Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [30]
Humans dwell too much in the past; their extent of vision rarely spreads beyond the present. But that is an occupational hazard for any species that lives within the constrictions of time’s passage. Happy the creature that can remember the future. The Doctor wished that he was blessed with such facility, if only to avoid the paradoxical confusion of being accused of some act he had yet to perpetrate.
He lay semi-conscious on the carpet, trying to clear his head of temporal disturbances and human witterings.
Merlin. Hear me now!
A voice in the darkness of his head. Not a moment’s peace, he thought. A woman’s voice, cold and domineering.
‘I can hear you, Morgaine,’ he said out loud.
Do not stand against me this time, Merlin. For your soul’s sake.
The Doctor sat up oblivious of the concerned faces that surrounded him. ‘I cannot allow your interference,’ he said.
And he could see her now. A proud and regal warrior armoured in gold, lit by torchlight. She raised her hand aggressively and made a fist. Then let this be our last battlefield!
The thunder roared. She was gone. The torchlight in his head and the lights in the hotel bar blacked out simultaneously.
His human companions screamed.
Chapter 2
Pilot Lieutenant Francoise Lavel sat and waited in the warmth of her helicopter. The early morning air was crisp and clear over the river. After the storm rescue operations of the previous day, Thames Barrier Heliport was deceptively quiet. Lavel watched the freight barges that had rid the roads of innumerable lorries moving on the water.
‘What’s he like then? Over,’ said the familiar voice at Docklands ATC.
‘A bit crusty,’ said Lavel. ‘L’ecole antique, you know?
But he’s not as old as I’d thought he’d be. Over.’
‘And does he live up to the legend? Over.’
A black saloon car was moving across the tarmac towards the helicopter.
‘Can’t talk now, ATC. Here he is. Over.’
‘Roger Valkyrie 7. You have clearance from London Central. In your own time. Have fun with la grande fromage.
Over and out.’
He’s getting cheeky, thought Lavel to herself in English. She opened the passenger door and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart climbed into the cockpit.
‘Morning, Lavel.’
‘Good morning, sir.’ She started to run the rotors up to speed. As he fiddled with his safety belt, she noticed that he had cut himself shaving.
The helicopter rose from the pad and took its flight due west over central London. The buildings cast long shadows in the dawn light. The Brigadier stared down at the toy landscape, remembering action he had seen around St Paul’s, Fleet Street and Covent Garden.
‘How did it go, sir?’ asked Lavel.
‘What’s that?’
‘The briefing, sir.’
‘Oh. Usual bureaucracy. Inch-thick forms and about half a pint of blood.’ He returned to the view. The river beside Stanbridge House Conference Centre was a smooth grey, its surface undisturbed by anything larger than a single speedboat.
The briefing had gone better than he had imagined.
Within reason he had been given carte blanche with available resources.
He had requested a two-kilometre exclusion zone around the convoy outside the limit of radio jamming. The area just cleared the edge of Carbury village. With the bulk of European UNIT handling the Azanian ceasefire, the Czech engineering group had been spared from flood relief in the low countries. They were being flown into the DOZ
that morning.
‘Funny how even London looks beautiful at sunrise.’
‘I never noticed, sir. Seen one heliport and you’ve seen them all.’ She punched up the Mapscan on her Japanese monitor. ‘Straight to Carbury, sir?’
‘That’s right,’ he said with a look of satisfied anticipation. ‘Where the action is.’
Lavel punched in the village name. The monitor presented a one inch to the klick ordnance map of Cornwall.
The Brigadier flicked through information on the screen of his portable operations desk. ‘Any word from Major Husak yet?’
Lavel shook her head. ‘No, sir. And London says that the area of radio interference is expanding. No contact now for thirteen hours. And with that second storm last night...