Olsen and Orpheus were watching from the roof of the slave quarters when they saw the ship sailing through into the asteroid from the main airlock.
“So the rumours were correct for once,” said Orpheus in disbelief.
“Yep, that’s a Brigand ship alright,” said Olsen who was examining the craft through a pair of binos. “Can tell by the horrible grey and black markings. So, looks like their going to need me down in New Skaro central.”
“There’s been no word from the section leader,” said Orpheus, “that’s pretty unusual don’t you think?”
“Usual? What’s that in this place?”
The absence of the Black Dalek led to no small amount of chaos when the Brigand ship came into land; it was left on the landing bay for several rels before a delegation of grey Daleks arrived to attend to their guests.
The Brigands were a mixed group of both alien and human renegades who had taken to the space ways to prey on shipping and vulnerable colonies. They ran a loose alliance that controlled everything from narcotics smuggling to protection rackets on the outer worlds. Traditionally they were commanded by a race called the Vanids, a reptilian species whose home world had been annihilated in a costly war with the terran empire some centuries earlier. They therefore tended to bear quite a grudge against humanity, which nevertheless didn’t prevent them from accepting them from time to time as crew on their ships.
The Brigand’s captain, a Vanid male by the name of Hecotle was waiting for the Daleks. The alien cut an impressive figure- dressed in his ceremonial armour, towering eight-foot above the ground and covered with angry red scales.
His second in command was an Irishmen known simply as Molloy, a skinny ragged man with bad skin and lank hair. He stood next to his Captain, keeping a close eye on the approaching trio of Daleks. Molloy acted as Hecotle’s closest advisor and the nearest the bellicose alien had to a friend in a hostile universe.
“You took your time!” hissed Hecotle. “Where is the Black Dalek? He’s usually here?”
“The Section Leader is unavailable,” said one of the Daleks. “You are to unload your cargo here.”
“Hang on a minute,” said Molloy, “what about our payment? We don’t do this for the good of our health y’know.”
The Dalek looked nonplussed: “Payment can only be authorised by the Supreme Dalek.”
“Then I suggest you find him!” growled Hecotle. “This is not the way we do business!”
“The Supreme Dalek is busy,” said the Dalek. “When we locate him payment shall be released to you. In the meantime you are to unload your cargo for processing.”
Hecotle strode forward until he was looking directly down at the Dalek, which had to stretch its eyestalk to see him: “The cargo stays in my hold until I say otherwise,” he grunted.
The Dalek backed off a little and pointed its gun stick directly at Hecotle’s midriff: “Do not threaten the Daleks! You will unload your ship now!”
Hecotle tightened a huge hand into an immense fist as the other crept to his gun belt. Molloy stopped him with a gesture suggesting caution.
“My business partner and I would like some, er, time to discuss the situation,” he stuttered nervously. “If you don’t mind that is?”
“You have fifty millirels!” grated the Dalek.
“Thank you, thank you!” said the Irishmen. Turning to his Captain his face was ashen grey: “Don’t mess with these creatures Hecotle!”
“But Brigands never deliver goods before payment!” protested the alien. “I will be a, what is that phrase you use?”
“Laughing stock?” suggested Molloy. “Look Hecotle, it’s the Daleks we’re talking about here. You know as well as I do that it’s all that little tin-creep can do to stop himself killing you on the spot at the best of times! These things only tolerate us only as long as we are of use to them. If we don’t do what they say they’ll just kill us and take the slaves anyhow.”
“No one can threaten a Brigand Captain and live!” muttered the Vanid darkly. “But, maybe in this case…”
“Your time is up!” snapped the Dalek. “What is your decision?”
