The Story of Martha Read online

  ‘No, sir,’ said the ADC cautiously. ‘There’s been an incident in Honshu.’

  ‘Honshu? Japanese Honshu? I don’t like the sound of that. I’ve got a lot of interests in Honshu. Show me.’

  The ADC handed him the report. He read it over rapidly.

  ‘The whole zone?’ he asked. ‘The whole zone? All of the guidance plants?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Power has been down for sixty-four minutes, sir.’

  He took a deep breath and scratched his forehead. ‘I’m really going to be obliged to kill someone about this,’ he said.

  ‘I’m certain you are, sir,’ the ADC said. ‘There is another factor for your consideration.’ She handed him another sheet of paper. ‘Transcript of a phone conversation I took thirty minutes ago. I thought you’d want to see it.’

  He read the sheet.

  ‘The Drast? The Drast? Here?’ he said. ‘Those fortune-hunting, glowy-glowy, entrepreneuring nobodies? The Drast? Did you know anything about this?’

  His last remark was aimed at the wizened old man sitting in a wheelchair by the window. The wizened old man didn’t reply.

  ‘Still, the Drast?’ he said, leaning back and cocking his head to one side. ‘I’ll teach the Drast to mess with me. Bioluminescent idiots. And I was starting to like Japan so much.’ He looked at the ADC. ‘Calm your pretty head,’ he said. ‘I’m not angry with you. Who could ever be angry with such a gorgeous thing? Summon the Toclafane swarms. I want the Drast to know, without any qualification, who’s Master.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He pursed his lips and chewed his jaw to and fro for a moment.

  ‘Burn the islands,’ he decided. ‘Yes, burn them. We can build guidance somewhere else.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He looked at the wizened old man in the wheelchair. The old man’s eyes were glaring, hooded by extreme time, painfully disapproving.

  ‘Oh come on,’ he cried, enthusiastically. ‘Vengeance can be so much fun!’

  Martha Jones watched, from a container ship leaving the port of Yokohama, as Japan died. Swarms of Toclafane screamed in, unleashing laser death. The cities began to burn.

  Knowing that the Master’s attention had turned on Japan, knowing that he would be furious about the Drast, Martha had skipped onto the first boat out, unseen, thanks to her perception filter.

  She knew she couldn’t be anywhere near the Master’s focus. The container ship was heading for San Diego. She would make landfall in the USA in a few weeks. In her hurry to escape, Martha had left Hito, Tokami and the other volunteers to cope in the hinterlands behind Koban plant.

  She had known the Master would be angry. She had known he would be vindictive. She had hoped he would send forces in to seize and dismantle the Drast plant at Koban.

  She had underestimated his venom. She had underestimated it too much.

  He wasn’t going to be vindictive. He was going to be genocidal.

  The islands of Japan burned.

  The islands were on fire. Gigantic plumes of flame gushed up out of Tokyo and Chiba. Though the ship was far out at sea, flakes of soot fluttered down onto them.

  For the first and only time in her year of walking, Martha allowed herself to cry.

  She cried for a long time.

  The streets were burning.

  Gun in hand, Griffin stumbled out into the open. Smoke was everywhere.

  Two Toclafane globes zipped down to meet him.

  ‘I’m clear! I’m UCF!’ he shouted. ‘I was the one who brought you here! Come on now!’

  ‘This person is unidentified,’ chuckled one globe.

  ‘Let’s kill him,’ giggled the other.

  ‘I’m the one!’ Griffin yelled. ‘I’m the one who brought you in!’ He opened his phone. ‘ADC? Where’s that extraction you promised? I’m in a fix here!’

  The hovering Toclafane snapped out their blades.

  ‘That’s not soon enough! ADC! For God’s sake!’

  The globes whirred forwards.

  Griffin shrieked.

  It felt as if the whole world was made out of night.

  Their small boat was racing the swell against an invisible coast. The sky was starless and dark, and the sea was like black glass.

  The little outboard motor chugged. The enclosing night was cool, and smelled of brine and Channel breezes. The year was almost up. She had walked the Earth, and witnessed things that she would never forget.

  A small, blue-white light appeared in the darkness ahead of them, tiny but stark. It was a halogen lamp, flashing once, twice; a little cold star shining on an unseen beach.

