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Baal stepped back. 'She is your daughter, Auggi! My sister.'

Auggi glared at him, and Baal saw something in his mother's eyes that he had been too devoted to see previously, too blinded by admiration and the need to keep his own secrets from her.

'I don't care.' Auggi smiled. 'Blast that cruiser to atoms.'

And Baal fmally realized what Chukk had always known. Why Chukk and the Triad had refused her original application for leadership after his father's failure to survive hibernation. Auggi wasn't just hungry for power, driven by obsession. She was completely mad.

---

'Mike! Look!'

Carol Bell pointed into the night sky, trying not to shiver despite her heavy parka anorak. Something had flown low overhead, momentarily blotting out the moon.

They were huddled down by the old cottage on the top of the Smallmarshes cliff-side, the one where the boy had vanished and the policewoman had been driven mad. It was cold, slightly damp and she wished she were back at UNIT HQ, running her efficient Communications Division, aided by Maisie Hawke and Larry Parkinson. She was not made for late-night surveillance, no matter how desperate the Brigadier was for extra troops. Mind you, the overtime would be useful.

Mike Yates tried to keep track of the low-flying object, but it was so dark that he could not see a thing. 'Wonder what that was.'

Bell gave in to her shiver. 'It wasn't animal, that I can tell you. The ground trembled very slightly as it went over. And my ears needed to pop.'

Yates looked at her. 'Are you sure?'

'Yes. Why?'

'You must have been directly below it. Maybe it landed on the beach.'

'What did?'

Mike put his finger to his lips. 'Don't ask too many questions. I only know about it because I stumbled on some meeting the Brig had with Major General Scobie a few weeks ago.'

'Can I ask just one question?'

Mike nodded. 'Make it one that requires a quick answer.'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'A stealth plane. Low-level reconnaissance. Possible armament as well. Got nicked from Geneva about a month back. They blamed our Government for leaking its existence. Scobie was asked to shift the blame onto us.'

Bell could imagine the Brigadier's response. 'I bet the old man was livid.'

Mike smiled. 'Well, he wasn't best pleased. Gave Scobie an earful that John Benton and I could hear from the Mess.'

'So, who did nick it?'

Mike shrugged and started down the cliff path. 'Whoever it was just landed it down in that cove. Look.'

Bell peered over the cliff path's edge and saw a cove which, during a hot summer day, was probably swarming with bathers believing they'd found somewhere exclusive. It certainly had to be looked hard for. Sitting on the sand, like a huge shadow, was a triangular-shaped aeroplane. A small one, large enough for five or six crew only. Despite the bright moon and stars, no light reflected off it at all. It was like a huge triangle of black had been carved into the beach. They could not see how high or low it sat; it simply did not possess any points of reference for gauging such things.

Bell pointed to the left, further in towards the cliffs. She could see about six or seven black-clad guards, slightly more distinguishable than the craft in which they'd arrived. She shot a questioning look at Yates, but he shrugged.

'Never seen those uniforms before. The guns are standard UNIT issue though.'

Bell nodded. 'Which means they're unique. Our SLRs have faster reload and less recoil than regular issue.'

'I thought I'd noticed a difference.'

'That's nothing, Mike. C19 are working on developing a sub-machine-gun that fires armour-piercing explosives like bullets. You lot should have them in a few months.'

Mike Yates tapped his service revolver. 'I'm happy with this tonight. Less cumbersome. Are you armed?'

'Of course.'

'Prepared to use it?'

'Of course.'

'Ever used a gun out of the practice range at Guildford?'

'Of course not.' Bell smiled. 'But there's always the first time. There aren't many telephonists that get to shoot up the bad guys.'

Mike touched her arm. 'You'll be all right. Don't take any risks. Whoever these chaps are, they're not on our side, despite their armament. It's more important that at least one of us gets to report back to the old man, as you call him, than that we both be heroes. Is that understood, Corporal?'

Maisie Bell stared at him, then at her gun. 'Yes, Sergeant. Sir.'

Yates grinned. 'Okey-dokey, you watch them, I'm going down.' And he slipped off into the darkness.

---

'She's firing on us!' Tahni was astonished. 'My own mother has launched torpedoes at me!'

The Doctor was staring at the same read-out as Tahni. 'I thought this was a battle cruiser. Can't you fire back?'

