensors in the front of its black, featureless dome of a face.
    The Doctor edged around one of the worktops. The robot seemed to crane its head around, following the Doctor's motion.
    It seemed to be reacting to sound, The Doctor thought, but no theory was worthwhile without testing the hypothesis. As the robot began to lurch forward, The Doctor raised an arm in the direction of one of the metal decorative shield bosses that hung at regular intervals around the workshop. He focused his metal energy and the shield rocked back and forth on its mounting.
    It came free and clattered to the ground with a loud ringing.
    The robot stopped in its tracks and arched around, staring at the source of the disturbance.
    Georgie and Captain Seager backed away, heading for the cover of a stack of wooden crates in the corner of the room. Captain Seager was fairly light on his feet, but as Georgie's shoes clipped off the hard workshop floor, the robot swung its attention back in their direction.
    They both froze, but the robot began to advance decisively towards Georgie's position.
    Quickly, The Doctor stared about the room for options. He noted the low-hanging bulb lights, suspended across the ceiling amid looping electricity cables. His eyes narrowed and he focused his metal strength upon breaking the cable and bringing it down upon the robot soldier's metal frame.
    The Doctor raised his hands and pointed at the light fittings, for focus. Georgie and Captain Seager watched in wonder as a section of the lighting array pulled away from the ceiling in a shower of sparks and arcing electricity, seemingly yanked free by the The Doctor's will alone.
    The exposed wiring dropped onto the metal figure below, resulting in a smacking, burning noise. The robot dropped to one knee with an electrically modulated cry of agony, pulling at the live cables which had welded themselves onto the surface of its body and were overloading its electrical systems. With an effort of strength, the robot looped the slack cable around an armour-plated arm began to pull hard.
    Georgie took the distraction as an opportunity to duck behind the stacked boxes in the corner of the workshop. Captain Seager steadied the German machine-gun against a worktop and tried to fire a burst shot against the robot's head. The shot went wide and Seager cursed.
    Cables snapped tight across the ceiling as the robot exerted itself against the wiring. The Metallensturmtruppen pulled hard on the cable and the distribution box on the far wall finally succumbed to the incredible force and tore free from of its housing, plunging the workshop into a terrible blackness.
    Georgie breathed heavily in the dark, the silence broken only by the distant alarm and the writhing of the injured robot. She could hear grinding metal as the artificial man dragged itself up onto its feet in the black gloom.
    Low-powered emergency lights along the wall glowed into life, spilling murky red light over the workshop. The Doctor's eyes adjusted in time to see the hulking machine drawing itself back up to its full height. Under the red lighting the white portions of the Swastika painted on the black robot's chest seemed to glow eerily.
    “Aufhalten!” Captain Seager shouted, in an attempt to talk the machine into stopping. When he had been given his German language training before the mission, he had never imagined that he would be using it to communicate with a metal man! The robot turned its blank face in the direction of Captain Seager.
    The Doctor felt a heavy shape against his ankle. Looking down he could see a welding kit and cylinder resting against one of the work counters. Seeing an opportunity while the robot was distracted by Captain Seager, he grabbed it up quickly and fired the flame into action. The Robot looked around at the last minute as The Doctor strode forward and pressed the hot jet into a gap between the robot's armour plates.
    The robot gave an electronic howl of pain and turned in the direction of the Doctor, murderously.
    Georgie could see that the robot was about to harm the Doctor and grabbed at a heavy wrench on the worktop. She hurled it at the machine, but it bounced uselessly off the armour.
    The Robot strode toward the retreating Doctor, its steps quickly turning into a charge which exhibited incredible speed and force.
    The Doctor felt as though he'd been hit by a steam train. The Robot's tough shoulder smashed into his arm and chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending him stumbling into a worktop. The welding equipment was knocked from the Doctor's hand, smashing onto the ground in multiple pieces. The robot's momentum was completely unchecked as it crashed forward and clattered into the stone wall.
    Moonlight flooded into the chamber as the stone wall collapsed outward under the weight of the charge. Cold air and stray snow-flakes blew in around the hulking figure and the room seemed much lighter. Beyond, the steep snow-drenched slope was visible, leading down to the trees and the village beyond at the bottom of the valley.
    The Doctor looked at the welding equipment on the floor. It looked a little beyond repair, but the fuel cylinder looked intact.
    As the robot turned and looked set to charge back toward him, The Doctor shouted to Seager, “Captain, the cylinder!” With a flash of mental strength, the Doctor caused the cylinder to slide across the floor, near to the robot's feet.
    Seager cursed again, seeing that the cylinder was slightly out of his line of sight. He raced out from behind his cover and lined up his shot. The robot turned toward him as he moved and began to charge. Seager squeezed the trigger gently and a cluster of hot metal slugs tore through the air. The bullet smacked into the cylinder, cracking the metal and igniting the pressurised gas inside.
    Georgie could feel a wave of heat on her skin as a fireball erupted in the wall breach. The robot was engulfed in flame and the pressure blasted cracks into its black armour. Wiring and complex parts were now visible through considerable gaps in the metal plating. The Doctor and companions watched as the flames licked around the damaged-looking robot's body.
    A recording of a voice crackled out from a box in the far wall of the workshop. Captain Seager's German wasn't good enough to understand it and Georgie didn't understand all of the words, despite hearing it in her native English thanks to the translation circuits in the Tardis. Only The Doctor understood the words clearly: “Experimental Laser Weapon charged and ready for use.”
    The robot charged wildly out of the fireball, racing into the room towards the source of the voice. The Doctor was knocked aside once more as the robot charged by. He could see the robot stumbling towards a cabinet on the wall. Presumably the experimental weapon would be inside. He knew instinctively that he didn't want to see what it did.
    He got to his feet, looking for options to slow or destroy the robot. What he saw froze both of his hearts. From the storage chamber whence the metal killer had emerged there were glimmers of more motion.
    Georgie stared as two more black-clad metal soldiers strode into the room. Now they had to face three of them.
    “We have to get out of here!” Seager shouted to The Doctor, who nodded, vigorously.
    All eyes turned to the breach in the stone wall and the snow-clad tree-line leading down to a nearby settlement.
    The Doctor's eyes darted around the room, looking for options. Suddenly he smiled an incredibly broad grin.
    “Grab a shield each!” The Doctor yelled, indicated the various decorative bosses around the walls, “and follow me!”
  
