Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [48]
* * *
‘Barry, no!’ Debbie shouted, at the sound of the shot.
As she reached her husband, she saw something was wrong. He was straddling the Prefect’s body, but he was swaying, as if he was the one who had been shot in the head.
Then she saw the metal glisten on his temple and she understood.
He keeled over into the snow. The mindeater fell off, its work done.
And Debbie stood there for a moment, unsure whether or not to cry.
The Doctor darted past her, past the Prefect and Barry. He knelt over Miranda, checked her pulse.
‘She’s alive!’ he called out, lifting her out of the snow.
And the ground around him erupted into plumes of snow and mud and there was a second’s delay as the sound of the bullets and the hoverdisc making its pass caught up with the bullets themselves.
The hoverdisc was already swinging around for a second pass, the snow parting like a cloud of flies. Debbie could see the Deputy, a gun in one hand, the other gripping the handrail of the hoverdisc.
* * *
The Hunters watched the events, safe in a chamber deep within the Prefect’s ship.
‘This is not going well,’ Rum noted to the maidservant as she poured him another drink.
Thélash glared at him, then returned her attention to the holographic globe in the centre of the room.
‘Staring at it won’t make it any better,’ he added. ‘Our employer is dead. All we can do now is go home and put in a claim for our money.’
‘Shut up. I’m thinking.’ She looked up. ‘There’s no option: it’s time to use the bomb we planted on the Doctor.’
‘We planted?’ the man asked archly.
‘All right: you. Hurry, before the Doctor comes for us.’
‘It’ll kill the Deputy,’ Rum objected.
His partner raised her eyebrow.
Rum took the black control box from his pocket and tapped it a couple of times. He held it up, showing his partner the spidery red display. ‘OK, OK. Detonation sequence activated. Ten-second countdown. It’s done.’
Thélash leaned in, until her nose was practically dipped in the hologram. ‘Any second now...’
The Doctor was standing his ground, nobly remaining in front of his fat little friend as the Deputy’s hoverdisc swung around for a final attack run. The Doctor looked desperate. They were putting him out of his misery, really. They felt a twinge of regret – anyone that had wiped out Mr Gibson and his entire race couldn’t be all bad.
‘Wait!’ Rum squeaked. ‘He’s not wearing his coat!’
‘Where’s the coat?’ Thélash demanded.
The maidservant bowed. ‘Pardon me, sir and madam, but I took the Doctor’s coat from him when he and the human woman came on board. I believe it is in the reception chamber. Would you like me to fetch it?’
Rum and Thélash stared at each other.
* * *
Neither the Doctor nor the Deputy was looking towards Cooper’s Wood, so they didn’t see the fireball blossoming. A couple of seconds later, though, they heard it: a crack, then a great rolling, rumbling sound.
The Doctor knew exactly what it was.
The hoverdisc stalled, almost throwing the Deputy. Suddenly he was using both hands to cling to the handrail, trying to keep standing. The disc was still hurling forward, but now it was merely following its momentum – it had lost all power.
The Doctor pushed Debbie out of the way, then dived down. The disc sliced the air above his head, but it was falling. Now it hit the ground and tumbled over. The Deputy was flung from it.
What happened next was inevitable and inexorable. The hoverdisc came down on top of its pilot, crushing him underneath it. The force of impact was enough to churn up the snow and the ground beneath it, to smash the disc in two, and mangle the handrail. Exposed circuitry plopped from the cracks, fizzing and crackling to itself.
The Doctor ran towards the wreckage, keeping back until he was sure it was safe. Something had caught fire, and there was a terrible smell of burning plastic.
The Deputy’s legs lay under the pile of scrap metal. They could have been crushed, or perhaps only pinned. Either way, the Deputy was clearly