For Eòghann Renfroe

Once upon a time, a long way away, the TARDIS whooshed and zoomed and spiralled through the space-time vortex. To one of the occupants, this was the most exciting, thrilling and fantastic thing she had ever experienced. And basically, she guessed, it would stay that way for the rest of her life.

And she had met the man who flew this amazing, extraordinary and fantabulous ship only a couple of days before. He had arrived on her home planet and saved it from a massive … thing that was rotting its very core away. The actual soul of the planet was dying, and he stopped it. Repaired it. Saved billions of people, all by himself. Just one man in a blue box. He wore odd clothes, had strange hair and spoke in a weird way. He asked for nothing in return, just some company for a few hours with her family, and they made him dinner and washed his jacket, which had got a bit manky during his heroic manoeuvres.

And so they had offered him a reward, to thank him. They offered him the Glamour, but he didn’t know what they meant, so they tried to explain, and began demonstrating it to him. But he said no anyway.

And they had accepted his decision, even though they didn’t understand it, because they could see there was a sadness in him. He had an aura of dislocation, of homesickness. Of recent farewells. Yet he was polite but adamant, and he told them stories of his travels, of his adventures. Of his friends and enemies. He told them of the universe and its 700 Wonders. Of Federations and Alliances, Empires and dictatorships. And they told him of their enemies and friends, of their star system, its planets and moons. Eventually, after a lovely evening watching the moons rise above the now-safe horizon, he had said it was time to go.

And the others in the family and friends who had shared food begged him to stay. To accept the award he was due, the recognition by a grateful planet for what he had done to save them all. But he had said no. Said that he didn’t want applause and plaques and trinkets with inscriptions on. He was satisfied that he had helped a people in need, stopped a planet and its occupants going extinct.

And, he added, he’d had a great meal, and that really was the best ‘thank you’ he could have had.

And he had set off for his odd blue box, his jacket washed and pressed, and she had run after him, not wanting him to leave.

And he had explained, gesticulating up into the sky, pointing out stars and moons and planets and galaxies, that his life was out there. And his friends. And his enemies. And he had to go and see someone about a planet or a starship or a space station that needed his help just as her world had done.

And she had pushed past him as he was unlocking his blue door, squeezed between his long legs and rushed in, expecting to find herself in a small dark box.

And instead she was in a wonderland of thrills and marvels.

And it didn’t even occur to her at first that it was bigger on the inside than the outside; she was so dazzled by the light, the warmth, the feeling of life – albeit alien life – that permeated this huge room with its indented walls and the strange device in the middle with all the switches and levers and dials.

And he had smiled at her and asked what she was doing, and she had gabbled about how fantastic it had to be out there, in space, and one day she would be out in space too. And he’d said that was a great dream to have and to give him a call when she was out there and he’d pop by and say hello, because his blue box travelled in time as well as space. And she didn’t doubt that for a minute, because if he could fit all this inside a tiny blue box, then travelling in time couldn’t possibly be difficult.

And she had told him that she’d be old enough to travel in about fifteen years, and he gave her a small green sphere and said to use it when she wanted to find him, and he’d come and say hello.

And she had wondered if he wouldn’t be terribly old by then and retired and at home with his friends and a family, feet up in front of a fire, with a cup of herbal brew, reading books and suchlike. But he had laughed, saying that was unlikely: he could travel in time, so fifteen years for her might be five minutes for him, and he was getting quite good at flying his ship to specific points these days and did she want a quick spin?

And she had said yes, and so he had closed the door and got her a small box to stand on so she could reach the edge of the central device thing whatever it was with the switches and levers and dials, and she held on tightly. The Doctor winked at her, rubbed his hands together and yanked a rod down, and the blue box that wasn’t either a box or blue inside made a huge noise, wheezing and groaning, and the central column thing in the middle of the device she was gripping on to started going up and down. She wanted to block out the sound, but at the same time she wanted to embrace it all and love it and enjoy it and adore it, because she knew this would not last for ever.

And, seconds later, he had opened a huge screen and she could see space and all those planets and stars and galaxies he had talked about. He took her beyond the moon, down the space-time vortex corridor, across a nebula, and into a writhing cloud of jades and purples and golds and silvers, which, he said, was a new star system being born.

And then he took her home. He opened the door of his blue box and said he’d look forward to hearing from her.

And she grasped the little green ball he’d given her firmly in the palm of her small hand and swore to herself that she’d never let go of it. She smiled, because she knew that she would see him again. One day.