    The Doctor grabbed at a nearby shield and ran out through the opening, cackling happily. This was what he travelled the universe to do: crazy stunts and adrenalin-fuelled chases. He could feel an itch deep within his soul waiting to be scratched and he realised it had been too long since he had attempted anything this reckless.
    As his feet took up a familiar stance on the primitive shape of the metal shield, his mind wandered, unbidden, into an unwelcome memory: the memory of a boarding adventure on another world in another time. He remembered the heat of the lava on his skin, even through the suit. He remembered the low hum of the plasma board beneath his feet and the laughing of his companions. Then he remembered sudden, unexpected catastrophe followed inevitably by screams and death. He remembered angry eyes, blaming him for surviving when others had not returned. He remembered losing... her.
    He shook his head, physically, to expel the memory. This was a completely different place and time and the icy surface that picked up speed and began to race by beneath him was an extreme opposite of the burning magma of that faraway volcano.
    The Doctor looked around to check on Georgie and Captain Seager's progress. Both had cleared the breach in the wall and were picking up speed down the hillside, the soft snow forming a perfect slope. He laughed and waved at them both.
    Captain Seager's returned The Doctor's cheerful wave with a salute. His military training had covered a number of scenarios, but sliding down a snowy hill on a concave disc of metal had not featured. Nevertheless, his extensive training and growing practise with the Rocket-Pack had given him a greater instinct for balance and travelling unprotected at high speed. There was a exposed spur of granite protruding through the hillside and the snow, but Seager found it was little difficulty to lean his weight on the shield and skirt around it gracefully.
    Georgie was less comfortable and in no position to respond to The Doctor's cheerful calls. She had watched how he and Captain Seager had mounted their shields and tried their best to emulate them. She cried out as the board picked up pace and raced down the steep slope.
    The Doctor grinned, seeing that his companions had safely escaped and grasped the basics of this new snowboarding/tobogganing hybrid they had inadvertently created. He laughed out loud, suddenly. He wondered if he had created a new sport on this planet – assuming they lived to tell the tale.
    As he regained his concentration and looked ahead of him once more, he saw that his lack of attention had diminished his chances somewhat. As he approached the tree-line very, very fast, he saw a fallen tree lying directly across his path. Sizing it up, he couldn't see any way that he could swerve around it at either end; he was heading almost exactly for the centre point.
    He realised he would have to perform a tricky manoeuvre – something that future adrenalin-junkies on this world would one day refer to as an “Ollie” – in order to try to get over the log. As the wall of fallen wood grew terrifyingly close, The Doctor kicked down with his back foot, taking advantage of the natural curve of the metal shield, and launched his makeshift snowboard up into the air. He pressed down with his leading foot to level out.
    With a sudden shock he calculated that he would not clear the obstruction. The Doctor's shield clipped the edge of the fallen log, the impact resonating up through his legs. As the shield landed at an awkward angle he almost lost his balance and only just managed to swerve to avoid a tree of the upright variety that sped towards him out of the gloom. All things considered he wasn't demonstrating as natural a mastery of this invented sport as he had hoped.
    Georgie was also terrified and in danger of a serious injury. The glances she had dared to take filled her with frustration as she watched Captain Seager weave and bob expertly and gracefully between the trees and around obstacles. She was determined that she could master this skill as well as any man, no matter how well trained he was. She saw it as her duty to perform to the best of her abilities. She kept that in mind as an overhanging branch whipped her painfully in the face and her shield ricocheted hard off an exposed boulder.
    The Doctor was veering and swerving dangerously left and right; clearly this was much harder to do than he had remembered. He winced and lost his balance totally as his attempt to skirt around a large rock failed and he smacked the edge of his shield viciously. His knees buckled and he dropped down into the centre of the shield, holding the edges with his hands and getting his centre of gravity as low as possible. He knew he didn't look as cool as he felt he ought – but at least he might make it to the bottom in one piece.
    The last of the trees swished past the three travellers and they found themselves clear of the tree-line. They each slowed naturally as the steepness of the slope began to bottom out into a flat plain. Georgie gasped for breath and tried to regain her composure as she came to rest.
    The Doctor rolled off his board onto his back, cackling loudly. “Woo!” he explained, “that was what I needed to clear the dust out!”
    Captain Seager stepped off his board and kicked down on the rim. The metal shield obediently sat up and jumped into his grasp. He stuck it down in the snow firmly and reverted almost immediately to his training, glancing around him to determine their new situation. He looked back up at the castle. He could just about see the breach in the wall, with some light smoke drifting up into the dawn sky. They would be followed eventually, but he could see no sign of pursuers.
    He turned his attention to their immediate surroundings. A row of low buildings was a little way off from them. They had almost slid naturally into the main road of an apparently deserted village.  
    As the companions nodded to one another in silent agreement, they trudged carefully towards the buildings, silhouetted by early morning light. The Doctor was convinced he could hear the sound of shutters snapping shut.

