In The Company Of Daleks

Chapter 1: Escape From Scaro

"Doctor! Missy!" Clara called out again, hating the way her words boomed out as a Dalek voice. She was hurrying through the corridors of the city looking for them but feeling increasingly hopeless. The city was huge, and it was in chaos. The only positive was that the Daleks were too distracted by the goo rising from the sewers to stop her. Whether the goo was ignoring her because she wasn't a Dalek or if it was just blind luck that it hadn't caught her, she didn't know. But she had to get out of there before it changed its mind.

Just then, she heard the sound of the TARDIS engines and hurried towards them. The Doctor was free. He could help. But then, to her horror, she realised they were fading away. She was able to get back to the main chamber just as it vanished. "Doctor!" She screamed at the spot where it had been, but to no avail.

Of course. He'd seen the Daleks apparently kill her, and Missy would be too concerned with her own survival to correct him, least he waste time trying to look for her. No she was stranded, and trapped in a Dalek casing.

The supreme Dalek turned her way, but before it could do anything the floor beneath its podium gave way, sending it tumbling down into the sewers. This brought Clara's mind to the more immediate problem.

Next to her, another Dalek was shouting "ELEVATE!" Again and again, unaware that whatever the Doctor had done to it had fried its flying circuits.

Fortunately, Clara had no such problem "Elevate!" She shouted and shot upwards so fast she banged against the ceiling. The moment she hit it, she felt an agonising pain, not in her body but coming from the dome. It seemed the Dalek casings were wired up to transmit pain into the Dalek's head. She needed to get out of this suit soon.

As the walls began to collapse, a hole opened up in the ceiling and Clara willed herself towards it. As more and more of the building started to collapse, she realised she could see daylight through a hole ahead. Again, she willed herself towards it, and found herself hurtling that way in an almost straight line, bouncing off the walls, and spinning around as she went. Though the collisions weren't damaging her or the casing, she felt each bump as though she was flying along with no protection at all.

Finally, she was outside. Except now, she was flying around with no control, spinning and tumbling through the air as she desperately tried to stabilise.

"I need to stop panicking. Stop panicking! Stop!" The machine took her last word literately and she came to a dead stop, hovering 50 metres above the ground. She watched as the city crumbled below her.

Clara took several deep breaths. She had to keep calm and objective if she was to have any chance of getting out of this. She had no way to reach the TARDIS as her phone was still sitting in her bag back at that cafe where she'd met Missy. She'd have to find some other way of getting his attention. But there was little way of doing that in her current state. She made a list in her mind. Get to the ground. Get out of the casing. Find help. Contact the Doctor.

The first task was relatively straightforward. She guessed what the commands would be (Up, Down, turn etc.) and tested them with a bit of trial and error. Just as it had on the ground practice rapidly made it easier to control the speed and direction. With a bit more practice she'd be able to fly it anywhere she wanted.

Not that she planned to stay in it. She'd worked out that she could command it to hover at various altitudes, so she ordered it to take her to a centimetre above the ground, before ordering it down. She still landed more sharply than she'd hoped.

Now the next problem. Getting out of the suit. Logically, there had to be a way to open it, as the Daleks could do it. Now that she'd stopped herself from panicking, it all seemed so clear. She just thought the word "Open." To her immense joy, she felt the casing come open. She was free!

She still couldn't see through her eyes though. Everything was being fed to her via the eye stalk, but she'd soon fix that. She reached up to pull the neural links from her head, only for her hands to stop when they'd barely passed her chest, as though they were tethered to the seat. She felt up and down her arms but could find no trace of restraints. She tried again but still couldn't lift them high enough.

She tried moving her head down, which caused the eyestalk to droop, but she couldn't move further before it reached its maximum angle. Now Clara realised why she couldn't move her arms. Every time she did, it was raising the gun and the sucker. Once they reached her chest, they were at maximum height. If they couldn't get any higher, neither could her arms.

She sat there for a while longer, twisting herself this way and that, trying to get the probes out, but to no avail. Just then, she received a message from the on board systems. There were no words, it just somehow conveyed to her that it couldn't sustain itself with the front open any longer and would need to close.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Clara shouted as she felt it closing around her once more. She took a deep breath. "Open." No result. "Open!"

The systems conveyed to her that it was unable to open for another 10790 rels. But Clara had returned to full panic mode. "OPEN! OPEN! OPEN!" Now it said it had to wait 10783 rels. Clara spent 10583 of them screaming, cursing and calling for help to the petrified woods around her.