Tahni shook her head. 'No. This is a craft designed for short-range manoeuvres. The missiles we carry are good, but not at that distance.'

The Doctor waved his hand over the console, bringing up a picture of the torpedoes streaking towards their craft. 'Where are your short-range missiles?'

Tahni pointed to a control on her side of the cruiser. The Doctor gently eased her aside. 'Excuse me.' He sat at her console, and she sat at his.

'What are you doing, Ape?'

'Watch. And learn.' The torpedoes were almost upon them. The Doctor cast a quick look at Marc, unconscious in the corner, then back at Tahni. 'Hold very tight. This will hurt.'

The expression of puzzlement was still on her face as the Doctor fired their short-range missiles. He waved his hand over the button again, and the cruiser bucked violently as the missiles exploded outside, neutralizing the incoming torpedoes as well.

The Doctor held tightly to his seat, but Tahni was flung out of hers and over the back, where she thudded to the floor next to Marc. She was on her feet in seconds, however, as the Doctor wrestled with the controls.

'Clever, Ape.' She pushed him aside and sat in her seat, trying to calm the cruiser. A massive explosion wrecked a rear console, showering the Doctor and Marc in sparks. 'Outer hull breached,' Tahni hissed. 'We're going to be taking on water in seconds.'

'How far to the beach?'

'A few more seconds and we'll be at the underwater tunnel I created. It's airtight, but you might want to wear our clothing for warmth.'

'No time.' The Doctor pointed at the side of the cruiser where the console had exploded. A dribble of water was seeping through, setting off more minor bangs. 'Get away from those controls,' he yelled.

Tahni did not need to be told twice. She swivelled round and jumped towards the Doctor as both the pilot's and navigator's consoles erupted, shattering the view screens. 'We're moving blind,' she shrieked and an instant later the cruiser crashed into something hard.

'We'll have to swim for it,' the Doctor cried, grabbing Marc and throwing him over his shoulder. He pointed at an emergency red switch. 'Is that for the hatches?'

Tahni nodded. 'This will fill with water in seconds. You'll drown!'

The Doctor ignored her, hitting the hatch release. The catches on the hatch opposite exploded but the door flew inwards rather than out, almost hitting the Doctor and Marc. There was a small splash, and for a moment it seemed as if they were safe. Then a massive inrush of water filled the cabin, flushing the three bodies straight out.

The Doctor looked for the darkest patch above him, knowing that this usually indicated the safest place to surface. A few seconds later he and Marc broke the surface and the Doctor gasped for air. He turned his head. The beach was close and, lying Marc on his back, the Doctor dragged him, half-swimming, half-puffing towards the sand and pebbles. Just as they got there, the water behind erupted in a fountain of froth. The cruiser had exploded. 'Tahni?' called the Doctor. 'Tahni, where are you?'

'She's right here,' said a man's gruff voice.

The Doctor found himself staring down the muzzle of a high-velocity rifle. He looked to his left and realized that sitting on the beach was one of the Government's new, and highly secret, stealth aircraft. 'Interesting,' he murmured. 'I didn't think that had made it beyond the drawing-board yet.' Tahni was being held by four other men, a gun at her head. The Doctor caught her look, and saw her third eye begin to flare. Hoping that Reptiles could see better in the dark than humans, he mouthed a 'No' and was relieved to see the red glow fade.

Another soldier was hauling Marc over his shoulder. The man who had initially spoken waved his gun at the plane. 'Into the Blackbird, all of you.'

The Doctor, the man carrying Marc and those with Tahni all boarded the ramp. The leader looked around, then whistled.

The man who was obviously the group's look-out heard the whistle. He was about to give one back when a large lump of rock caught him behind the ear. He dropped like the proverbial stone, but before he even hit the ground, he was yanked back into the darkness of a recess in the cliff.

Mike Yates unclipped the man's belt and used a knife to slice through his boot laces. Mike had already shed his own top clothes and was trying not to shiver as he unzipped the black coveralls. The whole procedure only took thirty seconds, but it was long enough for the leader to whistle again. Hurriedly, Mike zipped up the coverall on his own body and slipped on the damaged boots, hoping no one would look too closely at the laces. Pushing on the helmet and snapping down the visor to cover his face, he stumbled out of the recess, almost crashing into the group's leader.