Chapter Five – The Village

    It was Georgie who first broke the silence. “I don't recognise any of the buildings, Doctor,” she said, “We could probably do with a spot to lay low in for a few minutes.”
    The Doctor extended a long finger in the direction of a squat barn-like building, “I'd say that's probably a farriers. We can recover ourselves in there.”
    The door to the farrier's workshop was unlocked and the companions slipped inside. The Doctor sat on a bench and began tending to his injuries as his arm felt quite painful.
    Georgie assisted The Doctor, while Conrad sat down to inspect the damage to his helmet. It was buckled in a few places, but not beyond his ability to repair. It was essential that he kept the helmet in good working order as from bitter experience he'd discovered that the slightest dint in the surface or bend in the rudder caused his rocket pack to be much harder to control.
    Conrad pulled a pocket wrench out of a pouch in his trouser leg and started to beat out the metal shape, trying to balance between keeping quiet, but exerting enough force to make a difference.
    “Here,” The Doctor said, reaching into his inside jacket pocket and pulling out a metal stick with a glowing tip, “try mine. I think it has a setting for helping alloys to remember previous shapes.”
    Conrad took the gadget from The Doctor and inspected it. Unconvinced, he pointed the glowing end at the side of his helmet and pressed the switch. It made a noise loud enough to make Conrad jump – a sort of buzzing, squealing noise – but he had to admit it was quieter than the wrench. Conrad's eyes widened as the buckle in his helmet folded back into shape to form a perfectly smooth surface, as though it has never even been scratched.
    “Nice gadget, Doc!” Seager enthused, “where can I get one?”
    The Doctor smiled, flexing his arm against the binding which Georgie had helped him wrap around his elbow. “Not for a few hundred years,” The Doctor replied.
    Georgie interrupted, “If we are going to be traipsing around the countryside, Doctor, can I get a change of clothes? My dress is ruined!”
    The Doctor considered for a moment and said, “We'll probably have to raid a washing-line, if you're up for the mischief?”
    She looked at him, curiously. She couldn't understand what kind of man he was. In the lab, facing up to the robot, he had seemed like the most fierce and resourceful soldier she had ever met, while out in the snow – and now talking about thieving from clothes lines – he had the honest joy of a playful child.
    “What manner of man are you, Doctor? I am quite sure I have never met your like.”
    He met her gaze, dazzling her with his brilliant eyes. How could he explain to her that she was staring into eyes of more years' experience than she could fathom? In the end, he settled with a simple explanation: “I'm … an adventurer.”
    She tutted, “I see. I imagine that our American friend here is just the same?” Conrad gave a thumbs up and went back to inspecting his helmet, while Georgie continued, “but what were those metal men?”
    The Doctor frowned, “I've seen similar machines, although not of that exact design. They are automata of a kind. I would have like to disassemble one to see how it ticks, but I suppose we were outnumbered and outclassed and sadly I didn't get the opportunity.”
    “I got a good look at those blueprints, Doc,” said Conrad, “I can probably redraw them for you if you'd like.”
    “You only saw them for a minute!” Georgie spluttered.
    “I have a pretty good memory,” Conrad explained, “that's how I ended up on these kind of missions. If I see something, I can always remember it, down to the finest detail.”
    “Remarkable!” enthused The Doctor, “it's an ability I always admire!”
    Georgie picked up her bag and, sifting through its contents, said, “I'm certain I have some paper and pencils in my satchel.”
    Conrad set about scribbling on the paper, talking as he worked. “Y'know, I'm real surprised to find you two English folks here. You're the last people I would have expected to see. What are you doing here?”
    “We are on our holidays, what do you think?” Georgie replied, curtly.
    “This wasn't really our intended destination,” The Doctor explained, “we just sort of arrived here by accident.”
    Georgie pointed at The Doctor, “He kidnapped me!”
    The Doctor held his hands up in a placatory fashion and said, “I think that is perhaps an exaggeration.”
    “Hmph,” replied Georgie.
    “But where have you come from?” Georgie asked, “All the Brits I know of are in refugee camps. Or so I thought.”
    “Ahh, right,” muttered The Doctor, more to himself than anybody else, “we might be in a different time-line...”
    “Timeline?”replied Conrad, “What do you mean?”
    “Sorry, umm,” the Doctor began, hesitantly. “It's a little difficult to explain. Just imagine many infinite universes in parallel, each following a different courses of events. If you have the suitable technology, you can travel between them and through time.”
    “Yesterday I would have said you were mad!” George stated, “but from what I've seen today there must be some truth in what you say. You're certain less of a worry to me than those monsters back at the castle and all these strangely-dressed soldiers.”
    The Doctor gave a wry grin. “Thank you,” he said, his voiced dripping with irony, “I shall take comfort from that.”
    “Well, it's the first time I've seen those machines,” Conrad said, to Georgie, “but the soldiers are pretty commonplace. We've been fighting them for 30 years and we fight them all the time. How have you not seen them before?”
    “Why?” asked Georgie, “What has happened here? Why are we at war with Germany?”
    The Doctor and Georgie sat and listened and Conrad explained the shocking history of Earth. He told them of the bombs that feel from the sky in 1905, creating huge firestorms that destroyed cities and villages alike across Britain, France and Spain. He told them of the radioactive mists that still swept through the British wastelands, killing or sickening all it their path. They listened, dumbstruck, as the Nazi fanaticism swept across Europe, becoming a mobilised military force overnight. Their core motto was that only by uniting with a strong military could they defend against these kinds of attacks in future. Conrad then told them of the refugees, desperately packed onto boats and shipped across the Atlantic to get away from the poison and the soldiers and of the seemingly unending war between the Americas and Europe.
    “But, most of the time,” Conrad explained, “our biggest war is against the technology. The Nazis seem to make so many advances. We're struggling to keep up! If it weren't for the invention of our Radium-powered weapons and these Rocket Packs, we'd never be able to get spies in and out of Europe.”
    “Hmm,” considered The Doctor, “In this time-line, it would seems that the Germans have a technological advantage which would not seem inconsistent with them receiving assistance from elsewhere.” He scratched his chin and continued, “Yes, they've definitely been getting help which is giving them an unfair advantage. But quite why people would want to assist them and to what ends... we'll need to find that out!”
    Georgie nodded, “we need to stop them. What happened to the King? What about the Prime Minister?”
    “England has a temporary Government for its own people within the refugee camps,” Conrad explained, “I think some of your leaders survived and made it away. The rest were elected once they were Stateside. Not many Royals survived, through. The heir to the throne is an 8-year old girl, born in the refugee camps if you can believe that! President Hughes has promised them ongoing sovereignty of the refugee lands until the Brits can be resettled.”
    The Doctor frowned, “President Hughes?”
    Conrad nodded, “President Howard Hughes. He invented this!” Conrad slapped the side of the rocked pack on his back. “It was this invention of his and many others that finally gave us a block against Nazi invasion.”
    “Well I am disappointed were weren't able to get one of those automata,” The Doctor mused. “I wonder if I makes sense to double-back to the castle to try to capture one for investigation?”
    “We should probably try to find out what intel this town offers,” Conrad suggested.
    Georgie chipped in, “I agree. Plus, those machines are very powerful. We will need dynamite or something to defeat them. They seemed unstoppable, like Mary Shelley's monster!”
    “They certainly took a lot of damage and kept going,” replied the Doctor, although his attention was only half with them. In his head, he had become aware of a group of minds searching for them. They were agitated thoughts, frightened and aggrieved. Their thoughts were beginning to form the coherent shape of the Farrier's workshop. They were about to be discovered!
  
