Robin flicked the ash from her cigar into the breeze and pouted, tossing her long mane of red hair impatiently. How much longer would they have to sit and wait? She looked at her chronometer - nearly two hours overdue. Didn't they realise they had better things to do?
Linnet, slender, blonde and cute to look at, if not cute to know, was giggling over something. She was perched on a rock, pulling out things from a brown sack, reading them, giggling and throwing them into the breeze. The letters 'GPO' were stencilled crudely onto the rough brown material. Spoils from their earlier mission, she supposed. Though Goddess only knew why their employers had a vendetta against "The British Postal Service" - the people in that "Sorting Centre" were hardly formidable opponents à
Kittiwake - Kitty, for short - was exercising, squeezing small rocks into powder with her hands. Her meaty face was a mask of concentration but Robin could tell that Linnet's giggling was getting on her nerves. Linnet liked to get on Kitty's nerves. In fact, she liked to get on everyone's nerves.
Raven was the most enigmatic of the lot, but, being their Seeker, she had to be. She stood on the hillside, arms folded, a tall ebony statue, never blinking, never moving, just waiting, waiting. Robin envied her patience.
"Cruk!" Kitty showered the ground with rock fragments and stomped over to Linnet. "Will you stop that inane giggling? You're driving me nuts!"
Linnet looked up at Kittiwake with her wide, mad blue eyes and giggled again, a wide grin exposing her sharp white little pointed teeth. She held up what she was reading - a greetings card of some description. The crude cartoon on the front showed a human leaning out of a window shouting at another human - fat, white bearded, dressed in red - and a dopey looking quadruped with horns. Linnet read out the caption.
" 'I don't care who you are, fatty'," and she emphasised the word for the muscular Kittiwake's benefit - " 'à get that cow off the roof!'- 'Happy Christmas from Tom & Vera'." She went into another peal of high pitched laughter. Kitty snatched the card from her hand and tore it to shreds.
"Shut yer mouth, you freak, or I'll ..."
Linnet languidly flicked a slender leg and Kitty found herself lying on her back. Furious, she stumbled to her feet, grabbing at the weapon on her belt as Linnet threw back her head and laughed and laughed. Robin flicked her cigar away and moved to intervene when Raven spoke:
"They have arrived. We may begin."
***
The Doctor pulled his battered broad-brimmed hat from his curly-brown head and flapped it in front of his face to clear the mist. He groaned. "Not back here again, surely!" He booted a stone into the distance and scrutinised the heavy copper-coloured bracelet in his hand. He shook it, then shook his head. No discernible malfunction ... a diversion, maybe. But to where? It didn't feel like Skaro ...
"What's going on? Hmmm? What are you playing at? Come on, come on, show yourself ... if you dare!" He wheeled round, eyes darting around the rocky gulley he was in. The echo of his voice died down. No reply. "Cowards!" he yelled.
"Doctor! What's happened? This isn't Nerva!" A slim, attractive dark haired girl appeared at the top of the gulley and slithered down to meet him.
"No it isn't. But it should be!" His voice rose to an shout again. Sarah covered her ears.
"Stop bellowing like that! Has something gone wrong with the Time Ring? It looks like we're back where we started!" She looked around fearfully. The last place she ever wanted to return to was Skaro ... not after the adventure they'd just escaped from. And "just" was the operative word.
"No, we've been deliberately diverted ... haven't we?" he bellowed again. Then he suddenly gaped at Sarah. "Where's Harry? He should be here by now. Unless he's fallen down any more holes ..."
Their other companion was becoming well-known for his accident prone ways. "Come on - we better find him." They set off over the uneven landscape through the clinging fog.
Harry was lost. The mist didn't help. He had no idea where he was, except that this wasn't that space station place the Doctor said they were returning to. It was more like that planet they'd just left, and, like Sarah, Harry would have been happy for the rest of his days if he'd never come within a million light years of Skaro again. He stumbled over the rocks, calling out, but getting no reply. He shivered. He was sure someone was watching him, and he prayed it wasn't a Dalek ...
Movement. Was that ... "Hey, Sarah? Is that you, old girl? Yell out, will you? This bally mist has got me all skew-whiff." There was somebody there ... he peered closer.
There was a terrible cry above him and something heavy hit his shoulders. He crashed to ground. There was a whistling sound and he instinctively twisted his head. A heavy pole smacked into the ground where he'd moved from, sparks flashing from the tip. He rolled over and staggered to his feet, but another blow sent him sprawling again.
"Come on, Ray! Finish 'im off!"
Harry looked up to see a tall, bald, Amazonianian black woman in a figure-hugging green body-suit standing over him brandishing the pole. Taking advantage of the distraction, Harry lashed his legs out, sending her sprawling. Harry scrambled to his feet and started running for his life. There was a flash and a bang and an explosion in front of him.
"Cruk! Fraggin' mist!" More explosions, each closer than the next. Harry vaulted a small boulder ... and sailed into space. After a long drop he hit the ground with a bone-shaking thump and blacked out ...
"Doctor, did you hear that? Sounded like an explosion!"
"Hmmm, yes ... maybe we are back on Skaro after all."
"Why? Because you didn't complete your mission?"
"Possibly ... though I didn't think even the Time Lords would be this vindictive. Come on."
On top of a nearby hillock, Linnet lay beside Robin. She squinted down the sights of her rifle at first the Doctor, then Sarah.
"Mmmm, she's cute ... I'll save her 'til last."
Robin laid a firm, cold hand on Linnet's shoulder. "Save nothing. You know our orders. Do it quickly. And remember - don't damage the head."
Linnet scowled. "Awww, you're no fun anymore ..." She trained her rifle back on the Doctor and squeezed the trigger ...