The Vanid muttered a curse under his breath and steeled himself for the humiliation: “You win Dalek! We’ll unload the slaves for you, but I need to see payment before I come here again!” He turned and bellowed a series of commands at his crew who disappeared into the hold of the freighter. Soon a line of frightened and bedraggled humans were being led out onto the landing area where they were delivered to their new masters. One of the Daleks marshalled the slaves like a sheep dog escorting its herd into a pen. Only this pen was the processing unit several hundred yards from the landing platform. In one of the recesses that studded the front of the building Charlotte and Marie watched the drama unfold. Marie though was more interested in the Brigand ship, squat and ugly it may have been, lacking in most of the usual aesthetic graces undeniably: But it was still a star ship, still a potential way out of there, and this inspired an aching longing.
“Can’t you just zap your way onto that ship, like you did with Morrison?” she asked desperately.
Charley sighed: “I’m not a Dalek, I don’t go around killing people for the fun of it!”
“I’m sorry…it’s just seeing that ship…”
“It would never work anyhow, we’d both be dead before we got within five metres of that vessel,” said Charley, very matter of fact. “Besides, it is more the people coming out of that ship that we should be interested in.”
“The people, you must explain?”
To Charley it was very clear and she was surprised she should have to explain things to a grown up: “Look, those people are coming over here to be scrubbed up before they get on a train out of this city,” she said. “Think about it; two humans wondering by themselves in the middle of Dalek City are bound to draw attention. I say we sneak in with this group, get out of here.”
Marie nodded: “That’s a very good plan Charley, but it’s just so difficult to walk away from this ship!”
“Then you must be strong,” said Charley. “Otherwise we will both die.”
The Red Dalek was busy overseeing the clear-up operation in the square. By now gaps were starting to appear in the carpet of bodies and human slaves had taken over the process of throwing the corpses onto mobile recycling units.
“Have all the escaped prisoners been accounted for?” he asked one of his subordinates.
“Fifty-eight thousand and twenty bodies have been identified, it is believed four human beings are still at large.”
“Show me!” demanded the Section Leader, a data sphere was handed to him. “Forrester, Alvarez, Horowitz and the Olsen female,” grated the Red Dalek. “All of them are connected to Invidious.”
“No sign of him or his cyborg was reported by the snatch squad,” said the other Dalek. “They are now working on the transmat panel in his laboratory to ascertain where they could have transported to.”
“They must report as soon as they have any news,” said the Section Leader. “Invidious has probably gone to the Emperor, that transmat panel may be our only way of finding him. Order all Daleks to be on alert for any signs of the four escapees. They must be found and destroyed at all costs.”
“I obey.”
Forrester and Jane had made it to the outskirts of the industrial zone. Horowitz was exhausted after her escape and desperately in need of water and rest. She collapsed in a faint just as they were crossing another open space they couldn’t avoid. Forrester desperately dragged her the remaining ten metres to cover: “You can’t stop here, there’s bound to be a patrol any minute!”
“I can’t, my legs feel like jelly!” she protested.
“Then just lean on me and do the best you can!” he grunted. He did not stop once they were past the open area. He continued to drag Jane through a maze of steel pipes before eventually settling down on the sandy floor just underneath where these same pipes rested on girders. “We can rest here,” he said gently easing Jane down onto the sand.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered.
“Don’t worry about that for now,” said Forrester reassuringly.
“Water, need something to drink!”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Forrester. The Captain’s motives weren’t entirely altruistic. Running into Horowitz had been the latest in a series of lucky outcomes for him, as was the very timely power failure in the Dalek cells. No doubt the Section Leader would be thinking that he was behind that as well. Forrester enjoyed that thought, it helped sustain him through the superhuman hardships he was forced to endure. My country, right or wrong…
“Now we must get some water for the lady,” he said, running his hand along the under surface of the pipes. Those who had so kindly re-sequenced his DNA had given him osmotic skin with which he was quite capable of absorbing several litres of water into his upper epidermis. All he had to do was gather up sufficient condensation through the pores in his palms. These pipes had gathered quite a bit, his feeling was that they were part of the reactor’s cooling system.
“Here you are my dear,” he said, cupping his hands before Horowitz. She looked with wonder at the cool crystal surface before bowing down to sup it out of his hands.
“Thank you!” she said. “Thank you, thank you!”