    The Doctor decided they should step out to meet them rather than being huddled suspiciously in the dark. That seemed, he thought, to create a more honest-looking first impression.
    They were met in the street, almost immediately, by a group of burly locals. The pitchforks and solitary shotgun they carried between them indicated that they were not at all pleased to see the newcomers.
    “They look like locals, rather than soldiers,” observed Conrad.
    A stocky, middle-aged farmer pointed an antique – but still very likely deadly – hunting rifle at them and accosted them. “Get out of our village!” he shouted at them, “You're not taking anyone else! We'd die sooner than let you take our people.”
    The Doctor was about to speak when Georgie stepped forward, drawing herself to her full height and walking gracefully, despite the dishevelled state of her dress. “I am a lady, sir,” she informed him. “and mean you no harm. These two gentlemen, as extraordinary as they are, also mean you no harm, I assure you. We have no desire to hurt you or to take anybody away. Please, we are just looking for shelter.”
    Conrad had been given a certain amount of training in German during his time in the US Rocket Corps, but he struggled to follow this exchange, whereas Georgie seemed to be completely fluent.
    The farmer with the rifle stepped past Georgie, as though not having the strength to confront someone with such a sympathetic and ladylike manner, while seeking an outlet for his rage. He approached Seager, whose black, bug-eyed helmet seemed a more fitting subject of his ire. He waved the rifle and yelled, hysterically, “you're not having any more of our children!”
    “Please, sir, “ Georgie fluttered her eyelashes and tried to calm the man down with a gentle hand placed on his arm. “In my time I have been a Nanny. I understand that you love your children. None of us would ever harm them.”
    The man seemed to sag, broken. He dropped the point of the rifle down to the floor. “We just want our children back,” he murmured in lost, broken tones.
    Georgie clasped his arm, reassuringly, “we'll help you find them, I promise!”
    The Doctor stepped in, saying “who do you think is taking your children? Is it anything to do with that castle.? We've only just escaped, ourselves!”
    “We don't see where else it could be coming from,” said another man at the back of the posse. “We go to sleep and night and when we wake, more of our people are gone. We don't know where they are being taken or what they are using them for!”
    The Doctor considered. He had seen evidence at the castle of odd new technology and experiments. The disappearances from the village added to his feeling of unease. He said, “I wouldn't put anything past the people at the castle.”
    “If they take any more people, there won't be a village left!” another villager cried out in anguish.
    “Agreed!” Georgie said, beaming at this new fragile concord, “they must be stopped!”
    “We will need to get back into the castle,” The Doctor explained, “are any of you aware of any patterns relating to guard changes or anything that could help us get back in, unobserved?”
    The villagers talked between themselves for a moment. The stocky farmer turned back to The Doctor and said, “We tried demanding entrance before, to see our people and those devils turned us away, denying all knowledge of them. But we know they've taken them because one of the villagers escaped and told us.”
    “What was happening to them?” The Doctor asked.
    “Said they were being used as slaves,” the man explained eventually introducing himself as Mikkel. “They were being made to build... something. But he was weak and he died of an odd illness we've never seen before.”
    The Doctor looked troubled, “what were his symptoms?”
    Mikkel explained to the Doctor the ordeal which the escapee had been through. The Doctor recognised the symptoms at once, saying “it sounds to me like Advanced Radiation Poisoning. Harmful amounts of radiation over a significant period of time. He'd must have been working with some advanced technology.”
    Mikkel listened to him, intently. Despite this bleak prognosis he seemed to brighten, saying, “are you a Doctor? If we can get our people out of the Castle, can you help them?”
    “I'm not exactly a medical doctor,” The Doctor told them, “but I can assist in getting the villagers back.”
    The villagers relented a little at his words and began talking amongst themselves over what this could mean.
    Conrad pulled The Doctor aside, “we're massively under-supplied for returning to raid that castle, Doctor. Those robots are unstoppable!”
    The Doctor shook his head, as if waving away considerations of an open assault. “There was talk of a supply convoy,” he explained, “we could stow aboard that somehow and get in with the deliveries?”
    “We'll need weapons, though,” Conrad reiterated, “do the villagers have any explosives?”
    The Doctor tapped the villagers' ringleader on the shoulder and restated Conrad's question through the Tardis' translation matrix. Mikkel shook his head.
    “We have little enough to protect ourselves as it is,” he explained, “the soldiers have left us with barely enough supplies to survive, let alone weapons and explosives. But, if you can come up with a plan we have agreed to lend out strength!”
    The Doctor nodded in acknowledgement. “Do you have any chemical stores?” he asked, aware that his advanced knowledge may well allow him to create an explosive compound out of as-yet undiscovered chemical properties.
    The villager considered, effort furrowing his careworn brow even further. “You want the Apothecary?” he asked.
    “Certainly,” The Doctor replied, “although that's a rather old-fashioned term.”
    “He's an old fashioned feller,” the man replied, with the slightest hint of a laugh. “He's the closest thing we have to a medic, if you want him to look at that arm of yours?”
    “Yes, please,” The Doctor replied, keeping his true interest to himself; although, he realised, he would be grateful for a more practised medic to look over his injured arm.
    They were led over to a house in the centre of the small town. After knocking, they were greeted indifferently by a world-weary gentlemen with a flash of white hair. Mikkel introduced them while the man inside the house eyed the The Doctor up and down. His eyes widened as he heard the story.
    “I hate to do this,” he said, gruffly, “ but things are desperate. I would normally help strangers with no question, but I'm afraid it's going to cost you. You must give your word that you will help us to get our people back from the castle. I'm sorry to be poor with my comforts, but we are where we are.”
    The Doctor was unused to be being held to ransom for medical care, but he could appreciate the painful situation the villagers found themselves in. With a nod he led his companions silently inside and the Apothecary set to work on the The Doctor's arm, neither offering nor expecting conversation.
    Eventually, The Doctor managed to coax him into some chit-chat and asked him about the chemicals he had within the house. The Apothecary wrinkled his brow as he tried to call to mind the various bottles in his stores, “you can always take a look and see if there is something appropriate.”
    “Something like this?”
    The Doctor and the Apothecary looked up in surprise to see Georgie in the doorway. She was holding a bottle of medicinal alcohol with the stopper removed and a piece of torn skirt rammed into the neck.
    Seeing The Doctor's surprised look, Georgie told him, “we suffragists are aware that sometimes we need a big gesture to be noticed! I learned to make these over the summer.”
    The Doctor felt a sudden cold against the skin of his chest, followed by a startled noise from the Apothecary. The Doctor looked at him, to see him staring at his stethoscope in alarm. Presumably, The Doctor thought, he'd just spotted the double heartbeat. It was time for a distraction.
    He stood up, flexing and inspecting his arm with approval. “I think,” The Doctor informed Georgie, “that I might be able to make something a little bit more impressive than that.”

Chapter Six – The Raid

    The Doctor had been gone a while and Georgie was getting restless, while Conrad seemed to be quite happy dozing on a nearby chaise.
    Georgie approached the Apothecary carefully. “Excuse me, sir,” she began, “I don't suppose you know where I could get a change of clothes?”
    The Apothecary's eyes flicked over her shape, quickly and he gestured for her to follow him. He led her into a dusty side room and grabbed some clothes from a wardrobe, placing them almost reverently on the bed.
    “These were my daughter's climbing clothes,” he informed her, “they are tough, warm and practical. She used to go walking in the hills all the time, until she...” He faltered.
    Georgie didn't know what to say, but found that Captain Seager was suddenly standing in the doorway of the room.
    “She has been taken?” Conrad asked.
    The Apothecary nodded, silently.
    “Describe her to me,” Conrad instructed him.
    The Apothecary walked past him to a fireplace in the main living-room. He picked up a picture frame and handed it carefully to Conrad.
    Conrad studied the picture, memorising every line and curve on her face. She was a beautiful young woman, with curls of raven-dark hair falling across a face which laughed without care. She looked a little like his own Jenny, so far away now back home in the States. He could almost feel her picture in his jacket burning against his ribs.  It was hard to imagine such a beautiful and carefree girl being taken by the Nazis for slave labour.
    “Try to bring her back to me,” the Apothecary said, catching Conrad's eyes. Conrad nodded, purposefully.
    They were broken from their thoughts by a jubilant cry from The Doctor. He burst in with a bottle of clear, slightly sparkling liquid. He explained to them that the black metal armour of the robots seemed to be a familiar substance. He thought that this liquid could be used to melt the armour from a robot, if the need arose.
    “So,” The Doctor asked, enthusiastically, “how do we get into the castle? Captain Seager could fly in and find a door through which the rest of us could gain access?”
    Conrad shook his head, “last night's storm has passed. It's unlikely my rocket pack's trail would go unnoticed. We could climb up the hill and see if it's possible and safe to get back in through the hole we created?”
    “They'll be watching that area,” The Doctor told him.
    Conrad replied, “You think?”
    “It's what I'd do,” The Doctor said, giving an embarrassed cough, as if ashamed to be revealing such a cold and calculating side to his nature.
    Conrad turned to the Apothecary, “when is the next supply convoy?”
    “There ought to be one first thing tomorrow morning, I imagine,” he replied.
    “They come through the village?”
    The Apothecary shook his head, “no, they bypass the village and follow the main track through the forest up to the castle.”
    “So,” began The Doctor, the wheels of a plan turning in his head, “if we put a tree down in the road, the truck will have to stop and we can hijack it and drive it up to the castle?”
    “It will not be that easy,” the Apothecary told him, “they travel in convoy.”
    “Will the villagers help us?” Conrad asked, hopefully.
    There was a slow and considered nod from the Apothecary. “I think,” he said, after a few moments, “there are a few that will lend their strength if there is a chance of getting their people back.”
    The Doctor slapped his hands against his coat, decisively. “That sounds like the best plan we have!” he announced.
    Good,” exclaimed the Apothecary, suddenly animated. “I will speak to Mikkel and Gunther. They will be in the gasthaus soon, drinking the day away. Will you come?”
    The Apothecary led them out of his house and over to the village inn. The main bar was almost empty, only occupied by a few depressed-looking men, staring into their beers.
    Mikkel was perched on a corner of the bar, his shotgun propped up beside his leg. Conrad walked over to him and explained the plan, quietly. He asked whether or not Mikkel could round people up to help.
    The embittered villager scratched at his chin, smiling at the prospect of payback. “I can pull together five men, including myself,” he told Conrad. “Between us we have three hunting rifles plus my shotgun. The convoy should be a lead open car – what you Americans call a Jeep -  with a driver and two soldiers. The cargo truck will just have a driver.”
    “Is there anybody else who can help?” Conrad asked.
    Mikkel sighed, “the rest of the village is old women or crippled men. All the strong and healthy people have been taken to the castle.”
    Conrad smiled in acknowledgement and turned back to The Doctor and Georgie, “that's eight of us all together. Should be enough.”
    Georgie was impressed that Conrad had naturally included her. In her life she was so used to being excluded from important or dangerous or difficult work that she had naturally assumed she would have to argue to be involved in their plan. Were things so different in America, she wondered, or was it that The Doctor had brought her to a future where woman were finally considered equals?
    Conrad turned to The Doctor, “when we take the convoy, what do we do with the soldiers?”
    Georgie's voice cut through, “We shoot them.”
    The Doctor and Conrad turned in shock to face her.
    She continued, “they are the enemy, are they not?”
    “We're not taking any hostages?” Conrad asked her, surprised.
    “I say,” Georgie explained, “we are too few and it is too risky.” She was resolute.
    “I must say I'm a little shocked,” The Doctor explained, “I would have expected a more genteel attitude from a lady of your era.”
    Fire flashed in Georgie's eyes as she rounded on The Doctor. “Genteel?” she exclaimed, “I saw the Boer war, Doctor! This is a time of war.”
    “The Boer war?” The Doctor asked, confused, “Aren't you a bit young to have been a nurse?”
    “No,” she explained, “I lived there with my grandfather and I saw enough. He raised me because my own parents had been killed. War is war and we simply have to get on with it.”
    “But I thought you hated weapons?” The Doctor asked, confused.
    Georgie signed, “I do. But when our enemy has such terrifying weapons, what choice to we have but to use them?”
    The Doctor's face darkened. He had seen that argument throughout his studies of history. It always ended the same way. “Well, I think we should try to avoid killing them if we can,” The Doctor attempted, in a conciliatory tone.
    “I suppose they might be useful to us alive, in any case,” Georgie conceded.
    Mikkel got up off his bar stool and hefted his shotgun onto his shoulder, slightly drunkenly. “So,” he said, slurring ever so slightly, “what exactly is the plan?”
  