And he was gone. His blue box faded away, amidst that awful but beautiful noise. She stared up at the stars for a moment and then ran back to her family, deciding not to tell them where she had been (unless hours had passed, then that would be difficult). But it turned out only to be minutes, so she kept quiet.

And lived her life exactly as she wanted to.

Chapter

1

‘COMMANDER, WE ARE losing hull integrity, and shields are down to forty-eight per cent.’

The Commander nodded, without looking up from her console. ‘Thank you, 3. Are the crew in stasis?’

3 consulted his screen, just as it started to short out. ‘I think so, ma’am.’

A small automatic fire extinguisher emerged and squirted fire-resistant liquid over the console. Then it failed.

3 casually reached out and absorbed the fire extinguisher, allowing it to deconstruct and simultaneously nourish his own body. One of his earlier scalds immediately healed. ‘How much of the ship can we safely take on ourselves?’ he asked the ship’s Medic, who was stood by the bridge entrance, scared beyond belief.

‘It’s nearly all gone,’ he stammered. ‘Just creating the stasis chambers took most of the living areas. The galley’s gone too.’

‘Damn,’ said the Commander. ‘And I wanted a snack.’

3 grinned at her. ‘I wish 3715 were awake to hear you say that, ma’am. He’d be overjoyed that you actually wanted to eat his food.’

The ship shuddered.

‘We’ve entered a new system, Commander,’ said the Navigator from her console.

3 looked at her – barely out of the Ball, and her first mission would most likely see her death. He crossed over and stood behind her, noticing for the first time a massive gash across her left shoulder.

‘You OK?’

‘I’m good, sir.’ She tried a brave smile, but he wasn’t fooled.

‘No you’re not.’ He threw a look back at the Medic who was just staring at the panoramic view screen showing the new star system ahead, as if staring at that – at some fixed point – would stop his nausea. No time for that now. ‘Medic, attend to 456915 please.’

No reply.

‘107863!’ he snapped. ‘Do your damned job!’

The Medic reacted as if slapped and hurried over to the Navigator.

The Commander threw her Exec Officer a look. ‘He’s scared, 3. We all are.’

3 nodded. ‘I know, ma’am.’

The Commander sighed and started tapping commands into her black-box recorder. ‘Let’s jettison this and hope it finds its way home.’

‘From out here, ma’am, that could take centuries,’ said the Tactical Officer to her right.

3 shrugged. ‘Procedure must be followed.’ He nodded at the Commander. ‘I’ll take it to the exhaust pods, ma’am, when you are ready.’

The Commander looked at her bridge crew. What was left of it, after the stasis chambers had claimed the rest. ‘Listen, people,’ she said. ‘No matter what happens, we all get into stasis, is that understood?’ She looked 3 straight in the eye. ‘No heroics, 3, understood? We lived as a team, we sleep as a team, is that understood?’

3 nodded.

With a deep breath, the Commander activated her recorder.

‘This is Commander 128 of the WSS Exalted. We have temporarily evaded the Tahnn ships that were pursuing us and have sought refuge in a solar system my Tactical Officer refers to as AK Apple Dot Point Oblique. He also refers to it as primitive, inhospitable and with a sun giving off far too much radiation, but then 25463 would. He’s like that.’

She winked at the grizzled Tactical Officer beside her.

‘As I record this, my crew are in stasis and I am preparing to reassign the interior contours of the ship to the external structure and go into cocoon mode. Only myself, EO 3, TO 25463, MO 107863, SC 6011 and NO 456915 remain conscious. If you can follow this recorder back to our ship and rescue us, we’d be grateful to say the least. If not, it’s been a fun ride and I hope when you get this the Tahnn are but a memory that once blighted our society and world. This is Commander 128 signing off.’

The Commander stabbed the controls and the tiny soft black box rolled out. She scooped it up and passed it to her Executive Officer. ‘We’ll see you at the stasis chambers in five minutes.’

He nodded and left the bridge, hearing one final command from 128.

‘That planet there, the atmosphere is breathable at least. Bury us there!’

And the door closed behind him.

As he walked through the corridors, he reached out with his left arm and felt the interior walls flow into him and then straight back out into the outer walls, creating a thicker cocoon skin. Chairs, consoles, discarded chess sets, everything briefly drew into his body and then back out again, preparing the ship for its fiery descent into the planet’s atmosphere.

One area didn’t accede to his command to dissolve, which meant it was still occupied. He tapped the comms outside the door. ‘Counsellor?’

‘On my way, sir,’ was the Counsellor’s voice from within. ‘I’m just sending out my own records of the crew.’

The door slid open and, as it did so, it melded into the walls and began fading, being drawn into the body of the Counsellor who stood facing 3.

