Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [90]
Tegan pulled herself to her feet and asked what the hell was going on.
‘That was a freighter on a descent spiral being chased by an interceptor,’ Adam told them. ‘Let’s get undercover before the Adjudicators arrive.’ Behind them, the snowship had completed a one hundred and eighty degree turn and now it was setting off back into the blizzard.
Adam had reached the mouth of a pot-hole. ‘Mining subsidence?’ the Doctor asked.
‘The whole area was overmined, the rock’s like a honeycomb. It’s impossible to map, there are rockfalls every day. Handy if you need to get around without anyone being able to find you.’
‘You know a way to the hospital then?’
Quint grunted. ‘The tunnels here are wide: we shouldn’t have a problem getting the sled down them. It’ll take a couple of hours.’
14
Convergence
‘Program running,’ Nyssa said. Data streamed across the readout above her head.
‘I’ve just lost sensor definition,’ Chris complained.
‘Yes: half of the arrays are now looking for the Doctor, or rather his double heartbeat.’ It had been a simple programming task. Nyssa was surprised how basic human computers were.
‘That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.’
Nyssa frowned at the phrase. ‘Considerably more complex than that, but well within the capabilities of the freighter’s computers. Wherever the Doctor is, we should need to complete two orbits of the planet at most. What is the interceptor doing?’
‘Holding its distance. It won’t interfere. The Skybase knows that they can’t bring us down without the risk of a fusion explosion.’ Chris saw Nyssa’s expression. ‘No, don’t worry: the bombs can’t possibly go off unless they are armed. But they can’t be sure that we haven’t armed them.’
A buzzer sounded above Nyssa’s head.
‘We’ve found the Doctor!’ she shouted. ‘Two hundred kilometres ahead.’
Chris began the landing procedure. At the speeds they were travelling, it was quite a job to prevent the freighter from overshooting. The whine of the engines began to lower in pitch, and the white horizon dipped for the first time.
‘We’re on an automatic descent spiral. We’ll have touchdown in four minutes, and we’ll be within a kilometre of the Doctor’s position. I’ll find the suit locker and get a couple of environment suits. You gather up the fusion charges.’
Nyssa pulled herself from the co-pilot’s seat and set off down the length of the freighter to the cargo hold. The deck was pitching slightly as the freighter descended but she retained her balance.
The hold was dark, the prone figure of the pilot still lay in the corner. She hadn’t much time. There was a small box, a first aid kit, hanging from a hook by the door. She pulled it down and shook the contents out. They had already removed one of the fusion charges from its shelf.
She took it from the coffin-like container, almost afraid to touch the evil thing, and laid it in the first aid box. An almost perfect fit. Moving over to the racking, she began to take the other containers down, one by one.
Adjudicator-Pilot El-Messawi sat suspended in his globepit, state-of-the-art gravitronics protecting him from G-forces that would have snapped his spine. He couldn’t see outside: but he knew that he was sitting well back, almost at the tail of the tapered aircraft. His hands and fingers were coated in a million nanofilaments that translated the slightest nerve impulse into a complex aerial manoeuvre. His helmet fed him all the tactical and navigational information he needed.
The computer told him that the freighter had entered a descent spiral and showed him the point where it would land. Unlike the interceptor, the stolen vessel wasn’t capable of a vertical landing in an atmosphere. Messawi cut through the freighter’s flightpath, heading directly for the landing site.
As a precaution, Messawi activated the stealth mode.
This was crude technology, rarely used in combat. It didn’t make his ship invisible, it blinded the other man’s sensor with a burst of energy. Most warships were protected against the tactics, but not an ordinary freighter.