The Threat from Beneath (comic story): Difference between revisions

The [[Dalek]]s destroy some of [[Earth]]'s satellites tasked with scanning for extraterrestrial life sometime during the [[Cold War]]. As the [[Dalek Saucer Commander]] predicts, the [[human]]s react by squabbling amongst themselves; the [[Soviet]]s think it's the [[American]]s who've taken out the satellites, while the Americans believe the reverse. As both sides look from a terrestrial explanation, the [[Dalek saucer]] slips into an Earth ocean, and settles, unseen, on the floor.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is called for an urgent meeting at [[Whitehall]]. He is led to a secret facility deep beneath the city streets, where he examines the data on the exploded satellites. Admiral Dunsford claims that the Soviets have [[nuclear weapon|nuclear-armed]] satellites. The Doctor, however, pushes this theory aside brusquely. The data, he insists, supports only the theory that the satellites weren't just destroyed – they were atomised. That, says the Doctor, means that Britain and the world are threatened by extraterrestrials.

Later, the Doctor — and the rest of the people who had gathered in Whitehall — receive new intelligence. An object came down somewhere off the [[Pacific Ocean|Pacific]] coast of [[South America]]. The Doctor advances the theory that it must have been a controlled spacecraft of some kind, else its impact would have created a [[tidal wave]]. This, however, the admiral and his cronies cannot accept. The Doctor fails to convince Britain's top military leaders of his theories. He leaves Whitehall, convinced that it's up to him alone to stop the world's superpowers from destroying each other.

He's wrong, however. Even as he prepares [[the TARDIS]] for travel, the Admiralty have actually taken heed of him. They've sent orders to one of their submarines in the Pacific, the [[HMS Pandora|HMS ''Pandora'']], to look for "green-eyed Martians" beneath the sea. The Doctor finds them first, however. The TARDIS lands in a quiet area of the Dalek saucer, allowing him to sneak up on the Dalek control room. There, he sees that the Daleks have noticed the approach of the ''Pandora'' and are taking action against it. But they don't destroy it. Instead, they turn its crew into a form of [[Roboman]]. They command the crew to report "negative findings" to the Admiralty.

The Doctor, by this point, is crawling around in the power conduits of the Dalek saucer. He creates a distraction by creating a small electrical fire that creates a disproportionate amount of smoke — thanks the chemical composition of the Dalek wiring insulation. He drops down to the Dalek communication panel, where he tries to communicate with the ''Pandora''.   At first he seems unsuccessful, but then he's able to give the ''Pandora'' new orders on the proper Dalek control frequency: they are to send up a [[Polaris missile]] at a 90-degree angle, then run like hell before it comes down. The Daleks find the Doctor in the smoke, and try to fire at him, but their aim is impaired. The Doctor runs for the TARDIS, hoping he'll get there before the missile comes down. It hits the Dalek saucer rather precisely. The Dalek threat ends under a huge mushroom cloud over the South Pacific.  

When the Doctor returns to the Admiralty, Dunsford is in a self-congratulatory mood. The [[Royal Navy]] have saved the day. The only problem, the Doctor points out, is that he knows the Admiralty didn't send the order to activate Polaris. So if not they, who was in control of one of Britain's nuclear weapons?