‘Your records could be appended to the Commander’s,’ 3 said.

The Counsellor didn’t agree. ‘Even though it probably won’t make it home, it’s my duty to keep my notes and records of the crew separate from Command’s.’

3 nodded. He understood that; the Medic on the bridge would probably have done the same.

Together they marched forwards through the empty corridors, the Counsellor’s quarters now completely gone. They reached the exhaust tubes and as the ship shot past a small satellite above a red planet. 3 pressed eject and the small recorder shot back out on its trajectory to home.

It would take a long time to get there. And that was assuming the Tahnn, not known for adherence to intergalactic treaties, didn’t intercept or vaporise it first.

3 and the Counsellor faced an interior wall. 3 absorbed it then spread it behind him, conjoining it to the exhaust tube, which similarly melded itself into the outer wall of the ship.

The massive area ahead of them had been sixty rooms on eight storeys. All that structure was now lining the hull, and the cocoon was nearly finished. Once the Commander led the evacuation of the bridge, she and the Tactical Officer would absorb everything there and spread it around the nosecone for added protection.

As the Counsellor wandered to their assigned stasis chamber, a far wall faded away to reveal the crewmembers from the bridge.

‘Reporting for duty,’ 3 joked drily to his Commander.

Medic 107863 put the Counsellor, the Navigator and then the Tactical Officer to sleep first then shrugged. ‘One of us has to be last,’ he muttered. ‘Might as well be me. It is, after all, my job.’

The Commander touched his cheek. ‘You will have five seconds to put yourself in stasis afterwards. Are you sure you want to do that? 3 and I are trained for that kind of speed.’

The Medic shook his head. ‘You and the Exec are also far more important to the crew afterwards.’

‘Not true,’ 3 retorted. ‘We might need patching up. You don’t need a miserable git like me. Get in, Commander. You too, 107863.’

The Commander watched as the Medic sighed and got into his chamber. The door grew around him and, with a hiss, he was asleep like all the others.

‘Just you and me, 3’ said the Commander. She kissed him on the cheek. ‘Good luck, my friend.’

3 allowed himself just the tiniest of smiles. ‘This ship, this crew – best in the fleet, ma’am. We don’t need luck, the Tahnn do. When we are recovered and the ship has had a chance to re-knit, we’ll be back out there, leading the fleet to victory. In the meantime, ma’am, as last officer standing, I’m ordering you to get some stasis-induced sleep, cos I know what you’re like if you’ve not had enough sleep. Ma’am,’ he added with a wink.

Wordlessly, Commander 128 placed herself in the stasis chamber, which wrapped around her and closed. A second later, she was unconscious.

3 gave his now empty ship a last look around, feeling the buffeting as they entered the atmosphere of the third planet of this little-known system.

He only had to activate the controls, reabsorb them and throw himself into his chamber.

All in five seconds. Or he wouldn’t sleep, and just die in agony.

Nice.

Taking a final breath, he kissed the palm of his hand and touched the floor of the ship. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You’ve looked after us well.’ Then he straightened up, slammed a hand on the control.

His stasis chamber began to open for him, and he quickly absorbed the control console then all but hurled himself into the chamber – it was already starting to close.

‘Five seconds my—’ he grunted out loud. ‘More like three …’

The chamber cocooned around him, and he was asleep.

So neither 3, his Commander nor anyone else on the WSS Exalted felt the ship crash down through the atmosphere, skimming and bouncing on the air currents, veering across mountaintops and over oceans until it reached the area selected by Tactical Officer 25463 as the safest place to land.

To bury itself deep beneath soft earth.

And there, the ship would repair itself while its crew slept.

Well, that was the plan, anyway …

Wulf and his son Owain had a job to do. Or two jobs, really. The first was to stand on the hill and look out to the great waters beyond and light fires if they saw boats approaching. The second was to herd the goats that supplied their village with food and milk. Wulf and Owain took both jobs very seriously.

When the Sky Gods threw a huge dark object from the skies towards them, they really had no idea what to do. So they both dropped to their knees and prayed to the Sky Gods that this wasn’t some kind of retribution.

The noise the object made as it ploughed into the fields beyond the village was louder than anything Wulf had ever heard before and he screamed as he covered his ears.

Then it stopped.

He opened his eyes, seeing his fellow villagers flood from their huts, shooing goats and dogs from the area, the womenfolk keeping the children back whilst Village Elder Tor led his strongmen towards the crashed object. Tor reached out to touch it but pulled his hand back, burnt.

