Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [40]
‘He is asking about one of the OPG guerrillas,’ Kepennis explained:He was taken prisoner by the army a few months ago.
All the pilot could offer his tormentors, however, was a flower of blood that bloomed on his lips. The leader’s patience was running out. He drew his machete.
‘Give him water and he might be able to tell you what you want!’ the Doctor shouted in exasperation at their stupidity.
‘Can’t you see this is what hatred reduces you to? You’re no longer even thinking rationally. How do you expect to win your war if you’re as brutal as they are?’ He lapsed into grumpy silence. The leader glared at him from the port, then gestured to one of his men. A canteen was thrust into the Doctor’s hands and he was nudged forward into the cabin of the craft.
While the Doctor poured a trickle of water over the dying man’s lips, one of the guerrillas examined the cabin flight controls, testing power relays and booting the ignition system to see if it was still operable. A weak thrum of enginies loading filled the cabin, wavered, died completely, then boosted again before finally holding. The guerrilla gave his leader a complacent smile.
The pilot was talking at last, and the leader turned from his smug lieuenant to confront the dying man again. He listened to a few spluttered words in Indoni, then put the edge of his machete against the man’s throat and spoke briefly and menacingly.
The pilot answered, in between a bout of coughing that caused more flowers of blood to grow from his lips. The Doctor pushed the machete away and gave him more water.
On the third gulp, the man died.
Two guerrillas unfastened him from his pilot harness and slung the body unceremoniously into the bushes. The leader looked grimly satisfied. He climbed down from the cruiser and beckoned to Jamie.
‘You say you fight against oppressor before?’ he asked, measuring the Scot, his gaze faltering slightly as he took in the tartan kilt.
‘Oh aye.’ Jamie responded stalwartly, ‘I fought against the English at Culloden.’
‘So you can fight with us now. Or die. You go to Wameen with some of my men. You try escape, they tell me, and your friend here,’ he indicated an apprehensive-looking Doctor,
‘lose his head. He try escape and you lose yours.’
Jamie was looking a little less stalwart now. The Doctor was caressing his neck nervously. ‘Why do you want to take Jamie?’
‘We need all warriors to fight at Wameen. Our brother is there. Prisoner of army. This Indoni tell me. You stay with us, continue to south swamps.’
‘No!’ the Doctor protested. ‘We’ve lost one of our party already. Jamie stays with us or we go no further.’ His cheeks billowed with his passion.
The leader actually smiled. ‘You welcome stay here if you want. Snatcher maybe still here too. Indoni pilot tell me Snatcher pull cruiser from sky and devour all crew. They try run in jungle, but cannot run fast enough. You think you can run fast enough?’
The Doctor huffed in consternation but didn’t respond, looking around warily for any signs of a beast capable of sucking a large craft from above the trees and decimating its crew. The pilot’s chair harness had obviously saved him from being pulled out to join their fate; that and the fact that he was too injured to attempt fleeing into the trees.
‘You’ll never get that thing to move again,’ Jamie said hopefully, indicating the cruiser nestled in its cradle of trees.
The man who tested the controls smirked. He shook his head at the guerrilla leader. ‘We can leave in five minutes, after build-up of power.’ he said in good English, apparently for Jamie’s benefit.
The Doctor was searching for something optimistic in their predicament. ‘Wameen is a large town?’ he asked the leader.
‘After Jayapul, largest in Papul,’ the rebel answered. ‘With army post. We must strike carefully.’
But the Doctor wasn’t interested in that. He turned to Jamie. ‘Then maybe Victoria has been found by the Indoni army and taken there: he said brightly.
‘She dead already then,’ the leader replied immediately.
‘Or worse...’
The Doctor and Jamie