Mike mumbled an apology as indistinctly as he could. 'Yeah, well, we'll discuss your look-out abilities back at the Vault,' said the leader, pushing him towards the plane.

Forty-five seconds later, the plane executed a perfect vertical lift-off and, watched by Corporal Bell, silently shot back into the sky and headed northwards.

---

Auggi and Krugga watched the cruiser explode into millions of pieces as their torpedoes hit.

'Excellent. The Apes cannot be warned by my treacherous daughter.' Auggi pointed to Baal. 'And you had better return to your laboratory. I thought you had the stomach for war, the love of it that you should have inherited from your father.'

Baal looked hard at her and Krugga and then stepped back to the right-hand tunnel. But instead of heading down it, he waited, listening to his mother's next order to her Council.

'The Apes are pathetic,' she was ranting. 'Chukk was wrong. The Triad are wrong. It is our job to start a war with these usurpers. We will attack now, while it is dark.' She raised her hands dramatically. 'Arm the battle cruisers. Activate the Myrka. We'll attack now, destroy every Ape we see and take over this land mass. Once that is ours, their world will soon fall.'

Baal hurried back to his laboratory, then hesitated in the doorway, watching Sula and the Liz-Ape using the computers. The Liz-Ape's arm was in a sling, but she was clearly quite efficient at what she did.

Had he got it all wrong? Was his mother's fierce upbringing responsible for blinding him to the truth? Sula and Liz were working together. To some extent he and the Doctor were working together. Chukk and the Doctor had certainly worked together.

---

Alarms rang throughout the Shelter. Young able-bodied Earth Reptiles of every sort threw themselves into one, two or three-person cruisers and headed for the mainland at maximum speed. Auggi and Krugga led the attacking fleet from the main cruiser, which also housed the fearsome Myrka.

Auggi watched as the coastline grew in the viewscreen.

'Within a few hours, this planet will be ours!'

Chapter Seven

The Brigadier was sitting at his desk when Sergeant Benton looked around the door. He was staring at a sheet of paper and Benton decided he looked so lost in thought that he'd better go out again and knock.

'Don't bother, Sergeant, I saw you. Come in.' The Brigadier waved him into a seat. Benton lowered himself down and looked across the desk. He had begun working with the Brigadier shortly after the business with the Great Intelligence in the London Underground. When the Brigadier had been promoted and had set up the basic structure of UNIT, Benton had been a private in the regular army. It had been Major-General Rutlidge, the Brigadier's original liaison with the army, who had put John Benton's name forward for the Brigadier's short-list of potential UNIT troops. Both he and Jack Tracy had experience of undercover work, and that seemed to appeal to Lethbridge-Stewart; enough for him to call both men in for a meeting, outlining UNIT'S future role in the defence of Britain. And the world, as it turned out. Both promoted to corporals, they had met Captain Turner and Sergeant Walters, the Brigadier's immediate staff. Maisie Hawkes and Carol Bell had been there from the start, too.

Benton thought briefly of those who had passed through UNIT's ranks. Jimmy Munro, now back with the regular army. Stan Hawkins and Sergeant 'Big' Hart, both victims of the Silurians. Countless squaddies, corporals and technical bods. And at the heart of it all, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, a man Benton not only respected and admired as his leader, but liked enormously as a person. Benton would never be so gauche as to think of his commanding officer as a friend, but there was a mutual respect between them both that Benton enjoyed.

He was fiercely loyal to the Brigadier and knew that Lethbridge-Stewart was equally loyal in return. After all, the old man had pushed hard to convince Major-General Scobie, Billy Rutlidge's successor, to make Benton up to a sergeant. Slowly, the team that the Brigadier had always wanted had been formed. Apart from non-active corporals like Bell and Hawke, UNIT now had a handful of rotating corporals - Tom Osgood, Jack Tracy and Steve Champion, a couple of sergeants in himself and Mike Yates and even a major, Alex Cosworth, on attachment for six months from the regular army. Cosworth, however, was another non-active officer, brought in to help sort out the administrative side. Benton thought he was OK, a bit of a university snob who was pretty good at pushing pens, but likely to be useless in field action. The Brigadier presumably agreed since Cosworth had yet to leave the confines of the Admin block at the Guildford HQ.