Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [4]
‘I think it might be a good idea,’ the Doctor said, ‘to hold onto something.’
He reached for the main console and, as soon as he touched it, felt a sub-gravity ripple tingle through his fingers and scratch at the back of his eyes. Giddiness pushed at him. Before Leela could make the same mistake he swatted her hand away. ‘Better still,’ he grunted, ‘I should sit down if I were you.’ He slumped to the floor and hunched up clutching his knees to his chest. ‘Like this.’ He closed his eyes against the heaving whirls.
Leela knew better than to argue with the Doctor at such times. She dropped to her knees and braced her hands on the floor on either side of her. ‘Will we be damaged?’ she asked, raising her voice above the pulsed howling of the control console. There was a long lurch that had ended before it began and began before it had ended, and it felt to Leela as though she would fell and if she fell she would fall forever.
‘Come on Jer, come on.’ Keefer punched the urgent button on the remote but Fanson’s number continued to reject his signal. He cancelled the call and leaned against the runner to think it out. Somebody wanted him dead. Not to earn or to break into the professional rankings but just to have him dead, just to have him cease to exist. An android programmed to kill wasn’t an opponent, it was an executioner. Somebody had sent a robot executioner. And then the full realisation hit him. ‘It’s yesterday,’ he muttered.
‘It’s over, I’m as good as dead.’
Ownership of an android was rare enough, but someone who could get one that would kill his unknown enemy must carry enough clout to be on first-name terms with all the gods. It wasn’t just money, although it would take rather more of that than Keefer could earn in several lifetimes as top number in the Prime Division. No, it was more than that. It was power. The power to have it done, whatever it was, without the suggestion of a question. There were maybe two people in all the settled planets with the sort of power it would take to have an android adapted to kill. And when whichever one it was knew the thing had missed, what then?
If power like that wanted him dead then he was dead.
The sound of an approaching jet-copter brought Keefer back to life. Perhaps they already knew. The icy calm that always came with combat cleared Keefer’s mind of everything but the instinct to survive. He leaned into the runner and took the weapons belt from the safety compartment. He clipped on the belt, thumbed an incendiary pellet from one of the holders and dropped it on the runner’s back seat just above the fuel-tank housing. The jet-copter was closing fast.
Keefer sprinted for the cover of the bank that bordered the road.
On the back seat of the runner the pellet reacted to the moisture in the air and started to burn. As it got hotter it began to melt through the structure and drop towards the fuel tank.
Keefer slogged up the bank and flung himself down on the other side. The only real cover was a small clump of trees about three hundred metres from where he lay. If he tried for it the occupants of the ‘copter would be bound to spot him.
His instinct told him that would be very bad news. Carefully he peered over the top of the bank as the ‘copter screamed in, balanced its jets and hovered over the runner. It was a gun-ship. It opened fire just about the moment when the white-hot incendiary pellet burned through the top of the old Mythmotor’s fuel tank.
Keefer ducked back as the runner exploded, hurling flame and metal upwards like a burning fist. The gun-ship pilot missed his cue by a full beat. As he kicked the jets wide and the ‘copter lunged skywards it was already too late. Flame roared through the vents and the gun ports. Ammunition and fuel erupted scattering debris and fire across the motorway.
Before the last pieces hit the ground Keefer was up and running for the trees.
On the motorway the Central Traffic Computer stopped every vehicle within a mile in either direction. As he reached