 he armoury was well stocked. A lesson learnt from the early colonies was never to leave them undefended. Too many had fallen pray to alien or human pirates.
‘Ace can help you set up the weapons in the best locations,’ The Doctor said to Dwight.
‘Ace!’ replied a beaming Ace, ‘But where are you off to, Professor?’
'I'm going to see if I can establish any secondary force-fields within the base. Commander, I suggest that you arm anyone who knows how to use a gun and give anyone who doesn't know, a rapid crash course in the basics. You can guarantee that the Cybermen will be knocking on the door very soon.’
He was about to leave when the Commander asked, ‘Doctor, how many can we expect?’
The Doctor turned and said, ‘One ship, I’d say we could expect about fifty Cybermen.’
‘Erm, Doctor,’ the Commander said as the Doctor turned to leave once again, ‘we’ve picked up four more traces like the one we saw last night over the past month.’
‘Four more!’ replied the Doctor, his face paling. ‘But that means there could be as many as two-hundre and fifty Cybermen!'‘Do we stand a chance?’ asked Dwight.
‘Put it like this.’ The Doctor replied, ‘If you believe in any deities then I suggest that you start to pray. I must hurry.’ he said dashing from the room.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Half an hour later the lights in the control room showing that the outer forcefield was active winked out. Jim turned to Dwight and the Doctor and said in a voice filled with dread, 'They're through.'The first line of defence consisted of automatic guns firing high explosive shells, rockets and lasers into the oncoming ranks of Cybermen. Although many of the vanguard fell beneath the barrage of the weapons due to the large numbers of invaders the guns soon destroyed.
The next line of defence consisted of colonists armed with a variety of weapons hiding behind any shielding that the base offered. Once again the sheer numbers of the oncoming wave of death rendered the line of defence useless, the screams of the colonists showing what a blood-bath the defence was likely to become.
Then a small tank leapt from among the defenders, it’s laser, primarily used for removing vegetation or creating tunnels, cutting huge swathes through the oncoming Cybermen. But still they pressed on, all of them seeming to target which soon began to overheat from the continual pounding it took from the enemy, its engines finally exploded in an ear shattering noise.
With the loss of his weapon the order came for the defenders to fall back into the base and this they did.
Inside the control room Dwight turned to the Doctor and said, ‘I just hope that your force-field last long enough for us to stop them.’
‘So do I. So do I.’ replied the Doctor, who stared intently at the monitors showing the pictures from the internal security camera. He saw the colonists withdrawing into their allocated positions.
Then the Cybermen came.
They strode into the building as if they were passing through their own threat-free space ship, heedless of their fallen and falling comrades.
The Doctor saw a few straggling colonists dropping beneath the Cyber-onslaught before they reached the protection of the hastily erected shielding. On another screen he saw Ace crouched behind a makeshift wall of overturned furniture.
He took all of this in a moment and then began flipping switches on a board in front of him. The plan was simple, to use the force-field to shepherd the Cybermen into various ambushes and then use them to help the colonists fall back to new positions. With luck the invaders may be worn down before they reached the heart of the colony, the control room and infirmary, and the base be overrun. A simple plan, the Doctor hoped that it wasn’t too simple.
The Cybermen reached the first strong point. They were guided down a corridor intersected by a further corridor with colonists down either side. The plan worked well to begin with, about fifteen Cybermen fell beneath the sudden barrage from the colonists but then it all went wrong, as one of the barriers collapsed and all of the colonists down the corridor were massacred.
 
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everyones bad day pt2 page2
