Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [109]
Ronick shouldered his way through the hakai-warriors who were still guarding the doorway and shambled and stumbled his way into the chamber followed by Sita. Finbar, looking slightly crestfallen, brought up the rear.
„How come you get preferential treatment?‟ Ronick asked the Doctor. „What have you got that we haven‟t?‟
The Doctor smiled his most wolfish smile. „Modesty forbids,‟
he said.
„I‟m serious,‟ Ronick said.
„I haven‟t named my price yet.‟
Ronick‟s eyes narrowed and almost disappeared. „And that‟s why we‟ve been standing around out there?‟
„No, that‟s why you‟ll be standing around in here,‟ the Doctor said.
„Is that her?‟ Sita did not look directly up at the woman in the high-backed chair. She was obviously awestruck. „Is that the Lady Hakai?‟
Strangely predictable, the Doctor thought, that what Ronick called an officer-class type should be the most impressed by the wealth and power of this superficially young-looking old woman. „That is Hakai,‟ the Doctor said.
„She‟s my new best friend. She wants me to have whatever my hearts desire.‟
„And that‟s Leela,‟ Ronick said, noticing her for the first time. She was standing with her arms folded, glaring up at the woman who was not deigning even to acknowledge her existence.
„She and Hakai haven‟t really hit it off, I‟m afraid,‟ the Doctor confided cheerfully. „Leela did try to kill her of course, which may have soured their relationship slightly. People can be very touchy about these things I find.‟
„Is this about a duel?‟ Sita said. „Has she been brought here to fight?‟
The Doctor nodded. „To fight Keefer, that‟s my guess. I‟m here to negotiate terms it seems. Underneath that viciously youthful exterior, Hakai is a just sweet old-fashioned traditionalist.‟
„Well I‟m not,‟ Ronick growled. „And that‟s not what I‟m doing here.‟
„I know,‟ the Doctor said. „We both know what you‟re doing here, don‟t we.‟
„So where is he?‟ Sita asked. „I‟ve come a long way to find this Keefer character.‟
Ronick stepped forward to confront the Doctor. „What‟s that supposed to mean?‟ His eyes were wide open and glaring.
Before the Doctor could answer him the pseudo-grav generator abruptly stopped functioning and weightlessness hit. The immediate effect was most obvious on people and things that were in motion but everyone, even the most firmly seated, was aware at once that there was something odd happening.
Ronick‟s steps pushed him up into the air and left him clutching desperately at the Doctor for control. Sita found herself grabbing at the Doctor‟s coat. The three of them floated away in a hapless, helpless cluster. To one side of the doorway Finbar snatched for a handhold. All around hakai-warriors left the deck and drifted about like plump flightless birds in an irresistible updraft.
Hours of practice in her cell on the speeder yacht made Leela‟s response fast and virtually instinctive. She kicked herself off and flew upwards, aiming for the woman in the high-backed chair. Startled, Hakai pulled the two handguns from the chair‟s ornamental holsters and fired them at her.
The reaction to the cartridges‟ small explosive charges made it impossible to hold the handguns firmly and they flew backwards and sideways in the woman‟s grasp. One of the shots killed a floating hakai-warrior and the other smashed a hole in the opaque glass dome and shorted out the artificial lighting rig. Leela‟s leap had now carried her almost to the level of the seating tier and she was ducking away from the desperate sabre slashes of the seated bodyguards and reaching towards Hakai, who was trying to bring her handguns to bear again.
And then everything changed once more when the pseudo-grav abruptly came back on.
The android had been tasked to bring him to its mistress. It had seemed to Keefer that the instruction must include not hurting him since the thing was reluctant to manhandle him in any way despite being physically stronger than he was.
Perhaps the dead Fat Boys and the chopped up crewman had similar instructions he had thought. Perhaps they