“That’s alright my dear, you just drink up,” said Forrester with a smile. The water tasted cool and sweet in his palms, Jane thought it was the best thing she had ever drunk in her life. She could swear she drunk more than a palm full of it as well, it was so good it seemed to just go on forever.
When the last of the ‘cargo’ had been unloaded a grey Dalek returned to the Brigand ship.
“You are free to go,” it said simply.
“Hang on a minute,” said Molloy. “What about our payment?”
“Payment will be forwarded by the Supreme Dalek,” insisted the grey unit.
“Unacceptable!” thundered Hecotle. “Payment needs to be made now. That was our agreement.”
The Dalek was unmoved: “Then you must stay here until imbursement can be authorised,” it said, leaving the Brigand Captain to chew it over.
Molloy was uneasy: “C’mon Hecotle, what say we just chalk this one up to experience and get the hell out of here!”
“No! We stay until they pay us,” insisted the Vanid. “Reputation is all to a Brigand, mine has endured enough damage already.”
Molloy sighed; he knew that when Hecotle made his mind up he was difficult to budge. “Okay than, you’re the captain,” he said. “But there’s something going on here, something even nastier than normal for this shit hole.”
The sun was sinking rapidly in the ‘west’ by the time Olsen saw the plume of smoke that indicated the train was just about to arrive at the platform.
“They’re cutting it a bit fine,” he muttered to Orpheus. “I hope they don’t expect me to induct this lot in the bloody dark!”
The Psychic only grunted in response; he was too busy focussing on the plume of smoke where it caught the orange rays of the setting sun. Something was not right, he thought to himself. More than that though, there was something else which eluded him.
“At least with some extra hands I can concentrate on trying to get the processing plant back in safe hands,” said Morrison as the train pulled to a stop at the platform. “Luton and those bloody hot heads!”
Orpheus nodded, far from being cowed by his recent beating Luton had retaliated by getting together a like-minded posse of men and seizing the processing plant. In a daring operation, assisted by equally disgruntled slaves at the plant, he had seized control and now held Venables as a hostage. What good that’ll do them against the Daleks, thought Orpheus.
His train of thought was cut short as the fresh labour began to fill the platform, men, women and children with identical orange jump suits and expressions of terror on their faces. Olsen began to order them into lines and announced who he was in the dying light.
Two slaves detached themselves from the others and approached Orpheus and the overseer: “Christ!” muttered Olsen. “They’re sending me pregnant women now! What else are they going to do?” He didn’t notice the waif like child walking alongside the woman, not until she was close enough to see in the gathering gloom: “Charlotte?”
The girl didn’t respond at first, it seemed the shock of it all had robbed her of a voice; no one else dare pierce the silence.
“Daddy,” she began “daddy, why did you leave me with those monsters?”
Olsen looked distraught: “I’m sorry sugar, it was all I could do. They’d already killed your mum, I didn’t want them to do the same to you!”
“Maybe it would have been better if they did!” thundered the child, her eyes glowing like quicksilver in the darkness. “You don’t know what they did to me daddy! You should have killed me yourself before they got hold of me!”
Olsen was by now in tears, he sank down to his knees before his long lost daughter to beg her forgiveness; this just seemed to enrage the child even more. The air crackled with electrical energy around Charley’s head.  Orpheus jumped in between them both.
“No child you must stop it!” he called against a growing wall of noise. “Your father is a good man! He did what he thought was for the best! Now he is happy to have you back under his care!”
Charley seemed to struggle against an invisible enemy as her face contorted with rage and sorrow. Olsen continued to beg forgiveness for all that he’d done and had not done. Marie watched this tableau with increasing bafflement and alarm. Gradually though, the quicksilver glow left Charley’s eyes as her rage subsided, eventually she became a normal little girl again who ran into her Daddy’s arms to give him a big hug.
“It’s alright darling,” he sobbed. “I’ll make sure that no one else hurts you. Daddy will protect you for all time!”

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