Doctor Who_ Last of the Gaderene - Mark Gatiss [87]
He moved the joystick to the right, and the plane suddenly turned sharply, allowing him a clear view of the road.
Desperately, he flung the bottles one after another out of the cockpit.
They plummeted to the road about fifty feet below and shattered just in front of the assembled crowd.
The Doctor reached for the last of the bottles and hurled those out too, watching in satisfaction as they broke open on impact. Almost at once, the Legion troopers and the remaining villagers began to keel over.
The Doctor managed to haul the bubble-hood of the Spitfire back into place and then flew back around to see the results of his handiwork.
To his delight, the people had fallen back in a broad fan, like the petals of a dying flower, leaving the entrance to the aerodrome virtually clear.
Bliss paused as she pulled the first of the surgical tables from its position by the wall.
Noah watched as her head shifted to one side, almost as though it were too heavy for her neck. She closed her great, black eyes and a strangely troubled expression flitted over her face.
Her eyes screwed up tight. One last time.
The worm must prevent the troops from reaching the airstrip. One last time...
She reached deep into her subconscious. Found an image, a memory of them together on the Gaderene planet before all this. She replayed in her mind the moment when they had been sent into space, the brief childhood they had known together as sister and brother.
Bliss shuddered as the memories washed over her. She had made the dimensional jump unscathed.
He had not been so lucky. For years he had slept on in the marshland while she made her way in the human world, desperate to find a way back to the planet of the Gaderene.
And then the Master had found her, told her that her people were on the verge of extinction, that she could become their saviour. He had provided the equipment to track down the missing key; the encoder which had gone astray after their craft had crash-landed on the aerodrome during wartime. Now their plans were almost complete.
Monstrously overgrown and mutated, her brother had become useful only as a guard dog. Except for that tiny part of him which kept calling out to her for release.
Release...
She would give it to him at last.
Bliss focused all her thoughts on the creature she had once loved and bade him rise from the marsh...
In the truck, Yates suddenly pointed ahead. ‘Look, sir!’
The Brigadier glanced up from the wheel just as the Doctor’s Spitfire roared overhead. He saw the unconscious villagers and smiled with relief.
‘Right,’ he cried. ‘No time to waste.’
He rammed his boot down on the accelerator and the truck ploughed forward, missing the human shield and smashing into the perimeter fence which collapsed in a chaos of steel and mesh.
The two other trucks powered through the hole, their tyres flattening the mesh as they drove towards the airstrip.
The leading truck screeched to a halt and the Brigadier and Yates jumped out. They could already make out the blazing column of light, flaring over the rooftops like a firework display.
‘Seems like as good a place as any,’ muttered the Brigadier. ‘Come on.’
‘Right, sir.’ Yates moved swiftly to the parked trucks and ordered all the men out.
Just as they were dismounting, the air was filled by a deafening, throaty roar.
The ground shook beneath the Brigadier and several soldiers toppled over, their arms and legs splaying wide as they struggled to remain upright.
Then, with a massive splintering of glass, an adjacent building crumbled into fragments as the gigantic marsh-worm hove into view Brittle, antennae-like protrusions bristled around its head, its black eyes bored down on the troops below.
The Brigadier’s face fell. Then he recovered himself, pulled out his pistol and took up position with his men.
‘Commence firing!’ he yelled.
Jo and Benton had crossed the marsh and reached the back of the aerodrome. The non-appearance of the creature puzzled Jo until they both heard the crackle