Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [86]
But it was still oddly insubstantial, flickering like a film beam or distantly observed summer lightning.
The Master too, seemed impressed by the sight, the light washing over his saturnine features.
Bliss walked up to him and held out her fat hand.
‘The ninth key,’ she ordered.
The Master smiled. ‘You haven’t forgotten our little bargain?’
Noah scowled. ‘What have they promised you? Control of the world?’
‘Hardly, young man,’ purred the Master. ‘That is why the Gaderene are here, after all.’
Bliss looked down at Noah. ‘He wishes merely to see the destruction of your kind.’
Noah was appalled. ‘That’s sick.’
The Master shrugged. ‘As I told the Doctor once, it’s a big, bad Universe out there.’
Bliss jerked her hand in his face. ‘The key! Come on, we’re wasting time.’ The Master glanced over at the hangar.
‘First bring out the swine. They’ll need to be infested at once.’
Bliss considered this. ‘Very well.’
‘And do hurry,’ said the Master. Bliss shot him a deadly look.
‘Take the boy. You’ll need help,’ he concluded.
Bliss didn’t move for a moment and Noah thought she might strike the Master but then the woman grabbed Noah and dragged him back towards the hangar.
The Master smiled as he watched the alien’s retreating back. He held the ninth key aloft and watched as it sparkled in the dazzling column of blue light.
The Doctor’s hands gripped the controls of the Spitfire as he banked the plane to the right and then forward again as he headed for the aerodrome.
He glanced down at the controls which he knew would operate the fighter’s machine guns. His thumb hovered over the red button but he took his hand away. That wasn’t his style at all. No, he would try and put the plane down somewhere close by and get the nitrous-oxide bombs to the Brigadier.
Glancing out of the bubble-hood of the cockpit, he could see some kind of activity below.
Suddenly, the night sky appeared to explode into a blazing blue. The Doctor threw a hand in front of his eyes and squinted through his fingers. A vast column of light was extending from the ground into the sky. It burned with a fantastic magnesium brightness, like fire trapped in amber.
The Doctor thrust the joystick of the plane down and the Spitfire roared towards the earth.
The ground rushed up to almost meet it. In the light from the blue column, the Doctor could suddenly make out the perimeter fence. As before, Legion troops surrounded the place, but they had been joined by others, clearly villagers, whose ordinary clothes stood out against the black of the soldiers’ uniforms.
Three trucks were hurtling along the road towards them.
‘Oh no,’ whispered the Doctor.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Invasion
Jo and Benton were tearing across the fields towards the aerodrome, the other troops and the possessed villagers close behind them.
They stumbled through waist-high crops damp with dew, then suddenly flattened themselves as the pillar of blue light sprang into life before them.
‘Look! Look!’ cried Jo. ‘The Gaderene. They’re coming!’
Moments later, she and Benton crouched low again as the Spitfire roared overhead.
‘Good,’ said Jo. ‘The Doctor’s almost there. Come on, Sergeant. He’ll need all the help he can get.’
She grabbed Benton’s hand and pulled the burly soldier from the ground.
The Doctor knew his timing had to be perfect. If he was right about what the Brigadier was planning, there wouldn’t be time for another pass.
The Spitfire roared through the air towards the Culverton road.
Beneath, the UNIT trucks were powering towards the perimeter fence and its human shield. The Doctor could make out Mrs Toovey in the front rank.
He reached down between his knees and plucked out two of the gas-filled milk bottles.
Keeping the plane steady with one hand, he managed to unclip the hood of the cockpit and, with a tremendous heave, threw it sideways.
He gasped at the change in air pressure and squinted as