Finally, the time ran down and she was able to open the casing again. But she still couldn't remove the probes. According to the chronometer in the machine, it was only about 15 minutes before it automatically closed up once more. It made sense. The Daleks were dependant on the life support system. Opening it for too long would cut them off and once it was closed, they'd need time to recover.

With the hope that had built up when the casing opened suddenly dashed, Clara just broke down and wept. "Let me out. Let me out." She sobbed.

Clara spent the next two days roaming about on the planet's surface, whilst trying anything she could think of to get the probes out. She tried poking them with a stick. It took her ages to manoeuvre herself close enough to a bush to grab one, due to the bulk of the machine and her inability to lean forward. When she did, she found they were all petrified and too brittle. Twice, she tried ramming herself into a bush in the hope it would snag on a branch. But the devices were just too deeply embedded. She'd have to pull from the side, something she lacked the dexterity to do.

She rammed herself into a bush a third time, just because it felt nice to feel something on her own skin, even as it scratched her. Everything that touched her casing felt cold. The only exception being when it registered pain.

She tried several times to assemble a grabber device, but each time she was limited by her inability to see through her eyes and the 15 minute time limit. Once the casing closed, the antibodies in the suit would destroy anything she'd brought in with her. Fortunately, they registered her and her clothes as the occupant.

She found that she never hungered or tired. More tubes had attached themselves to her, feeding her nutrients. At first this had made her feel ill, but the machine seemed to have registered this and adjusted its feed to suit her needs. That at least was a positive. But the lack of eating and sleep was upsetting.

At first, she'd roamed around in search of help, but she saw more and more signs that this planet was lifeless. Just the way the Daleks would want it. There were no insects, no noises, all the plants were petrified. Whatever life there had been was long extinct, or else had left the planet.

As she went, she learned more and more about the machine she was trapped in, which might have been fascinating in other circumstances. It was self repairing and could power itself from a whole host of sources, such as radiation, sunlight, and static electricity. She discovered that the bumps weren't just there to look good, but could sense all sorts of things, such as changes in the environment, power sources and radiation levels. These were fed straight into her head as though she could feel them herself.

Her radiation senses allowed her to feel some big spikes on the planet, which drove another nail into the coffin. Even if she could get out of the suit, she'd get caught in a nuclear wind within a day and petrified like everything else.

She watched the skies through her stalk, waiting for someone to come and investigate, whilst listening out for the sound of those TARDIS engines. But none came. If the Doctor believed she'd died here, he'd not want to return. Finding it too painful.

But she continued to explore. Trying not to think about the real possibility that she'd never escape and the suit would continue to sustain her until she died of old age.

Finally, after two days, she heard the sound of engines overhead. Not the TARDIS, but a ship was a ship.

But when it cleared the clouds, her heart sank. It was a Dalek ship. Someone in the city must have given off a distress signal before they died. Clara looked round hurriedly for a hiding place but had no idea how to go about doing that. How do you hide a whacking great Dalek in a barren landscape?

She looked up once more and saw that the Dalek ship already seemed to have spotted her. Through her sense globes, she could pick up proximity senses of other Daleks. No doubt, they'd have found her. All she could do was try and look inconspicuous.

The ship landed in front of her. She placed herself in an attentive position before the door.

The ramp lowered and a Dalek slid down it. "REPORT."

Clara though quickly. What would a Dalek say? "Scaro City destroyed. Experiment… Failure." She assumed that was the reason for the glowing Daleks and the Dalek goo gaining the strength to rise.

"WHAT ABOUT DAVAROS?"

"I don't... Unknown." She said. "I was the only survivor."

The Dalek looked her over and said. "WE SHAL REPORT TO THE SUPREME OF THE FLEET. FOLLOW."

Clara looked round over the landscape. If she got on that ship, she'd be trapped until the Daleks next landed somewhere. All hope of escaping her suit gone. If she stayed here, maybe rescue would come, maybe she could find a way to get these probes out, and maybe the moon really was made of cheese. She had to face fact that staying here held no hope for her. And that was if the Daleks didn't blow her up on the spot.

"I SAID FOLLOW." Said the Dalek.

"I… obey." Said Clara, and followed it up the ramp. As the hatch shut behind her and the engines powered up once more, she wondered just how long she would have to keep up this pretence?