“You know,” said Private Doherty quietly. “If I had more in the way of basic engineering programming, I’d say this ship was powering up.”

“They are getting more regular,” Corporal Ryan observed.

“Then we’re running out of time,” said Cameron.

Sergeant Cameron and the five remaining members of Captain Hamilton’s platoon had reached the bottom of the ship. Taking point, Private Ellison had found another perfectly square opening, another airlock, at a point where all the passages seemed to converge. This airlock was in the floor, and it was open; a ramp sloped down into the darkness. Now they waited expectantly.

Presently, Private Spooner came running up the ramp, light-footed, stripped of his gear as he was. He had a grey, determined look on his face.

“What could you see?” Cameron asked.

“Cybermen,” he said shortly, slipping his body armour back on over his dusky tunic and clipping marine accoutrements back onto his belt.

The others shifted uncomfortably.

“How many?” Ryan said.

Spooner shook his head. “I counted seventeen, but those were just the ones I could see. I found the turbine. At least I think it’s the turbine. It must be the turbine; all the pipes are leading into it and it’s got these giant sparks of electricity, like lightning bolts shooting off it, lighting up the cave.”

“Cave?” said Cameron.

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s in a cave. We must be right up against the valley wall here; they’ve bored a giant hole right into the rock-face.”

“How close did you get?” said Ryan.

Spooner shook his head again. “I couldn’t. The thing looks like it’s about to fall apart at any second, anyway, and they’ve got it surrounded, kinda like bees; every time one bit starts to break down, they all fester around it and fix it.”

“They got their guns?” asked Private Wells.

“Some of them have, yeah.”

For a few moments, nobody said anything. Cameron chewed his tongue, then tried to look at his timepiece without annoying noticing.

“I’m sure they’ve got out by now, Sarge,” Doherty said.

“How long has it been?” said Ellison.

“Long enough,” Ryan replied.

Cameron curled his top lip. “Yeah; if the Doctor managed to find Rose; and if he truly believed I actually wanted to go down with the ship.”

Nobody said anything for a while.

Finally Doherty said, “Shouldn’t that be ‘go up with the ship’, Sarge?”

After a few seconds, the other marines laughed.

“All right,” Cameron sighed. “Then let’s do this. If what Spooner says is right, then all we’ve got to do is keep the Cybermen busy long enough for the turbine to fall apart of its own accord. It’s going to be almost three against one down there, so keep it tight, people; watch each other’s backs: Sigma Tau Delta formation.”

The six of them started down the ramp together.

The Doctor and Rose were running. The Doctor was running faster.

“Come on, Rose! This was your idea; stop dawdling!”

The sooty back earth felt almost soft beneath Sergeant Cameron’s feet, but he realised it was the first solid ground he had walked on since they had crashed. There was no machinery, no robotic effluence here. It was like the Cybermen had cleared the entire area, though little bergs of steel still poked up out of the ground and glinted in the low-light, and wafer-thin iron shavings crunched satisfyingly underfoot.

Private Spooner was leading the way. He was using the beam of light from the end of his gun to probe out a path, but it was already lit for them. There were metal stalks planted in the ground at regular ten-yard intervals, the tops glowing brightly like incandescent sunflowers. The path led from the bottom of the ramp to the mouth of the cave, which was no more than thirty yards from the ship. It looked like the Cybermen had melted a hole out of the rock-face like the rock was only butter.

Overhead they were protected by a canopy of pipes, beyond which, Cameron presumed, there were several million tonnes of junk metal pressing down. Some of the pipes followed them from the hull of the ship. Others disappeared between yet other pipes, snaking away into the scrap-filled valley. As they walked, geysers erupted some distance away, and the pipes rocked and roared above their heads.

They reached the mouth of the cave and stopped.

“Oh my god,” said Corporal Ryan.