Something glinting above him ... the Doctor suddenly shoved Sarah to the ground as an energy blast shot over their heads. They scrambled into cover behind a boulder. "Keep down," he hissed, and another bolt struck their hiding place, and another, and another ...
Kitty jumped down to the bottom of the pit with surprising lightness. She shone the light on the end of her weapon into the gloom, but could see nothing.
"Anything?" Raven's voice drifted down. Kitty peered back up.
"Nothing. 'ang on ..." Something rustled in the scrub ahead ... she swept her weapon across it and it burst into flames. Nothing came out from it or behind it, so ...
With a stinging impact the weapon was smashed from her hand. Kitty yelled. Harry had emerged from the rocks he had laid behind and waved a big old length of branch at her. They circled warily.
"Now then, it's generally against my principles to hit a member of the fairer sex, but I think in your case I'll make an exception, unless you chuck it in now!"
Kitty snarled. "I'll wrap it round your crukkin' neck!" She leapt at him. Harry dived to one side and she landed right in the middle of the burning scrub. She screamed horribly, rolling around on the ground trying to beat out the flames.
"You cur!"
Harry sensed the pole coming down too late. It struck square across the shoulders and he went down like a sack of coal. Raven leaped over him and went to Kitty's aid. Her skin-tight suit had afforded little protection against the flames. She lay on the ground, groaning pitifully. Raven looked up, her steely reserve turned to fury. "You'll suffer for this ..." she blazed.
Harry staggered groggily up, clutching at the closest thing to hand - a rock. He held it up. Raven smiled a perfect white smile. "You'll never get close enough to me to use it." She hefted her pole. With a click, a sharp barbed blade emerged from it.
With a smooth action honed on the cricket fields of Portsmouth Harry threw the rock. It struck Raven smack in the centre of her forehead and she dropped without a sound. "Howzat!" he croaked groggily.
Checking to make sure their wounds were not serious, Harry bound them with the steel cable on their belts and set off back up the rocky incline, hefting Kitty's weapon gingerly ...
Linnet bounded down the hill, laughing joyfully, firing blast after blast into the boulder they were hiding behind. "Come out and play! Come out and play!" She screeched with malicious glee.
She was rather surprised when the man stood up. "All right ... what would you like to play?" He smiled disarmingly. Linnet pressed a finger to her cheek and put on a mock thoughtful expression.
"Mmmm ... how about "Your Sudden Shocking And Hideously Messy Death"?"
"How does one play that?"
"Like this!" She whooped and fired from the hip. At that instant the Doctor pulled a large mirror from his jacket and the blast ricocheted back to Linnet. With a hideous shriek she was catapulted across the ground, falling into a twisted, smoking huddle.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with field lasers? So sorry ..." he murmured regretfully.
"I wouldn't be." He spun round to see Robin behind him, an arm round Sarah's throat, a gun to her head. "They were right ... you are good. But I'm better."
"Indeed! Who is the "They" that think so highly of me?"
Robin laughed. "That would be telling ... suffice to say, they pay very well, and will be extremely grateful to hear of your demise."
"If you just want to kill me, fine, get on with it. But leave Sarah and Harry alone."
Robin looked apologetic. "Sorry, but you know how it is ... witnesses and all that." She pressed the gun harder to Sarah's head. Sarah squeezed her eyes tightly shut and the Doctor could only look on in agony. Robin paused. "Oh yes ... "They" had a message for you. It was ... what was it? Oh yes ... "You're a grave disappointment, Doctor." End of message."
She squeezed the trigger ...
"Well, I've been disappointed all my life. I'm even disappointed with Sarah. Don't you remember Mr Benton's self-defence course, Sarah?"
Sarah eyes snapped open and she suddenly jammed her elbow back into Robin's stomach. The woman gasped and staggered back. Sarah spun round and delivered a chopping blow to the woman's neck. She folded to the ground with a grunt.
The Doctor bounded over. "Well done Sarah Jane! Now then, you ..." The Doctor loomed over Robin, cradling her pistol. "We have things to discuss." He muttered darkly.
Robin open her eyes and winked. "Sorry, not today." With a sharp buzz, she faded from existence ...
"Doctor! Sarah!" Harry came running down the slope towards them. "Are you all right? There were these two whacking great women and ..."
"We know! Are you all right?"
He tossed Kittiwake's gun aside. "A little worse for the wear, but nothing a tot of rum wouldn't cure. Err, speaking of which ... any chance of ever getting back home, Doctor? I had plans to go to the Windies for the cricket this Christmas."
The Doctor nodded & grinned. "Every chance, Harry. Now this little plot has been foiled, I think we'll have no more trouble getting home." Pulling the Time Ring from his pocket, he cast a glance back at where Robin had lain. "If they think I was a disappointment, what must they think of her?"
***
Kittiwake, Raven and Robin stood in the darkened chamber. Kittiwake and Raven had their heads bowed, defeated, but Robin stood tall, nonchalantly lit up a cigar and puffed a smoke ring at the shadowy figures above them.
"You are a grave disappointment!" a voice boomed.
"That's what I told him. He wasn't impressed. And neither am I. Get on with it."
A harsh white light filled the circle and the threesome vanished. A whiff of cigar smoke was all that remained of their existence. The voice sighed.
"I knew they'd fail. That Doctor is too resourceful."
Another voice: "Indeed." It chuckled. "Well, 'They' won't be getting his head on top of their Christmas tree this year! Still ... he'll never trust the High Council again. That's something. Oh yes - I win the bet, don't I?"
The other voice snapped petulantly: "Yes ... again." Coins jingled.
Another chuckle. "Until next time?"
Exasperated now: "Yes. Until next time. But just you wait until you see what I have in store for him next time - I'll get my money back yet ... and 'They' will get their Christmas novelty!"
