Doctor Who : Salvation (Chapter 3)

Chapter 3

Sierra Nevada Mountains

July 23^rd 2004

The downdraft from the chopper blades battered Robert Brewster as he and his compliment of 5 men departed form their transport over the harsh environment of the Sierra Nevada mountains. As a newly promoted Leuitenant Brewster had been given his first ‘mission’ to lead and right up until the point when he actually found out what it would entail he could not hide his excitement.

A clean up job. An old nuclear bunker left over form the days of the cold war was in dire need of shutting down and disbanding and his first job was to lead a squad of men to do it. As he trudged across the sand towards the huge metal doors embedded into the mountain side he could almost hear the thoughts of the heavily armed men that were accompanying him and had it not been for reports of gun fire and looting taking place in the bunker he concluded that he wouldn’t have been here at all.

It took the electricals expert, a man named Tyson a mere number of seconds to jar open the control panel for the big metal access doors rewire an old system and bring the door circuits back online. The doors shuddered and groaned with a tone that beiffted their age perfectely. Brewster didn’t know at this point what he was more scared of; the fact that there might actually be somebody in this run down base or that the men he was with were thinking of ways to kill him inauspiciously to avoid the embarrassment of being sent on such an assigment.

As the party entered the access tunnel to the main bunker the men began to chip in with cheeky and dis-respectful jibes about the possibility of there being ghosts and aliens in the bunker. Brewster let the men chunter for a while and then pulled rank with a simple signal of his hand. The men stopped their joking and moved towards the huge steel door that gave access to the bunker.

Within minutes of having arrived at the door Tyson had again worked his magic and the 8foot thick steel door was sliding open. The sight that met Brewster was uninspiring to say the least.

The bunker was bathed in a weak light that had managed to flicker into being when the door creaked open and apart from the mediocore quality of the presidential platform (designed for the president to address the world after the onslaught of nuclear holocaust) the bunker was dead. The only solace for Brewster was that the men turned their jibes towards the 1970’s computer equipment and outdated cameras instead of him.

3 hours after they had entered the bunker the men had successfully managed to rig up a rudimentary lighting system and had begun breaking up the computer equipment ready for the large transport helicopters that would be arriving within the hour to begin the clear out. Brewster was stood in what must have been the main office when he heard a noise, a noise that at first he dismissed as utterly impossible, but as he turned his head expecting to see one of the soldiers messing about he was shocked by the sight that greeted him. In the office right in front of him stood his daughter Kate…however she was different, her clothes were battered and her face scared. Brewster rubbed his eyes in dis-belief and yet when he opened his eyes she was still there. The only difference this time was that she was shouting, or at least she appeared to be shouting loudly but he could not hear her. He fell back in his seat, shocked at what he was seeing, he called out to her but she did not respond.

He was only sure of her existence at all when Tyson rounded the door of the office and stopped dead in his tracks with his gun held high. Sensing the fear in the eys of his commanding officer he looked Kate up and down, ‘sir…’ the nervousness in his voice shook the room around him ‘sir…isn’t that….’

‘My daughter…’ Brewster confirmed Tysons worst fears but before he could say anymore Kates expression changed.

She grimaced in pain and held her stomach, Brewster shot forward in order to help his apparently mute daughter. It was at this exact moment that the installation shook and the whole place began to rumble and howl. Tyson looked deep into the eyes of his commanding officer who in turn looked past his daughter to see the bulk of a huge man in a torn black jacket and sunglasses. It was also at this moment that the entire bunker complex was engulfed in a ball of flames...before the fireball took him Tyson could have been sure that he heard a final sound above the roar of the flames; the echoing voice of a woman straining to make herself heard, He quickly formulated that this must have been what Brewsters daughter must have sounded but also very quickly realized he would never find out what she was doing there. As he closed his eyes her voice boomed through his head crying just one name…John.