The turbine was about thirty feet high, barrel-shaped, wider in the middle than it was at the top or the bottom. It looked like the body of a huge octopus, with all the pipes feeding into the bottom, but it had considerably more than eight legs. The thing was letting out an agonising, relentless groaning noise, and the longer he stood still, the more Sergeant Cameron noticed the unnatural vibration passing through the ground beneath his feet. The turbine seemed to visibly shake in its rocky moorings, but maybe that was just a heat-shimmer, Cameron thought. The cave was well lit, but he couldn’t see any light source. Then he realised the light was coming from the turbine itself, glowing intermittently red and white-hot at the extremities. Periodically, great arcs of electricity also shot out, and coursed about the cave.

The Cybermen hadn’t spotted Cameron or his men yet, or perhaps they didn’t believe the soldiers were a threat. Cameron felt small and insignificant in the shadow of their turbine, which even made the Cybermen look small. Without counting, he could see there were more than seventeen, maybe twenty-five. They busied around the turbine, descending on any part of it that began to smoke or fall apart, just like Private Spooner had described. They managed to evade the arcs of white electricity snapping around the interior of the cave, which looked instantly fatal to Cameron.

“Sir, I’ve got a TSI,” Private Doherty said.

“Glad someone has,” Cameron replied. “Let’s hear it.”

Doherty plucked one of the tall, lighted stalks out of the ground and held it above his head, as if checking out the hull of the Cyberman spaceship behind.

“Sir, it’s obvious the Cybermen knew their jury-rigged turbine was going to be too unstable to house on their ship; that’s why they built a cave for it.”

“I think we can see that, Private,” Ryan said.

“What’s your TSI?” said Cameron.

“Well, if the geyser jets are being channelled into that cave to generate power, then somehow that power must be being channelled back out into the ship.”

“Ho, ho, ho, he’s right!” Private Ellison hissed.

The others started murmuring excitedly.

“There must be some sort of a conduit,” Doherty continued. “If we can find that conduit, and sever it, permanently, those bastards won’t be going anywhere.”

“So where is it, then?” Ryan demanded.

Doherty lowered the lighted stalk. “I don’t know. I can’t see it. Sir, if I can get close enough to the turbine, I’d be able to identify the outlet, I’m sure.”

Looking around the platoon, the men seemed keen.

Cameron sighed. “All right; that beats the hell out of waiting for the thing to self-destruct, I suppose. Change of plan: Doherty’s going to go for the turbine, the rest of us are going to keep the Cybermen busy.” Then to Wells: “Leave that thing here, Private; last man standing... well, you know what you need to do.”

Private Wells put the grey case containing the rocket launcher down, and then the six of them started into the cave together.

The Doctor and Rose were still running. Rose was still running slower.

“Doctor, wait up! Have you seen my other shoe?”

The Cybermen killed Private Spooner first.

As soon as Sergeant Cameron and his men crossed the threshold and entered the cave, it was like they had set off a silent alarm. Instantaneously, about half - twelve - of the Cybermen, broke off from the turbine and turned. The firing started immediately, but only six or seven of the Cybermen were carrying pulse-guns.

“Target the ones with weapons!” Cameron ordered.

Right after he said it, the charge from a Cyberman gun fizzled past his ear, singing his hair, and hit the rock behind him. He dived to the ground.

When he looked up, his men had broken Sigma Tau Delta formation, whereby they moved in an ever-turning elliptical configuration. But they had had no choice; as the twelve Cybermen headed toward them across the open, flat cave floor, the troops had ducked for cover behind pipes, or the giant boulders, tall as men, that had broken away and fallen from the arched ceiling of the cave since its construction.

“Sarge, watch out!” Private Wells hollered.

Cameron stayed down, but looked up. Four Cybermen were coming right for him, guns being swept round to sight on him. He realised he was too exposed out here in the open, but didn’t have enough time to clamber to his feet.

He pushed himself into a sideways body-roll, as the four Cyberman laid down a wicked arc of fire that converged on the spot where he’d just been lying. As soon as he came to a stop, Cameron was up, and dived for cover beside Wells.

