Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [4]
The king grunted. Satisfied at last, he leaned back into his chair. ‘And find my sword too.’
There was a movement in the shadows at the back of the hall. One of the queens, Bellangere of Orlamande, lifted Excalibur from the cavity into which it had been peristalted by the ship. She carried the ancient sword with reverence to Merlin.
‘But there is no scabbard,’ she said.
‘I’m sure it’ll turn up again some time.’ Merlin held the sword for a moment, recognizing the filigree ganglia systems worked out in the hilt and the blade.
‘I am hight Escalibore,
Unto a king fair tresore.’
‘Thank you, your majesties,’ he said gravely. ‘Your part in this will be remembered.’
The three attendant queens bowed low to him. Then he turned to present the sword to its true master.
The king was already sleeping. A new serenity drained the aching weariness from his face. His breathing steadied.
The queens watched Merlin carry the sword, symbol of the High Kingship, to the central control console. He found the key input socket that he had grafted into the obsidian unit, because he remembered that long ago he had found it there in the future. He slowly, ceremonially, lowered the blade into its place.
‘So my once and future friend, the Night Watch begins.’
The huge amethyst in the hilt glittered momentarily with fire. The gentle hum of the ship pitched up a degree.
High King Arthur shifted in his sleep. ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ he muttered through his dreams.
Part 1
Scenario: Dull Swords
‘Alle be ware
Of they that stare.
Theyre watchful minde
Behind theyre eyes
Already blinde
From stareful glare.’
The Watchers Songe
Anonymous 29th Century Bardic Ballad
Chapter 1
They pulled Bambera out of the Zambezi valley days from Koroi. An army surplus Hind-24 gunship picked her up and flew her back to Harare. The controls were still labelled in Cyrillic lettering and the Chinese-trained pilot cursed in Shona all the way to the airport.
A first class seat on the Swissair flight to Geneva. Her weapons as hand luggage in a diplomatic bag above her head. German businessmen furtively studied her over folded copies of Der Spiegel and the Wall Street Journal. She accepted the compliments of the airline, picked at the poule à la reine with a plastic fork, and drank herself stupid.
She woke up in the Geneva BOQ, tangled in crisp and damp cotton. She was still holding the whisky bottle; its label was Japanese. Stumbling into the bathroom. she dropped it into the rubbish bin. There were echoes of a nightmare in her head, but the details were gone.
She stared into the mirror over the sculpted plastic basin, daring herself to throw up.
A shower helped. She looked down at her feet and saw the water stained mud brown as it swirled away. Fifteen days in the Zambezi valley washing down the drain. She wrapped herself in the soft laundered towels and sat looking at the trouser press and the kettle. She would have to force down some coffee. One cup made with two individual sachets. No milk.
UNIT passports are never stamped by customs. No questions asked, no nationality given. The pages stay pristine, only the magnetic strip on the back changes.
Bambera’s military career reduced to ghost lines in iron oxide, to muddy sheets in nameless rooms, ribbons in storage.
A dress uniform hung on the wardrobe door, a tiny store of cocoa butter on the dresser. Next to it, by the coffee sachets, a white plastic afro comb in a sterile wrapping.
Bambera sat with her back to the mirror and combed her hair.
Orders were waiting in gold and silicon, wrapped in matt black plastic. Bambera slapped the EPROM cartridge into her portable file, keyed in her security code and dumped it into memory. She read the information as it scrolled up on the small LCD screen.
Dull Sword, she thought, a non-significant incident involving a nuclear weapon.
Salamander Six-Zero, a ground-launched cruise missile system, in breach of the Berlin Convention.
Not many left now, but their disposal had