    The Doctor, Georgie and Seager had all been found lodging in adjoining houses around the village. There were plenty of unoccupied houses, given the amount of villagers who seemed to have been snatched away to the castle. Conrad found these homes eerie, frozen in a moment of time when their owners had been suddenly stolen from them.
    While the others struggled to sleep, Conrad was trained to put the mission out of his mind and take rest when he could find it. He couldn't afford to face the morning raid tired.
    He was woken by the sound of gunfire and shouting from the street. There was yelling and calling in German. He looked around and saw that there were no lights on in his house. Good, he thought, it would look deserted.
    He slid noiselessly out of bed, and padded over to the front window. In the central avenue of the village, a German staff car had pulled up and three occupants were standing around it, calling – almost mockingly – to the houses around.
    Conrad tried to switch his brain into German; they were saying something about more workers. It sounded like: “We need more volunteers to support the Glorious Reich. There is work for you to do. Submit yourselves to us willingly and we will not search the town for you.”
    He grabbed up his flight jacket and pulled it on, before placing his shiny, bug-eyed rudder helmet on his head. Expertly and silently he hoisted the rocket pack onto his shoulder and strapped it across his chest. He grabbed the Radium pistol from the dressing table and shoved it firmly into the holster.
    Conrad quickly moved back to the front of the house. He could see the soldiers getting impatient, trying to decide which house they would search first. Conrad had to bite back the urge to burst through the door and take them all on by himself.
    Instead, he searched around the house and found a door out to the back yard. He managed to open it quietly and stepped out into the bracing night air.
    There was a small fenced garden area with bushes and a large central tree. Conrad skirted around, using the foliage for cover until he had a view across the street.
    Movement in the shadows opposite caught his eye. He could see The Doctor emerging from a house opposite, slipping into a side alley. Conrad managed to catch The Doctor’s eye and pointed down the street towards the soldiers. The Doctor nodded, understanding.
    There was a burst of gunfire from up the street. Conrad was grateful that it was away from their position. But, where was Georgie!?
  
    Georgie had been sleeping only fitfully and had heard the car drive into town. At the sound of the gunfire she had leapt out of bed and stared about her, survival instinct kicking in.
    In that moment, surprised from her bed by the sounds of war she was carried back in her thoughts to the dark days of the Boer conflict and the night her father had rescued her from almost certain death.
    Tonight was a different time and a different war, but Georgie found herself automatically scanning the room for exits. That there was a back door to the house was excellent news, but what of the others?
    She crept over to the front windows and carefully peered through the netted curtains. She could see more of the soldiers they had seen at the castle, striding around their vehicle, calling for the villagers to come out.
    Georgie watched for a long while, refusing to move until the situation changed. After a while she could hear the soldiers debating loudly which house to begin searching.
    There was movement in the house opposite and Georgie saw Mikkel, the villager who had agreed to help them, crouching down by his window. He was holding his shotgun tightly and not being quiet. The soldiers had heard a sound and were turning in his direction to investigate.
    Once the soldiers had turned their backs to her, Georgie waved frantically to Mikkel. He looked up over his window-sill, waving to her in return. She tried to make a gesture to him that she was going to escape out the back. He waved a gesture of understanding, but did not move.
    Georgie held her breath.
    The soldiers stepped up onto the porch of the house and one of the men, who seemed to be an officer in charge, peered into the window on the opposite side of the house from where Mikkel was crouching.
    Mikkel had seen the movement, though, and Georgie watched in horror as the village raised his shotgun and blasted both barrels at the Nazi leader.
    The soldiers yelped and the officer ducked away as broken pieces of glass washed over him, cutting his face, neck and his hands where he raised them to protect himself.
    Another soldier spotted where Mikkel was crouched and smashed the pane in with the butt of his rifle. Without hesitating he aimed the weapon and put a shot into Mikkel. Georgie saw Mikkel slump to the floor, but could not see if he was alive or dead.
    The soldiers were shouting, barking orders at each other. The officer was enraged now, chastising his subordinates for their carelessness and instructing them to break in the door.
    Georgie bit her lip as the third soldier strode up to the door and began kicking on the fragile wood with his heavy boots. She looked at where the soldier with the rifle was pointing his deadly weapon at Mikkels helpless form. She couldn’t bear to watch. They had promised to help him, but now he lay dying in his own home.
    The soldier had, by now, managed to kick the door in. Georgie breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Mikkel moving, dragging himself back across his floor, away from the soldier, struggling to reload his own weapon. The soldier strode over confidently and punched Mikkel hard. Mikkel fell unconscious.
    Unable to bear any more, Georgie determined to end the bloodshed. In desperation and unable to think of any better way to intervene, she flung open the front door and ran out into the street, yelling “stop!” at the top of her voice.
  
