(6) War
Energy sizzled through the air, quickly decimating the local forest as
the cybermen did their best to defend themselves against the Daleks.
The Commander reviewed the data.
The Doctor had been captured, once again, according to units within the
volcano. Although the Doctor had fired the weapon, it was only for
local defence - the true, primary power had not been activated for
centuries. It would take time to decipher the language, but once it was
understood, the Doctor wouldn't matter.The battle with the Daleks was
reaching a stalemate. Since the deployment of the gravity charges, the
Daleks had learned staying on the ground was too dangerous. The shells
of what was left of Dalek armour littered the nearby forest - or what
was left of it. Great sperical chunks were missing from the lower
portion of their casings, and many of them now lay on their sides. They
had attempted to levitate then, as expected. This had it's own
disadvantages. While hovering, they were able to avoid the gravity
charges, but in so doing, became vulnerable to frictional forces. As
floating was mostly frictionless, they were propelled in any direction
by even the smallest explosion.Unfortunately, they just kept coming,
while cybermen numbers were limited by the number of humans they had,
and the speed at which they were converted. The store of gravity
charges was also gradually being depleted. Another factor working
against them - they were trying to defend both the crash site, and the
entrance to the volcano. Forces were stretched thin, and the volcano
had just become isolated. If anything, the Daleks would attack that
force first.The commander turned to the tactical console, and analysed
the latest battle reports. For the moment, the Daleks were silent.