“Thanks, Private,” he said breathlessly.

“Have I saved your ass enough times for a promotion yet, Sarge?”

Cameron smirked. “No, but you’ve kissed it more than enough.”

Wells laughed as the four Cybermen split up and settled on separate targets.

“Look! Doherty’s going to make it, Sarge!”

Cameron peered over the top of the large pipe behind which he and Wells, and a little further along, Private Ellison as well, were sheltering. The twelve Cybermen were descending on Corporal Ryan and Private Spooner, who were ducking and weaving between various massive boulders, taking pot-shots at the metal giants.

“Look! There!” Wells pointed right past them.

Cameron could barely see Private Doherty. Without skin, let alone armour, and with his metal endoskeleton now a metal exoskeleton, and that metal charred to a dull, non-reflective black by the heat from that geyser, Doherty slipped almost invisibly along the wall of the cave. He was halfway to the turbine already. That the Cybermen hadn’t seemed to notice him at all boosted Cameron’s spirits.

Suddenly, there was a loud crunch and a scream.

“Spoon!” Ryan bellowed, over the horrendous roar of the turbine.

Cameron looked over the top of the pipe again, narrowly missing being hit in the helmet by the stray blast from a Cyberman weapon.

“No!” Wells cried under his breath.

The Cyberman that had a bone-crunching grip on the elbow of Spooner’s gun arm didn’t even have a weapon. It had managed to sidle around the boulders and catch him unaware from behind. Spooner flailed in its talons, firing his weapon constantly, though his arm was broken, but the rounds just ricocheted off the Cyberman’s metal legs and did no damage. Then another Cyberman arrived on the scene.

“Hey! Hey!” Ryan shouted at them, darting from side to side, in and out and between the boulders, trying to draw their attention.

But the two Cybermen took Spooner by an arm each and then pulled him taut, then lifted him up off his feet. He kicked in the air, kicked them right in the chassis, but they didn’t even flinch. As Ryan opened fire and Ellison hopped over the pipe to join him amongst the rocks, a third Cyberman blocked their view of Spooner. They didn’t need to see what happened next. The third Cyberman lifted its weapon.

The smoking remains of Spooner fell to the ground.

Next they killed Corporal Ryan.

The twelve Cybermen dispersed once more, though half of them started to perfect a stranglehold around the maze of boulders in which Ryan and Ellison were ducking and weaving. The rest headed for Cameron and Wells.

“Come on!” Cameron said, slapping Wells in the chest-plate with the back of his hand and pushing himself up onto his feet.

As the six approaching Cybermen rained fire upon his position, Cameron went into a forward roll and didn’t unfold until he banged into one of the boulders. Then he ducked around the other side, feet barely scuffing the dirt.

Back pressed against the massive slab of rock, he looked around and saw the Cybermen closing on the pipe. Only one of them had a gun, which was lucky for Wells. The young private leapt up with a primal shout, rammed his weapon forward and blasted that Cyberman clear in the face. Viewed from behind, the metal giant seemed to go dizzy, then toppled backwards. It smashed into the dirt and then Wells came scrabbling right over the top of it. The other Cybermen pursued.

Wells continued scuttling forward. As he came round the boulder, Cameron grabbed him and pulled him sideways. The private was shaking.

“You just got that promotion,” Cameron shouted to him over the noise of the suppressing fire Ryan and Ellison were laying down at the other group of Cybermen.

“I lost my gun,” Wells shouted back at him.

“Then I retract my last statement!”

“But I did get this.” Then Wells dragged something out from behind him. It was heavy and it left a trough through the loose black dirt.

“It’s one of their guns!” Cameron cried.

“Make me Corporal Wells and I’ll swap with ya!”

Cameron laughed. “You got it, Corporal.”