    Conrad cursed under his breath as he watched Georgie run out into the street. She stopped dead as one of the soldiers spun around and levelled his rifle at her.
    “Stop right there!” came the call from the soldier,
    Georgie was looking all about her, searching for evidence of The Doctor and Conrad. Conrad managed to make eye contact with her.
    “Run,” he mouthed, lifting up his Radium Pistol so that she could see he was ready. To his amazement, Georgie simply shook her head and held her hands up as the soldier strode over to her.
    “Don't shoot,” Conrad heard Georgie say, in perfect German, “take me to your commanding officer.”
    Conrad punched the ground in front of him in frustration. He balled his fist again and felt the reassuring grip of the Rocket Pack’s throttle under his fingers.
    Looking over to the soldiers with determination, Conrad fired up the Rocket, illuminating the bushes all around him with orange fire.
    The soldier looked around to see the source of this noise, but could react in time. Conrad skirted low over the ground, the heat of his rocket flame leaving a trail of steam in the snow. He tackled the solder at waist height and hoisted him up into the air.
    The captive soldier stared at Conrad in horror, only seeing his own reflection in the opaque black lens of the metal helmet.
    The German Captain was shouting orders again now, striding out into the street to try to line up a shot at this flying man.
    Conrad twisted back around and flung his cargo towards the Captain. The helpless soldier flailed his arms and legs uselessly in the air before crashing to the ground in a silent heap. The Captain managed to step deftly aside and called to his other trooper for assistant.
    Quickly, Conrad pointed his Radium Pistol at the enemy Captain, still zooming towards him almost vertically down. He fired of a shot of blinding green radiation and looped back upward into the sky.
    The German Captain was illuminated by the glow of the shot for a moment and then slumped to the floor.
    Conrad jumped as he heard a bullet wizz by him and looked down to see the other soldier, firing wildly into the air with his MP40.
    There was another loud report and Conrad looked down to see that Georgie had picked up the rifle from the dead soldier and was trying to get a shot off at the remaining soldier.
    Her shot had gone wide, but it surprised the soldier enough that Conrad was able to loop around and get off another expert shot with his Radium Pistol. The soldier croaked painfully as the energy from the weapon burned every cell in his body and he, too, dropped to the ground.
    The fighting over, the Doctor rushed over to where the German Captain lay. “He’s not quite dead,” the Doctor reported, grimly, “but the amount of radiation he’s absorbed from that weapon will kill him in minutes.”
    Georgie threw the rifle away from herself, partly disgusted by the events of the battle and partly and her own failure to shoot straight.
    The Doctor said to Georgie, “it’s a good job you missed. A uniform full of holes won’t be much use to us!” She looked up at his open, honest face and couldn’t help but return his gaze with a slight smile.
    They rushed into the house to check on Mikkel as Conrad dropped back down to the ground, his descent as graceful as a falling leaf.
    Mikkel had regained conscious, but The Doctor could see clearly that he was too wounded to play any further part in their plans, despite Mikkel’s protestations.
    They carried him to the Apothecary’s house and placed him on a bed, while the Apothecary immediately set about bandaging the man’s gunshot wound.
    “Will you carry on with the raid,” the Apothecary asked the Doctor, earnestly, “I will take Mikkel’s place if I have to!”
    The Doctor smiled, “and waste the car that those soldiers have dropped into our laps? Certainly not! In any case, that patrol will be missed if they do not return. I suggest we wear their uniforms and return to the castle. We can pretend that Georgie is a captive.”
    Georgie huffed, “why should I have to be the prisoner?”
    “Because,” explained Conrad, “there are no women among the castle’s soldiers. So it’s either that or we have to find a way to strap down your bazookas.” He gave her a roguish grin and her cheeks burned.
    “Well,” said the Apothecary, “I’m still coming with you!”

Chapter Seven – The Lion’s Den

    The German staff car bounced quickly up the rocky road to the castle and it was not long before they saw the gate appear.
    As the soldier appeared in front of them and commanded them to halt, Conrad suddenly felt very naked without the Rocket Pack and helmet he had hidden beneath the seat, in favour of this enemy uniform.
    He brought the car to a stop. The guard looked them over, noting the prisoner in the back seat next to the Apothecary, who was keeping his helmet brim low so that his advanced years did not give him away.
    The Doctor leaned across Conrad to address the guard. “We've only captured one,” The Doctor said, cheerfully, failing to sound disappointed. “Shall we, umm, take her for interrogation?”
    The guard rolled his eyes, “Who would want to interrogate her? What could the villagers possibly know that is of any value? Put her in the workshop with the others!” With that he walked away and raised the barrier.
    Conrad drove through the castle gate, frustrated that the guards instructions hadn’t hinted at a direction to the slave’s workshop. In a flash of inspiration, Conrad realised he should follow the most worn path as that is where the majority of heavy traffic would have been going.
    The signs of wear went around to the right, in front of the main house which dominated the centre of the castle site. As they approached an interior bailey wall, they could see the huge section that had been cut out of it to allow access to a massive workshop. What had once been a courtyard had been roofed over with corrugated iron and turned into an open plan factory. Gaunt-looking slaves barely looked up as they approached in their car and parked in a marked space between the right side of main house and the workshop.
    Getting out of the car, Conrad made a show of roughly pushing Georgie ahead of them, sending her into the workshop.
    Inside, they could see guards strolling between the large workbenches. There were four work surfaces, one in each corner of the workshop. Every one had a bustling group of workers around it. Above these, about halfway up the wall, a metal gantry ran around the sides of the room to an upper office.
    In horror, they realised that the stiff, threatening guards which patrolled the upper gantry where three of the robotic horrors they had faced in the laboratory. Each was armed with a heavy and dangerous-looking rifle.
    The Doctor muttered under his breath to the group, “don't get too close to any guards. Somebody is bound to realise that they don't recognise us.”
    He looked around to see if his companions were heeding his words. Conrad simply nodded and Georgie gave him a flicker of subtle recognition.
    The Apothecary was clearly away in his own world. Ever since they came into the workshop his eyes had been desperately scanning the faces of the slaves to see if his daughter was in here.
    Conrad gave him a dig in the ribs. “Try not to be so obvious,” he warned him.
    “You don't understand,” the Apothecary replied, quietly, “she feels so close now!”
    “We'll find her,” Conrad assured him, hissing under his breath, “but we need to avoid blowing our cover!”
    The  Apothecary acquiesced, trying to be less deliberate in his searching, but told Conrad, “The most important thing for me is to find my daughter. I know we have to get everybody out, but I have to know what has become of her!”
    Conrad nodded, gently. “I understand,” he said.
    They jumped slightly as an officer strode up to the edge of the gantry and shouted, “You, men! Drop off your captives and make your way to the Commandant's office!”
    Conrad waved back uncertainly and croaked, “Ja!”
    “We need to come up with a plan,” said the Doctor, urgently, “Georgie, try to find out what you can from the prisoners. We’ll come back for you!”
    Georgie nodded, “I'll try to find out what work they are doing.”
    The Doctor looked around, cautiously. “We should go,” he muttered to Conrad, conspiratorially, “I have no intention of getting caught out in the commandant's office and sooner or later somebody is going to realise we're not keeping our appointment.”
    He spied an electric speaker system around the walls of the workshop and said to Georgie, “I'll try to broadcast a message over those speakers, if we need to signal you. I don't know what the plan is yet, but you may need to get everybody out, quickly.”
    “You!” barked a soldier nearby, suddenly approaching the Apothecary, “Take the new prisoner over to Work Group B!”
    The Apothecary nodded and gripped Georgie by the elbow.
    As he made to move away, Conrad gripped his arm and said, insistently, “Meet us outside in five minutes!”
    Defiantly, the Apothecary retorted, “when I've found my daughter!”
    “We won't wait!” Conrad warned him.
    A peaceful look came over the villager’s face. He smiled at Conrad kindly, almost resignedly. “You do what you must,” he said, “I thank you for bringing me this far.”
    Conrad and The Doctor watched with concern as their new friend strode away into he workshop with Georgie, amongst the guards, slaves and deadly metal robots.
  