  ‘There!’ she said.

  The light began to swing, gently, from side to side.

  They came in through the breakers, the outboard throbbing. She felt the boat’s belly scrape and rumble across the shingle. She got up and jumped out. Cold water sucked at her legs.

  She looked back at the men wrangling the small boat. She couldn’t see their faces. She wished she could.

  She ran up the beach towards the light. Her wet boots crunched over damp sand and pebbles. A young man was waiting for her on the foreshore, a halogen lamp in his hand.

  She came up to face him, slightly out of breath.

  ‘What’s your name, then?’ she asked.

  ‘Tom,’ he said. ‘Milligan. No need to ask who you are. Famous Martha Jones. How long since you were last in Britain?’

  ‘Three hundred and sixty-five days,’ Martha replied. ‘It’s been a long year.’

  Acknowledgements

  Dan Abnett would like to thank Justin Richards, Steve Tribe, Gary Russell and Russell T Davies.

  David Roden wishes to express his gratitude to: Nikki Smith; Kevin Myers; the brilliant team at BBC Wales; Pauline and Barrie Mansell; and last, but by no means least, particular special thanks must go to Guy Siner, for counsel and comradeship, red wine and being an all-round good egg.

  Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis would like to thank Mark Morris for the introduction, and everyone who has made Doctor Who the show we know and love.

  Robert Shearman’s thanks go to Ian Mond and Liz Myers.

  Simon Jowett thanks: all the usual suspects for reviving Doctor Who with such energy, joy and sheer chutzpah; and Mina, my little girl, for reminding me what it’s like to be transfixed, taken over and utterly transported by a piece of cracking Saturday night telly.

  Also available from BBC Books

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  THE DEVIANT STRAIN

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  SICK BUILDING

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  Also available from BBC Books

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  Martha in the Mirror

  by Justin Richards

  ISBN 978 1 84607 420 2

  UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN

  Castle Extremis – whoever holds it can control the provinces either side that have been at war for centuries. Now the castle is about to play host to the signing of a peace treaty. But as the Doctor and Martha find out, not everyone wants the war to end.

  Who is the strange little girl who haunts the castle? What is the secret of the book the Doctor finds, its pages made from thin, brittle glass? Who is the hooded figure that watches from the shadows? And what is the secret of the legendary Mortal Mirror?

  The Doctor and Martha don’t have long to find the answers – an army is on the march, and the castle will soon be under siege once more…

  Also available from BBC Books

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  Snow Globe 7

  by Mike Tucker

  ISBN 978 1 84607 421 9

  UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN

  Earth, 2099. Global warming is devastating the climate. The polar ice caps are melting.

  In a desperate attempt at preservation, the governments of the world have removed vast sections of the Arctic and Antarctic and set them inside huge domes across the world. The Doctor and Martha arrive in SnowGlobe 7 in the Middle East, hoping for peace and relaxation. But they soon discover that it’s not only ice and snow that has been preserved beneath the Dome.

  While Martha struggles to help with an infection sweeping through the Dome, the Doctor discovers an alien threat that has lain hidden since the last ice age. A threat that is starting to thaw.

  Also available from BBC Books

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  ISBN 978 1 84607 422 6

  UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN

  The Nor’ Loch is being filled in. If you ask the soldiers there, they’ll tell you it’s a stinking cesspool that the city can do without. But that doesn’t explain why the workers won’t go near the place without an armed guard.

  That doesn’t explain why they whisper stories about the loch giving up its dead, about the minister who walked into his church twelve years after he died…

  It doesn’t explain why, as they work, they whisper about a man called the Doctor.

  And about the many hands of Alexander Monro.

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  Star ships and Spacestations

  by Justin Richards

  ISBN 978 1 84607 423 3

  £7.99 US $12.99/$15.99 CDN

  The Doctor has his TARDIS to get him from place to place and time to time, but the rest of the Universe relies on more conventional transport… From the British Space Programme of the late twentieth century to Earth’s Empire in the far future, from the terrifying Dalek Fleet to deadly Cyber Ships, this book documents the many starships and spacestations that the Doctor and his companions have encountered on their travels.