Suddenly, a Cyberman reared up over the massive boulder right in front of them and swung an identical weapon right into their faces. Cameron ditched his rifle, grabbed the Cyberman weapon, hefted it up with both hands, and let loose.

The Cyberman’s head almost flew off its shoulders it fell back so hard.

“We never stood a chance,” Cameron said under his breath, holding the powerful weapon up in front of him and looking at it in awe.

Just then Ellison came scurrying between the giant rocks and fell to his knees, exhausted, in front of them. He tossed his gun angrily to the side.

“I’m all out of ammo!” he spat.

“Here; it’s my last one,” said Wells, producing the clip from behind his chest-plate as he cradled Cameron’s old gun like it were his own.

“Sarge!” came a shout. It was Ryan.

He was nearby. Cameron, Wells and Ellison rose to squatting positions and Ellison slammed the fresh ammunition clip home.

“Don’t bunch up,” Ellison warned. “They go for easy targets.”

“I’m gonna make them easy targets!” Cameron hissed.

“Sarge!” Ryan shouted again.

He was still firing intermittently, but he had been firing continuously before, so Cameron reckoned the corporal must surely have been running out of ammunition as well; and Wells had just given Ellison the last of the clips.

Evading a couple of Cybermen, one armed, one unarmed, which he left to Wells and Ellison to deal with, Cameron headed toward Ryan’s voice.

“Sarge; up here!” the voice came again.

Cameron jerked a look up. To his surprise, Ryan had climbed up a series of pipes that were one on top of the other, and was now ducking on top of them, almost completely out of sight, sniping at Cybermen from a distance.

Cameron started climbing up toward him.

“Look! They’re going for Doherty!” Ryan cried.

As Cameron stopped climbing, and turned his head, a Cyberman pulse caught him right across the cheek. His feet slipped from underneath him and he fell, half deliberately, onto his back. He slid into a seating position and grabbed at his cheek. It felt like it was burning, but the kind of burn one gets from ice.

A lone Cyberman picked its way around the boulders, stepping over a nearby pipe, its gun targeting Cameron. The sergeant couldn’t lift his own Cyberman gun single-handedly, so let go of his cheek. He fired a blast just as the Cyberman fired a blast at him. He caught the metal giant in the chest; its arm jerked upward. The pulse missed Cameron by a wide berth, hitting somewhere overhead.

The Cyberman hit the nearest boulder heavily and its head began to spark.

Dabbing his new wound gently, Cameron found the pulse had cauterised the artificial skin. He got back to his feet and looked up.

Before he had climbed up a single pipe, he saw that Ryan was sitting forward at a strange angle, his head lolled to one side. He wasn’t blinking at all.

Then Cameron realised where that wayward Cyberman pulse had struck.

“Sarge!” Wells cried. Cameron spun round.

Wells and Ellison emerged from amidst the maze of boulders with their heads ducked down, and skidded to a stop on either side of him, aiming widely.

But there weren’t any Cybermen nearby.

“Where are they all?” Ellison said breathlessly.

And then Cameron remembered what Ryan had said just before he died. He snapped his head sideways and spied Doherty, nearing the turbine.

There were nine Cybermen closing on him.

“No!” Cameron growled, so guttural it was barely a word.

“We’ve gotta help him!” Ellison cried.

“With me,” Cameron hissed.

Leaving the cover of the boulders and the pipes behind, the three of them started running across the open. No Cybermen took advantage of their exposure. The nimble silhouette of Doherty showed up clearly in front of the brightly glowing generator, but it wasn’t just Cameron who could see him well.

Doherty was clambering over the pipes feeding into the base of the turbine, and the Cybermen working on it ignored him. Those encroaching on his position were the ones that had survived the assault on Cameron and the others. It was almost like they had given up on them as soon as Cameron had got one of their guns, the sergeant thought. Ellison was right, they went for easy targets: lone, unarmed men.

Cameron, Wells and Ellison fired a storm as they ran.

Before long, Wells cried, “I’m all out!”