Wulf could hear his cries of pain and fury from atop the hill. He told Owain to stay with the herd and dashed down to his fellow men below.

‘It is from the Sky Gods,’ he yelled. ‘It has to be.’

Tor nodded. ‘But what should we do?’

For three days, the men guarded the object and talked at length about it. About what it meant. About whether the Sky Gods were angry or whether it was a gift.

In the end, Tor made a decision.

Over the next month, using the most rudimentary shovels and axes, they performed a technological miracle. They dug beneath it so it slowly sank further into the ground, and then they erected a wooden protective shell around the exposed top half. They buried that under earth meticulously carried up from the coast where it was damper and therefore softer.

And Tor, Wulf and the others lived their lives, safe from invaders, with healthy wives and children and goats.

After a few hundred years, the contents of the mound were forgotten. Stories and myths built up around it. It was a god. It was a warrior chieftain. It was a sacred rock from the stars.

It stayed that way, a mystery for over four thousand years. Until, in 1936, Mrs Enola Porter, an amateur archaeologist living in Norfolk, rammed her shovel through the mud and into the outer hull of the WSS Exalted.

The world would never be quite the same again.

Chapter

2

IT WAS A hot summer’s day in Little Cadthorpe.

The sky had that glorious blue you believe only really happened when you were a child – when it reappears, and proves it really does exist, you can’t help but be happier than usual. That amazingly strong sun that could be felt on the skin and the lack of clouds just added to the joy that was today: 14 August 1928.

The depression in the city was in decline and, although his family had lost much, Oliver Marks (Regimental Sgt Major, retired) was happy. His strong hand was firmly gripped around Daisy Conlan’s. Or, as she had just agreed to become next spring, Daisy Marks.

‘I love you, Miss Conlan.’ He grinned, pushing aside a low-hanging tree branch that threatened to impede her walk through the woods.

She smiled back. ‘And I, Olly, adore you.’ She looked behind them, suddenly concerned. ‘But Olly, where are Davey and Calleagh?’

Oliver frowned. ‘Who?’

‘Why, Mr Marks, have you forgotten our children so quickly?’

Oliver laughed. ‘Ha! So, just two children is it? And Calleagh? What kind of name is that?’

Daisy stopped and wagged a finger at him. ‘I will have you know, sir, that Calleagh is a good Celtic name. I had a Great Aunt called Calleagh, back in the old country.’

Oliver feigned pensiveness for a moment before walking on. ‘I fear, Miss Conlan, that I could not marry a fibber. I know your family quite well and, even when exploring the darkest ends of the Giant’s Causeway, I have never come across a relative of yours called Calleagh. Alas, alack, our engagement is at an end, if you insist on naming our future offspring after imaginary matriarchs.’

Daisy scampered after him, now looping her arm around his and pulling him closer. She kissed him on the cheek. ‘Truth is … No, never mind.’

‘My dear, I shall cease conversing with you forthwith if you do not halt your prattle.’

Daisy laughed. ‘Ooh, listen to you with your big words. I did know a Calleagh who I was very deeply in love with in Ireland, and it is also a name I adore and want our daughter to be named.’

‘Who was she?’ Oliver asked, a twinkle in his eye. ‘I genuinely don’t remember ever hearing your father mention her. He, as you can imagine, gave me chapter and verse on the Conlan family back to the 1600s!’

Daisy took a breath. ‘Promise you won’t laugh or be cross?’

‘Oh, I shall enjoy this explanation,’ Oliver said.

‘Calleagh was a puppy I once had. A most beautiful chocolate brown one with lovely big, pleading eyes and a pink tongue and—’

‘And you expect me to agree to naming our daughter after a dog?’ Oliver roared with laughter. ‘I cannot wait till she is 18 and you have to explain that to her, because I most certainly shall not.’ He kissed her quickly on the lips. ‘But it is a wonderful name, so I shall endeavour to ignore the dog connotations and believe there really was a fearsome Great Aunt about whom your father omitted to tell me.’

Daisy looked at him, giving his arm a squeeze to make him stop walking, and ran a hand through her auburn hair. ‘I really do love you, Oliver,’ she said. ‘Thank you for asking me to marry you.’

He smiled back at her, cupping the back of her hand with his hands. ‘As I recall, it was in fact you, with all your emancipation and Emmeline Pankhurst attitude, who asked me!’

Daisy nodded. ‘Well, I asked you to ask me. And why not, you silly sausage. It’s not as if you were going to get round to it otherwise, were you?’

‘I thought you’d think marriage was some antediluvian concept for oppressing women,’ he said. ‘Curiously, I take your beliefs and opinions very seriously, Daisy Conlan.’