    Work Group B, where Georgie had been assigned, seemed to be working on cutting the black metal they had seen on the Robot Soldiers. The tools seemed very advanced. Georgie recognised very few of them but she was handed an object shaped like a child’s catapult, which had an arcing beam of electricity across the “arms”. It seemed to cut through the metal very effectively.
    The lady working next to her was much older than Georgie. Almost too old to be working, Georgie thought. Eventually the older lady leaned across to speak to her.
    “You new?” the lady asked Georgie.
    “Yes, I am.”
    “When did they take you?”
    “This morning,” Georgie sighed, thinking back to the events of the raid. That’s how it must have been for all of these people.
    The lady made a sympathetic click with her tongue, “I'm sorry to hear that, dearie.”
    “What is this place?” Georgie asked her.
    The lady shrugged, “we don't know, it's just The Factory. They dragged us here to work.” After a pause, she leaned closer and asked, even more quietly, “Are you from the town. Is there anybody left?”
    “There's a few,” Georgie replied, honestly.
    The lady sighed, sadly. “It feels like everybody I've ever known is either here, or gone...”
    Concerned, Georgie asked her, “is everybody here still alive?”
    “There've been deaths,” the lady told her, “Malnutrition is rife. And where we have to sleep is disgusting. Many get sick. Then there are those taken off…”  She trailed off.
    “What about them?” Georgie pressed.
    The woman’s face grew dark. “We don't know,” she said, “They are taken away for what the soldiers call ‘tests’. They are never seen again.”
    Georgie looked around carefully, before asking, “How may guards are there watching us?”
    The woman instantly shot her a warning stare. “Don't you go thinking that way!” she snapped, “The best you can hope for is to knuckle under and hope this will all blow over.”
    “Yes,” Georgie replied, gently, “But sometimes action is called for, surely?”
    “Well,” the woman snorted, “You'll be here long enough. You can count the guards for yourself. There's been a few that think your way. All they've done is gotten themselves and others killed!”
    “But isn't that better than to work for the enemy?” Georgie asked.
    The woman screwed up her nose in disdain. “What enemy?” she demanded, “these soldiers are our people. It's our own government forcing us to do this work.”
    “Well!” Georgie said, looking for an argument that may get through, “would you be doing this otherwise?”
    “Certainly not!” replied the lady, disgusted, “I'd be on my farm.”
    “Well, then!” Georgie pressed, sensing a victory in the debate, “If they are holding you against your will, then they are your enemy, King and Country or not!”
    The lady shrugged, “They're the ones with the guns and the robots. There's little we can do.”
    “Robots?” Georgie asked, innocently.
    “Oh yeah,” the lady replied, “Those big metal soldiers we're making for them.”
    “How long have you been doing this?”
    The lady squinted and looked at the ceiling, as if this would aid her memory. “Oh I don't know,” she said, eventually, “three months, maybe?”
    “And how many robots have you worked on?” Georgie continued.
    “Here, I don't know!” the lady protested at Georgie’s barrage of questions. “We just work on the parts that come through our hands. I don't know how many go into a single robot. All the work groups are working on different things.”
    “You must know how many times you've made the same component!” Georgie insisted.
    “I tell you I can't keep track,” the lady snapped at her. “All I know is we were being guarded just by soldiers for weeks. Suddenly, two weeks ago, the robots started appearing, so they must have enough parts now.”
    “You pair!” came a stern voice from behind them. Georgie looked around to see a soldier. “Stop talking and get on with your work!” he commanded.
    Georgie opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it and returned to the workbench, her head low.
  
    The Doctor and Conrad had moved outside, trying to figure out a next move. They were painfully aware that they were loitering and some soldiers back in the direction of the front of the house had noticed them. They began to walk around to the back of the castle.
    “Explosives will be in that main house,” Conrad suggested, “We should try to find a back entrance.”
    They almost walked into a pair of guards by a back door to the main house.
    The soldiers straightened as they approach and asked, “anything we can help you guys with?”
    The Doctor thought quickly, “Oh, we've come to relieve you from duty. The commandant wants to see you.”
    One of the soldiers rolled his eyes, “Really? Oh well. While we're gone, try not to spill anything.”
    The pair of them headed through a small door set into the back of the massive house.
    “Try not to spill anything?” Conrad repeated, confused, as he and The Doctor took in the enormity of where they were standing.
    Piled up against the back bailey wall were barrels upon barrels market “Fuel.” A green camouflage net was stretched over them to disguise them from the sky, causing the light to fall across them in dappled shapes. Parked in front of the fuel dump was a large tanker.
    “I think I have a plan,” said The Doctor, grinning.  “Our primary goal is surely to destroy their manufacturing capabilities?” Conrad nodded in agreement. “We could drive the fuel tanker into the workshop and try to detonate it,” The Doctor continued, “That would do a great deal of damage. Obviously we'd like to get the villagers out first.” He thought for a moment, “But, we probably haven't got long before those soldiers realise we've sent them on a wild goose chase.”
    Conrad climbed up through the driver’s door and looked in. “The keys aren't inside,” he reported, “There must be a fleet office nearby where they store the keys.”
    “Let me try mine,” announced The Doctor and pulled his faithful Sonic Screwdriver out of his pocket. He pointed it at the ignition. Nothing happened.
    “Oh,” expressed The Doctor, disappointed.
    “Hang on,” Conrad said pointed to a small shed at the far end of the fuel dump, “that's probably it.”
    Conrad left the Doctor staring dolefully at his impotent Sonic Screwdriver and walked over to the shed.
    Inside was an old soldier, reading a book. He looked up as Conrad entered. “Yes?”
    Conrad struggled to gather his best German. “Good day…” he attempted.
    “Good day,” the old soldier repeated back, politely.
    “I've been told to get the keys,” Conrad told him.
    The old man gave him an impatient look and indicated a row of 20 hooks, each bearing keys. “I have lots of keys, see for yourself,” he said, “What are you looking for?”
    “We've been … asked to move the fuel truck,” Conrad attempted, struggling to think of the right word for tanker.
    The old soldier looked at him curiously. “That's a strange accent you have there, boy,” he commented, “where are you from?”
    Conrad faltered.  “Munich...” he offered, hoping that was sufficiently far enough away to be considered exotic.
    The old soldier rolled his eyes. “Figures,” he said and grabbed a key off the rack and tossed it to Conrad.
    Meanwhile, The Doctor had decided to buy them a little time. He headed over to the back door that the other soldiers had disappeared through and pointed the Sonic Screwdriver at the lock. There was a hiss and a puff of smoke as the metal in the locked melted and reformed into a solid mass.
    It wasn’t before time. As The Doctor stepped back there came an impatient banging and rattling from behind the door.
    As Conrad came running back over, The Doctor told him, “we'd better hurry, that won't hold them. I’ve checked the tank and its full of fuel. You drive the truck and I'll use the Sonic to signal an evacuation in the workshop!”
    As he stepped down from the cab, a group of four German soldiers came running around the corner of the house, shouting, “stop!”
    Instinctively, Conrad hit the accelerator and drove straight towards the soldiers. They raised their machine guns to fire at him, while Conrad threw his own MP40 out of the window to The Doctor.
    The Doctor picked it up for effect, albeit with no intention of pointing it at anybody. Instead, he focused his gaze on a nearby tower of fuel barrels and concentrated his thoughts.
    The top barrel swayed left and right and eventually the power of The Doctor’s telekinesis caused it to break free and roll fast towards the soldiers. Two of the soldier were forced to stop aiming at Conrad and dive to one side.
    The remaining two soldiers opened fire. The windscreen crashed inwards and The Doctor gasped with concern as a pair of bullets shredded into Conrad’s shoulder and splattered blood across the seats.
    The other soldier aimed downwards and fired at the wheels. The nearside tire blew out, violently and Conrad fought to keep the tanker under control, while struggling at the same time with the pain and weakness in his shoulder.
    The tanker smashed into the stone wall of the bailey. Metal grinded against the wall and the tanker gradually choked before coming to a halt, the engine stalled.
    The Doctor look around the corner of the main house to see even more soldiers running their way.
  
