Dalek Empire The Fearless: Part Two
Dalek Empire The Fearless: Part Two
Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks),
The Earth Alliance is on the brink of victory in the Kedru System. But at what cost?
Meanwhile, deep within the Dalek Empire, Susan Mendes prepares for her latest mission…
The Daleks have just destroyed Salus Kade’s ship with an experimental weapon code-named Dead Hand — just as General Landen expected. And, also as she’d expected, Kade was prepared for anything, and the Fearless had already donned their Spacer suits before their ship was blown apart. The Spacers jet across to the Dalek ship, destroy most of its trans-solar disc escort, board the ship and fight their way to the control centre, suffering losses on the way but winning the battle. A single Dalek survives, but is too badly damaged to defend itself, at Fisk’s suggestion, Kade removes its weapon but lets it live so it can be interrogated later. Fisk and Kennedy begin trying to override the ship’s security lockouts so they can pilot the ship back to Kedru 7 and contact the fleet — but as they work, they see that two of the ship’s escorts survived the earlier attack and are heading directly for the planet.
Despite the apparent loss of the Fearless, Landen orders the shaken General Croft to press home the attack on the main fleet, and calls the reserve flotilla out of Kedru 7 orbit to press home their tactical advantage. She then visits ops personally to ask Lt Carlisle if he’s received any word from Kade’s squadron, and although the answer is negative, she still seems confident that Kade has survived and will soon be in control of the Dead Hand ship. She thus returns to her cabin to report to Ernst Tanlee, the head of Earth Alliance security, that all appears to be going according to plan. She and Tanlee have been working on the same operation, and since Tanlee’s agent hasn’t succeeded yet, Landen has decided to approach the problem from another angle. As she speaks, Carlisle calls her from ops, reporting that the Dead Hand and two trans-solar discs are heading towards Kedru 7… and because Landen ordered the reserve flotilla to join the main fleet, the planet is undefended.
Fisk discovers that Kedru 7 is defenceless, and picks up a signal transmitting from the Dead Hand ship to the trans-solar discs. Kade realises that the surviving Dalek has sent instructions to its surviving escort, but it refuses to tell him what they’re doing. Frantic, Kade orders Fisk and Kennedy to get more power to the engines and ram the discs if necessary to stop them, but one of the discs turns back and rams the Dead Hand ship itself, slowing them down. It then turns back and joins the other disc, boosting its engines to maximum speed. Both Kennedy on the Dead Hand and Carlisle in EA ops detect an enormous power build-up from the discs, and realise what they’re doing: the discs have enough power to travel between star systems without refuelling, and they’re about to unleash all that poweron Kedru 7 in a single destructive kamikaze blast.
The Dalek aboard the Dead Hand ship stops transmitting, its work complete, and Landen manages to get a message through to the ship, ordering Kade to turn back. He refuses to do so and puts a gun to The Dalek’s casing, demanding that it stop its comrades, but it’s too late, The Dalek trans-solar discs descend into the atmosphere of Kedru 7 and detonate their drive systems. The planet’s civilian population, including Kade’s wife Lajitta and their daughter, have retreated into air-raid shelters, but the blast is powerful enough to burn off the planet’s entire atmosphere. The operations platform in orbit is caught in the shockwave, but survives… but there’s nobody left alive on Kedru 7.
coming soon
- The Fearless Part Two was the third instalment of Dalek Empire IV The Fearless
- David Sax (Tanlee) is a pseudonym for Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks)
- This audio drama was recorded on 16, 17, 18, 23 and 24 July 2007
