The Dalek Trap (comic story)
- You may be looking for the audio story.
The Dalek Trap was a comic which was the first story of The Dalek Outer Space Book. It included a diagram of the strata of Skaro titled The Strata of Skaro.
Summary
Space Pilot Commander Don Morais and his co-pilot, Zec, are on a deep-space reconnaissance mission. Harassed by the Daleks, they implement a plan to get rid of their pesky foes. They have their fellow pilots fly in close formation so that they'll appear as one craft on their opponents' screens. At the last moment they split apart to deliver a massive blow. The plan works brilliantly.
With the Daleks now vanquished, Don sends the other pilots back to base while he and Zec press on with the reconnaissance. For days, the mission proves a quiet one. Between the planets of Troch and the Vale of Holocaust, things quickly go sour. Their ship is gripped by a mysterious force which knocks out their instruments and pulls them toward a dangerous stellar whirlpool. At the last moment, a kind of lightning storm hits the ship, and reverses the hull's polarity. Now, instead of being drawn towards the whirlpool, they are repelled by it. The two adventurers have escaped almost certain death!
What they've not avoided are more mysteries. Suddenly, their viewscreen fills with the image of another spacecraft. The only problem is that Don recognises it as a ship that went missing more than three hundred years ago. Attempts to raise its crew fail, but it's flying so close to Don's ship that he needs to get control of it before his ship is damaged.
Don and Zec initiate docking procedures and are soon onboard the ancient vessel. No sooner have they transferred over than its controls spark to life. No one's in the ship, but it's now rapidly exiting the area. Too late, Don and Zec understand it was all a trap. Before they know it, they're on Skaro, forced to do the bidding of the Golden Dalek. To demonstrate why they must accept the mission, he tortures them with plasmoral constrictive gas. After they recover, they get their orders. Don and Zec are to go to the depths of the planet to find the rare mineral, doranium. It's in a tight spot the Daleks simply don't have the agility to reach. Doranium, it turns out, will give Dalek weaponry enough power to reach targets vast distances away. Essentially, doranium is a miracle power source that will make the Daleks invincible.
Still, the duo have very little choice but to help their foes. They go on a very long hike down to the strata of Skaro's crust that contains the mineral, until the Valley of Rocks. The precise spot of the doranium vein is directly beneath a brand new Dalek space station. This gives Don an idea. Since doranium is naturally electric, he can short it out with his water bottle, allowing them to pass to the surface of Skaro through a pre-existing hole in the doranium strata. At the same time, the resulting electric explosion weakens the foundations of the Dalek space station. It falls into the now-open doranium pit and explodes. The doranium's natural electricity has now been exhausted and the mineral is useless.
With one tiny action, Don has deprived the Daleks of the fuel and the staging area they were going to use for universal conquest. The two pilots quickly find a spacecraft in which they leave Skaro and return to base.
Characters
Worldbuilding
- Doranium is a mineral charged with electricity power, usable as propellant. It is found in a stratum beneath the surface of Skaro, in the valley of Rocks.
- Zec risks sinking in quicksand.
- Spaceship One disappeared three hundred years before the time of Don and Zec.
- Phoretic crystals are guaranteed to last a thousand years.
- Plasmoral constrictive gas slowly burns skin tissues.
The Strata of Skaro
- Locations on Skaro's surface include the Islands of Mists, Desert of Despair, Waters of Fire, Dalek City, Ocean of Death, highest mountains of Skaro, Sea of Acid, Lake of Snakes, and the Canyons of Terror.
- The strata of Skaro are (from the outside to the centre) the surface, the Cellular Layer home to Cellular Layer creatures, the Zone of the Eternal Dark home to Zone of the Eternal Dark creatures, the Stratum of Screaming Winds home to suckers, the Depths of Unknown home to the Krakis, the Abyss of Death home to living rock, the Morass home to sponge people, and the Ice Heart of Skaro.
- Two potential icanos on Skaro are the Bore Hole and the Fissure.
Notes
- This saw the first appearance of a gold Dalek variant.
- The Golden Dalek is the Dalek Emperor, which was also called the "Golden Dalek" elsewhere in The Dalek Outer Space Book. However, it was drawn in the shape of a standard Dalek. There is no time setting given for when The Dalek Trap takes place, or any connections to other stories, so any inconsistencies are ultimately avoided.
- Like several other stories in The Dalek Outer Space Book, this story contains a splash panel serving as a "Feature" in its own right, but which is also part of the narrative: a map of the underground of the planet Skaro, given the title The Strata of Skaro.
Continuity
- The concept of icecanos later feature in TV: Planet of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Planet of the Daleks (TV story)"].
- Several locations in The Strata of Skaro were previously seen in PROSE: The Dalography of Skaro [+]Loading...["The Dalography of Skaro (feature)"]. These are the Islands of the Mists (previously seen as the Forbidden Islands), the highest mountains of Skaro (previously seen as the Drammankin Mountains), the Ocean of Death (as the Bottomless Sea), and the Lake of Snakes (as the Serpent Sea).