    Georgie could hear the commotion from outside and guessed it was The Doctor and Conrad, but felt powerless to do anything. Focusing on her own task, she managed to count the guards: four on the workshop floor, one by each work group. There was another guard that periodically returned, up on the gantry, with an irritated look on his face. She smiled to herself in realisation that he was still waiting for The Doctor to report in. As well as those men there were the three robot soldiers, looming over the slaves, ominously.
    Of the slaves themselves, there numbered about 60, of both sexes and a wide range of ages.
    Avoiding upsetting the older lady again, Georgie asked the woman on the other side of her, “these tools are strange! How long have you been using them? Where does this technology come from?”
    “I don't know,” the woman replied, noncommittally, “They were shipped in from outside.”
    “What metal is this?” Georgie asked.
    “Oh we don't know that either,” the woman continued, “It's all shipped in from outside. I just cut it to the pattern.”
    Sensing that she wasn’t making progress, Georgie changed tack. She nodded towards the human soldier on the gantry. “Who's the frustrated-looking man up there?” she asked.
    The woman raised an eyebrow, “That is Uberleiutenent Strauss. He manages the workshop.”
    “Is he from the town?”
    She shook her head, “He's not a local. He took over the castle when the army moved in.”
    “There were people living here before?”
    “Oh yes,” the woman nodded, “Years back – before the war – there was a noble family, but the army have been here since the war started. Strauss is alright, but don't get on his wrong side. If you get on his wrong side he'll send you to Commandant Jurgens and then you're in trouble!”
    “I presume,” Georgie pressed, “that people who go to see him never come back?”
    The woman shrugged, “Several haven't.”
    Georgie leaned in a little closer and said, “Suppose I wanted to talk to somebody about getting out of here, who would you recommend?”
    “Ha,” the woman scoffed, “I'd recommend you keep your mouth shut!”
    “There must be somebody here that wants to change things?” Georgie insisted.
    “Where would we go? If we left the castle they'd just come and find us again and it would be the worse for us.”
    “Not if we did things differently,” Georgie suggested, “With their weapons and guns we could create our own army and be free.”
    “Even if we could,” the woman argued, “that's just here. What about the rest of the country, or even Europe?”
    “Europe's a big place,” Georgie offered, hopefully, “There must be some resistance?”
    “Look,” the woman said, kindly, “I know it seems terrible here at first, but we're not that badly off. You look at what's happened in other countries. Look at what happened to England!”
    Georgie tried not to think about the story Conrad had told them about England's dreadful fate.
    “Well, all I can say is,” the woman continued, “nobody wanted to see happen here what happened in England. So, to be honest, building these robots may be for the best. Maybe they will be our protection against the fire that falls from the sky.” She stopped, as she could see Georgie's troubled face. She said, kindly, “Look, I used to think like you. Even up to a couple of weeks ago I thought about it. But since I've seen these robots – seen what they do to those who run – I wouldn't try anything now. These robots are inhuman. They seem to know exactly where you are moving and to fight one is certain death. They are lethal.”
    “Whatever you say, you are still a slave,” Georgie told her, suddenly defiant, “These things you are building will never be good for you. You're just an accessory to your own end!”
    “I suppose you're right,” the woman conceded, sadly, “But what can we do? How can I help?”
    “You can point me in the direction of someone else who thinks like me!”
  
    The soldiers commanded The Doctor to drop the machine gun. He did so.
    At the same time, soldiers were shouting at Conrad to get out of the truck.
    Conrad was fighting against the pain, desperate to find some way out of this trap. He tried to fire the engine again, hoping that he could mow through the soldiers and get out. The truck failed to move and his actions were met only by the sound of warning gunfire in the air.
    Seeing The Doctor’s own look of surrender, Conrad moved to climb out of the truck. Realising he would be searched, Conrad stowed the Radium Pistol under the seat as he climbed down. At least it should still be there if they could get away.
    The soldiers began to pat them down, searching them for weapons.
    As the soldier searched The Doctor, the Timelord tried, psychically, to divert the soldier’s attention – a little mental manipulation he knew might cause the soldier to overlook his inside pocket. The Doctor realised he must be tired: his attempt to trick the soldier’s mind fell flat and the man’s hand knocked against the weighty shape of the Sonic Screwdriver. He reached in and took it out, looking at it curiously.
    “That isn’t a weapon…” The Doctor attempted, but the soldier gave him a hard stare and pocketed the device.
    “What did you do to this door?” the soldier demanded, pointing at the useless lock of the back door.
    “I, umm, jammed it,” The Doctor explained, apologetically.
    “Well, unjam it!” the soldier demanded.
    “I can't,” The Doctor told him.
    “Sheiser!” exclaimed the soldier and fired his machine gun into the lock before kicking the door in.
    The Doctor and Conrad were manhandled through the door and into the main house. The small door led into what must once have been a kitchen. They were led through into a large, ornate hall bedecked with Swastika flags and dominated by a sweeping staircase.
    Conrad was now staggering with the pain in his bleeding shoulder as he and The Doctor were pressed up the stairs at gunpoint. They were led to an official-looking door, padded with lush red leather.
    They stopped and the soldiers knocked on the wooden outer panel of the door.
    “Yes, what is it?” came a gruff reply from inside.
    “We have prisoners for you, sir!” the soldier replied.
    “Very well.”
    The soldier opened the door and they were led inside to a large room. At the far end was a big mahogany desk, across which sat a sharp-faced, powerful looking man.
    “You will be respectful before Commandant Jurgens!” the soldier barked at The Doctor and Conrad, before stepping back to take up a sentinel position by the door.
    Commandant Jurgens got up from his desk and approached them. He walked up and down in front of them a couple of times, seemingly trying to make his mind up about something.
    Eventually he stopped in front of The Doctor and waggled a decisive finger in his face. When he spoke, the Timelord’s blood ran cold.
    “Doctor…” said Commandant Jurgens.