He took a couple of steps towards the TARDIS, a gloved hand outstretched. A bright green spark leapt from the ship, arcing through the air towards him.

The Doctor backed off. ‘If I hadn’t had these on,’ he said, peeling off the rubber gloves one finger at a time, ‘there would have been toasted Doctor on the menu.’

‘So we can’t get out in your ship,’ said Sid.

The Doctor shook his head. ‘No. We’re stuck here with the Sontarans.’

Chapter Six

THEY HURRIED THROUGH the corridors. The four students had all decided to stay with the Doctor. None of them fancied trying to hide from the Sontarans on their own.

It was easy to track down the rest of the athletes. The Doctor and his friends just followed the sound of screams.

‘They’re in the gym hall,’ Holly told the Doctor. She shivered. ‘What are they doing in there?’

‘That’s what we’ve got to find out,’ he replied.

Emma looked thoughtful. ‘Doesn’t the hall have a viewing gallery?’ she said. ‘They might not notice us if we were up there, but we could see what was going on.’

The Doctor beamed at her. ‘Good plan!’ he said. He spun around. ‘Lead the way!’

They hurried up a flight of stairs and into the viewing gallery. There they crouched down, not wanting to be spotted by any Sontarans who looked their way. Bent almost double, they crept to the front of the gallery and peered into the gym.

Frantic, crying students filled one end of the hall. They were dressed in nightclothes. Some of them seemed dazed. Perhaps they didn’t know that they were awake and thought they were still in a nightmare. At the other end, towering above them, was a Sontaran. The Doctor did a double take. Then he realised that the short alien was standing on a vaulting horse. ‘I hope he falls off,’ he muttered.

A Sontaran stood on either side of the horse. ‘Silence!’ shouted the Sontaran on the left.

The Sontaran on the other side echoed him. ‘Silence! Silence!’ Their guns swung from side to side, covering the panicking students.

A laser beam flew into the crowd. There were cries, but it didn’t seem as though anyone had been hit. A warning shot. The students fell silent except for a few sobs.

‘Silence for Major Stenx!’ shouted the left-hand Sontaran.

‘Silence for Stenx the Strong-hearted!’ shouted the right-hand Sontaran, despite the fact that the students had clearly got the message already.

The central Sontaran carefully lifted up his helmet. Emma clapped a hand to her mouth. There were gasps all around the gym as the alien’s head was revealed. Its skin was the muddy brown of a rotten apple. Its head was as domed and hairless as the same fruit cut in half. Little piggy eyes squinted from either side of a large nose. A small black tongue flicked in and out of a slit of a mouth as the Sontaran spoke.

‘I am Major Stenx of the Twelfth Sontaran Battle Fleet. This building is now under Sontaran control,’ he announced. ‘You there!’ A three-fingered hand jabbed towards a scared-looking young man near the front of the crowd.

‘That’s Jimmy,’ whispered Karl.

‘What is the purpose of this place?’ Stenx went on.

‘This is . . . this is BASE,’ the lad stammered. ‘We’re training for the Games.’

‘Games?’ echoed Stenx. ‘What are these “Games” of which you speak?’

Jimmy could barely speak for fear. ‘The . . . the Globe Games,’ he said at last. ‘We compete with other countries in sports.’

‘Ah!’ Stenx’s thin mouth curved into a smile. ‘You are warriors, then, of a sort. This is good! Sontarans, too, think training is vital if one is to defeat one’s enemies. Perhaps you will provide a challenge for Sontaran soldiers, unlike the rest of your feeble species.’

Stenx ordered Jimmy to come forward. Trembling, the young man did so, and stood in front of the vaulting horse.

‘Tell me,’ said Stenx, ‘in what sport do you compete?’

‘I’m a hurdler,’ Jimmy said. His voice was so low that the Doctor had to strain to hear.

‘A hurdler?’

‘I jump over hurdles. And run. Run and jump. Over hurdles.’

‘Run and jump.’ Stenx leaned over to speak to one of his aides. The Sontaran nodded, then stomped over to a balance beam and knelt down, appearing to inspect it. Stenx turned back to Jimmy. ‘You could jump over that?’ he asked, pointing at the beam.

Jimmy nodded.

‘Good. Do so. I wish to see this “running and jumping”.’

The Doctor stared down at the Sontarans. Every instinct he possessed was telling him to leap from the viewing gallery and confront them. He knew, though, that he had more chance of stopping them if they didn’t know he was there. So far, at least, they hadn’t harmed anyone.

Down in the gym, Jimmy had started to run towards the beam. As he picked up pace, the worry seemed to drain from his face. He was an athlete. This was what he did.

The youth soared gracefully into the air. He cleared the beam easily, and came in to land. His foot touched the floor.

There was an explosion. It happened in a split second, and no one had time to turn away. All the students saw exactly what happened to Jimmy.

The Doctor saw it too. His hands were on top of the barrier and his knees were bent. He was ready to vault down into the hall before the sound had even died away.

Strong arms dragged him back. To the Doctor’s enormous surprise, Emma was pulling him down to the floor of the gallery. Her swimmer’s muscles were straining to hold back the angry Time Lord. ‘Don’t!’ she whispered. ‘If they catch you, you’ll condemn us all to death.’

‘But that boy, Jimmy,’ the Doctor began.

Emma shook her head. ‘It’s too late for him. You have to stay free, for the rest of us. You’re our only hope.’

Down in the hall, Major Stenx was speaking to the shocked students. ‘An interesting study. The youth had speed and some degree of skill, but his mind was not alert. He failed to detect the charge placed by Captain Skeed.’ He sneered. ‘I believe you humans have a saying which he did not observe: “Look before you leap”. He did not, and so is no match for the might of the Sontarans!’ Stenx thumped a fist against his palm. ‘Sontar-ha!’

The two Sontarans beside him took up the cry. ‘Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha!’

Up in the gallery, the Doctor was nearly boiling over with anger. He wanted to be down there, facing the Sontarans. It was only Emma’s hand on his arm that was holding him back.

‘I need to know why they’re here!’ he hissed through closed teeth. ‘Then maybe I’ll be able to stop them.’

Karl, Sid and Holly had crept closer, perhaps feeling safer near the Doctor. ‘Maybe it’s something to do with the swimming pool,’ Sid suggested. ‘That’s where the first death happened.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘As good a place to start as any,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

As they crept from the gallery, the Sontarans’ shouts echoed after them. ‘Sontar-ha! Sontarha! SONTAR-HA!’

Chapter Seven

THE DOCTOR AND the four students made their way out of the viewing gallery. They headed towards the swimming pool.

‘I don’t think we’re going to learn anything, though,’ said Emma. ‘I know Laura died there, but the other two didn’t.’

Holly nodded. ‘Well, yeah. But Andy’s body was found quite near the pool area, and Joe was Laura’s boyfriend – he might have been trying to find out what had happened to her.’

The Doctor’s ears pricked up. This was news to him.

‘You didn’t tell me two of the victims were a couple,’ he said to Emma. ‘I thought no one round here spoke to anyone else!’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Sorry. I forgot you wouldn’t have known.’ She shook her head. ‘But I still don’t think the pool’s important. We’ve been swimming there every day since and not seen anything odd.’