Cameron wielded the Cyberman pulse-gun, but found the recoil slowed him down. He picked his shots carefully, downing two Cybermen from a distance.

“I need another clip!” Ellison shouted.

“You’ve had the last one!” Wells cried.

“Make every round count, Private,” Cameron hollered.

Doherty had stopped, but he hadn’t noticed he was being surrounded. He was ducking down, between the pipes. Cameron realised he had found the outlet.

“Run! Doherty, run for it!” Wells screamed.

Cameron held a hand out to silence Wells, but Doherty had heard. He looked round, saw the approaching Cybermen, and stood bolt upright.

Cameron thought he was going to balk from the Cyberman guns, but he didn’t; he quickly turned round and ducked between the pipes again. The Cybermen weren’t going to risk missing the nimble private and hitting their turbine instead. If only he could keep the Cybermen from reaching Doherty for a little bit longer.

They were only seconds behind the metal giants now.

The arc of white electricity cascaded out of the top of the Cyberman turbine, rippled across the stone ceiling, and then tore a jagged path across the cave before it dissipated into the rock. It took less than three seconds, but it only took a fraction of that to slice Private Doherty in half.

The Cybermen turned round instantly, and Cameron, Wells and Ellison stopped running toward them just as quickly.

The Doctor and Rose reached the square airlock.

“D’you really think they would have gone down there, Doctor?” Rose asked.

They heard the machine gun fire, and hurried down the ramp.

Sergeant Cameron’s fingers fumbled with the latches on the case. He threw the lid back and ripped open the binds that held the rocket launcher in place.

Suddenly Private Wells landed heavily beside him, groaning in agony and clutching the smoking metal stump where his left hand had been.

“Wells!” Cameron yelled.

“Do it, Sarge!” Wells cried through gritted teeth.

Behind them, Private Ellison was crouching in the firing position, firing continuously at the approaching Cybermen with Cameron’s pulse-gun.

“Hurry, Sarge!” Ellison shouted.

Cameron tore the rocket launcher out of its case, snapped the shoulder-rest into the down position, engaged the primer and flicked the safety switch off.

In one swift move, he spun round and stood up.

He had the turbine in his sights instantly. It was hard to miss it. He saw the swarm of Cybermen; they were only thirty yards away now.

He had no regrets at all.

He started to compress the trigger.

“Cameron, no!” a voice shouted behind him and to the right.

And then a strong hand grabbed his shoulder and jerked his aim off. The trigger was pressed. The rocket blasted out of the launcher with an ear-splitting crack.

“No!” he wailed, as time appeared to slow before his eyes.

He knew instantly that he had missed.

The rocket twisted crazily in the air and struck the wall of the cave halfway between Cameron’s group and the approaching Cyberman horde. There was a bright flash, then the concussion wave threw everyone, soldiers and Cybermen alike, off their feet.

For a few seconds, there was a welcome moment of respite.

NOTES:
This wasn't going to be the end of this chapter. As originally planned, this chapter would end where in fact the next chapter ends, another 2000 words down the line. But a 5500 word chapter seemed a little too big, especially when they're not actually about the same thing: one's about going into battle, one's about getting out of it. This seemed like the best place to cut the 5500 words into two sections, turning the Doctor's intervention into a potential cliffhanger. My biggest concern with this chapter was that I didn't have enough marines to play with anymore. I only had six, and knowing that Cameron had to survive until the final part of the story, I was limited in how many I could kill off. I didn't want to kill off Doherty here (was planning a scene where Rose, who doesn't yet know they are robots, gets freaked by his skinless appearance), but the Cybermen would have looked pretty useless if they couldn't have killed more than one human.

Ellison's line "Ho, ho, ho, he's right!" is another one lifted from "Aliens" (said by Paul Reiser's Carter Burke in not that dissimilar a context). Sigma Tau Delta is Jenna's fraternity (sorority?); I just thought it sounded more like a military manoeuvre.