Doctor Who_ Battlefield - Marc Platt [41]
When the water surged upwards out of the airlock alcove, Ace had felt the sword wrench her arm up above her head.
It seemed to cut a path through the water as bubbles seethed in a rising column and carried her with them. She was aware of a sudden vast darkness around her, and of a green crustacean hull that sank away below.
Excalibur lifted her towards a flat sky surface of grey ripples where existence seemed to end. After the cold water, there was a shock of cold air as she burst into the world. It was that which took the breath she had held away.
The sword was still light in her hand, so light that she was sure she could use it as a float if she needed it. After moments of treading water, she heard shouts in the distance. She saw figures on the shore and struck out towards them.
The world vanished. The ghost snake’s coils wrapped over the Doctor’s head and shut out air and reality. His one free hand stretched blindly for the pulsing core of the ship and found only dust. The fingers flailed in a desperate attempt to snatch at anything.
The Doctor’s chest tightened under the crush. He was suffocating. The envelope of green light slid around him, reducing his awareness to imagination. His normal defence of self-induced coma was out of reach. His thoughts reeled uncontrolled. His future lives began to flash before him.
Merlin again.
Too late for that now. Someone else’s problem. Not his.
Morgaine could find an adversary elsewhere. Even if he had lived, he would never be, nor ever have been, Merlin.
Ectoplasm choked him.
Somewhere in his memory, a voice was lecturing:
‘There is a degree of injury beyond which any bodily regeneration is impossible for a Time Lord.’
The aged Prydonian science tutor had scoured the class for the pupil who was paying least attention.
‘And that point is? You!’
The young student went pale. ‘Total death,’ he intoned.
It was the first time that the possibility of a final inescapable doom had occurred to him.
Total death in livid green squirmed around the Doctor.
But darkness fringed with blood red crept in from the sides.
Merlin! This is all your fault!
A big solid army boot squelched down on the core. The ganglia twisted in a spasm of shock. Gel spewed across the floor. Across the hall, the strangling coils of the ghost snake exploded in shards of light and evaporated.
The Doctor sat up and gasped in the dank air. He was shaking. He looked up at the uniformed figure who approached and crouched before him.
‘I just can’t let you out of my sight, can I Doctor?’
The Doctor’s face split with a broad grin. ‘Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. So you recognized me then.’
‘Yes. Who else would it be?’ said the Brigadier. He looked down at his boot and grimaced. ‘Excuse me, Doctor, I seem to have trodden in something nasty.’
The Doctor got to his feet and began to dust himself down. ‘I think we all have, Brigadier. Right up to our necks.’
Ace waded out of the lake with the sword and faced the three figures on the bank. ‘Surf’s up,’ she said bitterly.
Peter Warmsly, his head shaking slowly, stared at her in disbelief.
‘What are you doing in the lake?’ said Bambera.
‘Drowning,’ snapped Ace and handed the sword to Ancelyn. ‘Here, you can be King of England,’ she said.
Shou Yuing dashed up and skidded to a halt. ‘What have I missed?’ she gasped.
Ancelyn turned the blade of the sword so that its runes caught the light. "Tis Excalibur.’ he said in awe.
Ace shivered. ‘That’s what I said, Shakespeare.’
‘Damosel, where did you find this?’
‘And where’s the Doctor?’ butted in Bambera.
‘In a spaceship under the lake.’ Ace said it casually to shock them. ‘He’s in trouble. I have to help him.’
She pushed through them and started to head for the crater. Somewhere she had left her bag with another can of nitro.
She heard Bambera’s voice behind her. ‘Come back here, you!’
‘Piss off!’ she retaliated and kept walking.
Bambera caught her by the arm. ‘You listen to me, young lady. I’m in charge here until this emergency is over.’
‘Not for long,