She sighed. ‘God, I love you so much,’ she said, and kissed him. ‘I wish we didn’t have to wait until March.’

‘Weddings are expensive,’ Oliver said, ‘and I know your father well enough to be certain that he’ll want to put on the biggest and best wedding he can for his only daughter. And, with the state of the world’s finances at the moment, he’ll end up laying off some of the lads just to make ends meet if we try to marry this year. And that is something I won’t have on my conscience at any cost.’

Daisy understood.

She and Oliver had met at a rally in London four years previously. He’d survived the Great War and, in doing so, had reshaped his views and allegiances drastically. He had campaigned for the Labour Party and not for the Conservatives, as his family always had. This had cost Oliver a lot: his father had all but disowned him, and many of his fellow officers had stopped talking to him. But she had been drawn to his dedication, his firm belief that so many young lives had been lost or shattered during the War due to politics. So many of the upper class had become officers, leading good, solid men during battles with no actual experience or knowledge of warfare; they held their ranks purely because of who they were, or how much money their families had.

Oliver was kicking against that – he said rank should be progressive and not a product of elitism. If some of the men in the trenches had been made lieutenants or captains instead of people with no field experience whatsoever, how many thousands of lives might not have fallen under German bullets and shells? Truth was, thought Daisy, no one would ever know. But she admired – no, loved – his passion on the subject and his deeply held belief that the ‘common man’ deserved respect, equality and the chance for power.

She had been at the rally to support women, who had seen their place in society rise during the War. So many good strong women working in factories, in hospitals, on the buses and trams, in the farms and schools. Women doing jobs that ten years earlier, only men would have been considered fit for. And yet, when the War ended, they had soon found themselves facing an attitude best summed up as ‘Yes, thank you, now go back to breeding children, darning socks and making tea for the menfolk at work’.

Women had come on in leaps and bounds since then – the vote had been such an important stride forward. But there were still those in the Government who sought to squash those achievements, reverse those policies. Daisy had seen an opportunity to move to London, become embroiled in the London Set and work from within to keep things moving forward for women, and not back to some dark Victorian age. She had even met and spoken to Lady Astor on the subject, which was a personal achievement, she felt.

Her reverie was broken by a whining noise from … above. It was no aeroplane, she was sure of that. Oliver had heard it too, and he was already shielding his eyes against the sun and trying to look to the heavens.

‘The trees are blocking the view,’ he said, waving his hands towards the canopy. ‘Let’s get out into the open.’

They hurried out of the copse and onto the village green. Sure enough, half a dozen other groups of people were there, all looking up, trying to discern the source of the noise.

Oliver felt a blast of heat directly above him. He looked around, trying to trace its source, but could see no sign.

‘I don’t like this, Daisy,’ he said. ‘I want you to get back into the woods.’

‘What for?’

‘Just … just a feeling,’ he muttered.

Suddenly a child’s scream rang out.

Oliver and Daisy turned to see a woman grabbing the child and dragging it back towards her as the air around them … shimmered. Like a haze, a mirage on a hot day.

Out of that haze stepped … something.

And in less than a second, there were about twenty … somethings surrounding the green, blocking off Daisy’s potential escape route back to the woods.

More people began emerging from their homes in the village and, as they did so, more hazes appeared, and more … things.

It didn’t take Oliver long to realise that the village was now cut off entirely. Every road or pathway was blocked, guarded by strange people in dark red uniforms that seemed to be sculpted to their bodies. They were physically strong by the look of it: each of them stood about six foot six, heads hidden beneath black reflective helmets of a type he’d never seen.

They had no insignia on their uniforms, but each wore a wide black belt with many pouches, and a couple had bandoliers from belt to right shoulder. Every single one of them carried what looked like a rifle, only far shorter and thicker. They carried them in one hand and were using them to herd the villagers towards the green.

One man suddenly stopped – Oliver recognised him from the pub. He wasn’t the landlord but he helped behind the bar. Oliver had liked him; he was like one of the men from the trenches. From the War.

Oh God. Was this some new German atrocity in the making, ten years on? He had heard the rumours of course, but dismissed them. Why would anyone want to start another conflict after the Great War had left Europe so utterly bereft?

The man from the pub suddenly swung a punch at the uniformed guard pushing him forward.

The red guard brought up his gun and fired.

Oliver expected to hear a gunshot, that awful explosion of powder and spark propelling hot death that, at that range, would have drilled through the pub man’s heart in a second. But there was no gunshot. Instead there was a roar, like a gas flame suddenly ignited at a hundred times normal volume.