Doctor Who_ Match of the Day - Chris Boucher [92]
It would have been a good fighting move against someone who was not wearing an emergency pressure suit. The emergency pressure suit, worn as a precaution against a breach in the integrity of the speeder yacht‟s hull, was not intended for fighting in. The helmet‟s neck bracing was not designed to be flexible in the direction that Leela was pulling.
It broke immediately and the helmet itself became a lever pulling on the head inside. The lever‟s force was concentrated against the pilot‟s neck. It would have taken a lot less than Leela‟s agile strength to snap the vulnerable column of bone and sever the spinal cord. She knew she had killed him even before she felt the life go out of him.
Leela was angry with herself. She had not intended to do more than overpower this man. She struggled to get his helmet off, wrenching and turning it until she freed it from the joint seals. She looked at the thin dead face of the pilot.
He looked older and more tired than he had sounded. His head had been shaved and the hair that was beginning to grow back was grey like the stubble on his sunken cheeks. It shocked her a little to think that this old man had been her adversary. She felt a pang of guilt. He had been no real threat by the look of him. But he was her jailer and he was involved in kidnapping her and what had happened was as much his fault as it was hers. More his fault. He had chosen to be here, she had not. He had admitted he was greedy and that was why he was doing it. He had claimed not to be stupid but greedy and stupid usually went together. He had been easy to fool and easy to kill. „And now I am in real trouble old man,‟
she said aloud to the corpse. „I do not know how to work this speeder yacht. I do not know where I am or where I am going.‟
She looked at the box he had dropped, which had drifted to a stop against the side of the cubicle. „Why were you wearing that stupid outfit? Did you think it would protect you from me?‟ It reminded her of one of the sacred relics which the shaman had used back in the village and it was about as useful. She retrieved the box and opened it. She recognised the medical kit even though she had no idea what the individual items were for. She checked the corpse. He had not been armed. She shook her head and sighed ruefully.
Plans go wrong: simple plans simply go wrong simply. At least the cell door was unlocked.
She went across to the open airlock. It was a narrow chamber that had to be entered head first or feet first. She peered in. How did you work it, she wondered, when the space inside was so small? She crawled in head first. Behind her the door closed and locked itself automatically. She had never been frightened of tight spaces, claustrophobia the Doctor said such a fear was called, yet for the briefest moment she had to fight the panic that threatened to blot out everything but her desperate need to get out of there. She knew that if she gave way to the feeling she would lash and kick and die like a terrified animal. Fear opens your eyes: panic closes your mind, she heard her trainer say. Say it, he bellowed; fear opens your eyes: panic closes your mind, they had repeated. Say it again, he yelled. „Fear opens your eyes: panic closes your mind,‟ she said aloud.
Leela opened her eyes. This airlock was a device made to hold in air, she reasoned, that was why it was called an air lock. It was not intended to trap people inside itself. If it was intended to do that it would not have a light. Of course, as the Doctor had told her several times, devices often did what they were not intended to do, but it still seemed unlikely that this airlock would be so badly thought out that it would act as an accidental mantrap. There must be a way of opening it from the inside. She looked for a control panel. It was there by her feet: almost impossible to reach. Obviously you were meant to face the same direction from whichever side you entered. Head first from one side, feet first from the other.
She had got in the wrong way round.