‘Collect all weapons,’ Craddock ordered, though this was hardly necessary. His men knew that was standard procedure. ‘We move on in two minutes.’ He walked past a fallen soldier – barely out of his teens – pausing only to rip the gun from the boys lifeless, bloodstained fingers, and to check his corpse for spare ammunition. Then he moved on.

This was his life. This was war.

Donna sat in the front of the runabout, hunched over the instrument‐display panel. The sky was darkening, as the storm drew closer, and this made it easier to see the faint traces of the transponder they were attempting to locate. David Campbell sat to her right, driving. The Doctor was hunched over in the back, morosely watching the passing landscape, and thinking his own introspective thoughts. Whatever mood had gripped him, at least he’d stopped prying into her life.

‘It’s really faint,’ she informed David. ‘But I think it’s only about a mile ahead. Something’s definitely happened to it.’

‘Some kind of accident, most likely,’ David said gruffly. She could tell by the pinched muscles in his face that he was worrying about his wife. It was almost a relief to see that some men, at least, could have such feelings. If only she’d ever met one like that… But it was no time to be thinking of herself Susan could be in trouble, and need their help.

The runabout slowed down, as the three of them scanned both sides of the road. It wasn’t in great shape, but surely Susan would have known to take care? Still, she’d been driving by night, and some of these potholes might have been almost invisible.

‘There,’ said the Doctor suddenly, reaching forward to grip her shoulder. ‘To the left.’ He pointed.

It was another five seconds before Donna caught sight of whatever it was his sharper eyes had seen. It was a runabout, all right, and severely damaged. The entire front had caved in when it had ploughed into a tree. Shattered glass lay all about, and one of the doors had torn free and sailed thirty feet further down the road.

There was a figure inside the car, slumped over the wheel.

David brought the vehicle to a halt and leapt out. Somehow, though, the Doctor beat him to it. Both men raced across to the wreckage, as Donna hurried to join them. Then she hung back slightly, realising that this was family business and she was an intruder.

David’s face went ashen as he stared at the body. Donna could see that the whole face had mashed into the shattered windscreen. Shards of glass had sliced away virtually all of Susan’s features, and had rammed through to her brain. Mercifully, she must have died instantly.

The Doctor seemed grim, but not as distraught as Donna would have expected. He bent over the corpse, sniffing slightly, and then looked around carefully.

‘We have to get her back,’ David said, his voice on the verge of breaking totally. How he was holding himself together, Donna couldn’t say.’ We argued just before she left, Doctor, and I was angry with her. I –’

‘– will most likely have lots of time to make it up to her,’ the Doctor replied. ‘This isn’t Susan.’

Both Donna and David were stunned by this announcement. ‘How… How can you be sure?’ David asked, obviously begging for good news.

The Doctor tapped his nose. ‘Human blood,’ he replied.

Oh… And Susan was his granddaughter, and therefore as nonhuman as he. ‘Then who is that?’ Donna asked, confused.

‘Some poor soul who looked a little like her,’ the Doctor said savagely. ‘For that, she was killed, to try to make us think it was Susan.’ He stared off into the distance. ‘No need for a post‐mortem, so whoever planned this might have got away with it if I hadn’t been here. And if Susan hadn’t been Gallifreyan.’ He gestured at the body. ‘She’d have walked away from a death like that, most probably.’

Donna wasn’t sure she liked the idea of people able to live through such horrendous deaths. It sounded too much like something out of Bram Stoker to her. ‘So why do this?’

‘To make it look like Susan died on her way to her mission,’ the Doctor replied. ’But they messed it up. The car’s facing the right way, but the skid marks on the road aren’t. This… “accident” was staged to make you think she never made it to DA‐17.’

‘You mean that she did?’ David said quietly. He had taken a blanket from the boot, and thrown it over the poor woman’s body. Not being able to see it made Donna feel a lot better.

‘Almost certainly,’ the Doctor said. ‘And, logically, she ran into trouble that somebody is trying to cover up. I’d say that’s where we’ll find her, the answers, and whoever committed this disgusting and unnecessary crime.’ Spinning on his heels, he marched back to their runabout. ‘Don’t dawdle,’ he called.

Feeling like a reprimanded schoolchild, Donna hurried after him. David took one last look at the covered corpse, and followed.

Susan was certainly relieved to discover that her ‘death’ was, in fact, nothing more than a ploy. Her captors had wanted to throw the Peace Force off the trail, and had manufactured an accident with her runabout. It had been decided that she would be of more use to them as a hostage than dead, a decision she’d been happy to comply with. Since this was a work area rather than a prison, they’d been forced to lock her away in a shed, with a guard outside the door, while they reported back on her presence.

More fools they.

The shed was only about eight feet across in both directions, and about the same in height. There were a few empty barrels in it, a couple of boxes, and nothing that she could use to help her to escape. Her captors had considered these adequate precautions and locked her in. She almost felt sorry for their lack of imagination.

She’d been forced to wait, though, before taking action. The shed was in plain sight of anyone working on the pit, and if she’d made a break too soon, she’d certainly have been seen, given the number of people active in the area. But the storm that had been gathering finally broke around five o’clock, cloaking the world in darkness, shattered only by stabs of lightning and roars of thunder. Rain hammered down on the roof above her.

Susan felt a small glow of satisfaction from knowing that her guard would be getting absolutely soaked.

This would bring all work to a halt for the time being, at least. And the darkness caused by the storm would hide her from any casual eyes. She moved from the drum she’d been sitting on to the back wall of the shed, One of the nice things about wearing a uniform was that there were always shiny decorations on it. Removing her Peace Officer’s badge, she turned it over to expose the point. Using this, it was the work of only minutes to undo several screws holding panels in the back wall in place. Carefully, she slid the panel aside, and looked out.

The sky was black, rain hammering down on to the dry ground and forming puddles. A jagged burst of lightning illuminated the scene briefly, showing her that there was nobody in sight. Steeling herself, she wormed through the gap.

She was soaked to the skin almost instantly. The rain was falling so hard that it stung. Her hair was plastered to her face, her clothing drenched and clinging. She moved through the darkness, keeping the shed between her and the man on guard, heading towards the shah. She could see no one, and in this storm nobody was likely to notice her.

Ignoring the chill and the mud, Susan made her way to the power cables. She touched the closest, feeling the hum of energy. Her eyes narrowed as she stared through the darkness. Whatever was going on here, power was flowing to something. Following the cable in the darkness brought her to the brink of the pit. Water was pooling at the top, and streaming down the sides. She chanced a look down, but there was nobody looking back. They weren’t anticipating trouble here. The border patrols would intercept intruders, of course, as they had captured her. And brought her conveniently through their lines.