  He has been held prisoner in space, escaped from the moon, witnessed the arrival of the Sycorax and the crash landing of a space pig… More than anyone else, the Doctor has seen the development of space travel between countless worlds.

  This stunningly illustrated book tells the amazing story of Earth’s ventures into space, examines the many alien fleets who have paid Earth a visit, and explores the other starships and spacestations that the Doctor has encountered on his many travels…

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  India in 1947 is a country in the grip of chaos – a country torn apart by internal strife. When the Doctor and Donna arrive in Calcutta, they are instantly swept up in violent events.

  Barely escaping with their lives, they discover that the city is rife with tales of ‘half-made men’, who roam the streets at night and steal people away. These creatures, it is said, are as white as salt and have only shadows where their eyes should be.

  With help from India’s great spiritual leader, Mohandas ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi, the Doctor and Donna set out to investigate these rumours.

  What is the real truth behind the ‘half-made men’? Why is Gandhi’s role in history under threat? And has an ancient, all-powerful god of destruction really come back to wreak his vengeance upon the Earth?

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  Sebastiene was perhaps once human. He might look like a nineteenth-century nobleman, but in truth he is a ruthless hunter. He likes nothing more than luring difficult opposition to a planet, then hunting them down for sport. And now he’s caught them all – from Zargregs to Moogs, and even the odd Eternal…

  In fact, Sebastiene is after only one more prize. For this trophy, he knows he is going to need help. He’s brought together the finest hunters in the universe to play the most dangerous game for the deadliest quarry of them all.

  They are hunting for the last of the Time Lords – the Doctor.

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  ISBN 978 1 846 07557 5

  UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN

  For Donna Noble, the Andromeda galaxy is a long, long way from home. But even two and a half million light years from Earth, danger lurks around every corner…

  A visit to an art gallery turns into a race across space to uncover the secret behind a shadowy organisation.

  From the desert world of Karris to the interplanetary scrapyard of Junk, the Doctor and Donna discover that appearances can be deceptive, that enemies are lurking around every corner – and that the centuries-long peace between humans and machines may be about to come to an end.

  Because waiting in the wings to bring chaos to the galaxy is the Cult of Shining Darkness.

  Also available from BBC Books:

  The Time Traveller’s Almanac

  by Steve Tribe

  ISBN 978 1 846 07572 8

  £14.99

  Who are the eminent artists of the 16th, 19th or 21st centuries? What are the mysteries of Carrionite science? Where do the Daleks come from? Answers to all of these questions and more are found in The Time Traveller’s Almanac, the ultimate intergalactic fact-finder.

  The Almanac draws on resources far and wide, from the beginning of time to the end of the universe, to provide information on key historical events and great lives, important issues in science, technology and the arts, and the stories that have defined each era.

  Fully illustrated with photos and artwork, The Time Traveller’s Almanac provides an essential biography of the Doctor Who universe.

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  UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN

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y and generally giving them all the gossip about her journeys. Her grandfather is especially overjoyed – he’s discovered a new star and had it named after him. He takes the Doctor, as his special guest, to the naming ceremony.

  But the Doctor is suspicious about some of the other changes he can see in Earth’s heavens. Particularly that bright star, right there. No, not that one, that one, there, on the left…

  The world’s population is slowly being converted to a new path, a new way of thinking. Something is coming to Earth, an ancient force from the Dark Times. Something powerful, angry, and all-consuming…

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  ISBN 978 1 846 07562 9

  UK £6.99 US $11.99/$14.99 CDN

  At the heart of the ruined city of Arcopolis is the Fortress. It’s a brutal structure placed here by one of the sides in a devastating intergalactic war that’s long ended. Fifteen years ago, the entire population of the planet was killed in an instant by the weapon housed deep in the heart of the Fortress. Now only the ghosts remain.

  The Doctor arrives, and determines to fight his way past the Fortress’s automatic defences and put the weapon beyond use. But he soon discovers he’s not the only person in Arcopolis. What is the true nature of the weapon? Is the planet really haunted? Who are the Eyeless? And what will happen if they get to the weapon before the Doctor?

  The Doctor has a fight on his hands. And this time he’s all on his own.

  Coming soon from BBC Books