Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [2]
The tank turned a corner and, with a metallic grinding sound, a hatch in the front of the cell slid open. A familiar gnomish face looked at her.
‘What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?’ asked the Doctor.
Bernice bounded to her feet, relief and happiness flooding through her, dissolving the little knots of tension and fear that she had not even acknowledged were there. ‘Doctor? I thought you might be –’
2
‘Yes, so did I,’ he said.
‘How did you –’
‘Find you? The usual method. I just followed the militia.’
‘Er . . . Doctor?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Who’s driving?’
He looked hurt. ‘I am,’ he said.
‘But you’re talking to me,’ she said.
With a terrible grinding sound the tank lurched sideways and stopped dead, sending Bernice sprawling into the metal bulkhead. The gravimetric engines whined, setting her teeth on edge, then cut out altogether. She waited for an explosion that never came.
Deprived of power to its magnetic locks, the hatch at the back swung open.
Bernice scrambled out and took great whooping gulps of fresh, clean air.
She looked around, still breathing heavily. They were in the middle of a stretch of desert. The churned-up tracks led back across the orange dust to where the neglected manipulator robots reared like giant insects above the hangars, silhouetted against the eye-searing purple of the sky. Ahead, their path was blocked by the comforting blue shape of the TARDIS. It appeared to be intact, which was more than could be said for the tank, which had crashed into it. Apart from the tank, the TARDIS and the buildings and cranes behind it, the landscape was empty.
One of the doors at the front of the tank fell to the ground with a loud metallic clatter. The Doctor stepped carefully out, using his umbrella for support. He was still wearing the Oolian mech-suit, and his arms fitted badly into the wing-slots.
‘Typical,’ Bernice said, shaking her head. ‘The only obstacle between us and freedom and you have to run straight into it. Bloody typical!’
‘You wouldn’t have me any other way,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye.
‘Just make sure you never give me the choice,’ she said.
He gazed out towards the warehouses. ‘They’ll soon spot the guard whose suit I’m wearing,’ he said, shading his eyes. ‘I left him my scarf, but it clashes with his plumage.’
‘We’d better get a move on then.’ She glanced at him with tears in her eyes.
‘They killed Homeless Forsaken, you know?’
‘I know.’ He nodded. ‘I saw it. What was the reason? I know Oolians aren’t the friendliest of races, but that was uncalled for.’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He wasn’t even armed.’
‘Well, there’s nothing to keep us here now. Unless, of course, you fancy a little sightseeing?’
3
She surveyed the flat landscape. A small cloud of dust appeared to be racing towards them from the distant strip.
‘The only sight I want to see at the moment is the inside of a tumbler of whisky. Let’s go.’
Within seconds, they had left the planet entirely and entered the dimen-sionally ambiguous interior of the TARDIS. In a few seconds more, even the TARDIS’s outer plasmic shell had dispersed upon the dry Oolian wind.
4
Chapter 1
‘Good morning. I’m Evan Claple and this is The Empire Today , on the spot, on and off Earth. Today’s headlines: the Imperial Landsknechte should be scrapped, claims Duke Marmion, Lord Protector of the Solar System and its Environs, in an exclusive interview on this programme. And offworld: twenty-nine alien races file claims for reparation from the Imperial Court for damages during the Wars of Acquisition. We ask whether these alien scum should ever have been left alive to complain . . . ’
The sun was rising across the towers of the Overcity.
The flitter rose from the pad on top of the Central Adjudication Lodge like a leaf trying to reverse the passage of autumn. Chris Cwej watched from the passenger seat as the shadows of the shrubs and trees extended