Doctor Who_ Remembrance of the Daleks - Ben Aaronovitch [31]
Gilmore glanced at the Doctor, who was still sitting with his chin on his hands and looking into space. ‘Well, I wish he would tell us.’
So do I, thought Rachel, so do I. She took another sip of coffee: it was still cold.
Ratcliffe needed something to probe the grave. He wasn’t going to drag his men down here and dig up a grave in broad daylight. Not until he was sure that what he wanted was down there.
He found a loose rail, part of the brass ornamental surround of a nearby grave. It was rusty and came away easily. He raised it above his head and, with a last look at the Omega symbol on the headstone, plunged it into the earth.
The Omega device felt the disturbance in the earth above it and responded with sudden eagerness. It snapped out a tendril of itself and probed. A thin lattice of heavy iron atoms, streaked with oxide impurities. This analysis was unnecessary, its parameters for response included any deliberate disturbance. There was a subtle shift in one part of the device’s matrix as it considered the implications and formulated the proper response.
This took a nanosecond.
It reconfigured part of its substance, drew power from its reserves.
And howled.
Ace watched as the. Doctor smiled grimly.
An externally mounted sensor on the Eret-mensaiki Ska overloaded and went dead. Emergency systems shut down other equally sensitive sensors, but not before three more flared and died. There was a flurry of activity as medium range detectors cast around for the source, locking on with Dalek efficiency.
A point flared like a small sun on the three-dimensional grid-map of the world below, It was a power source, radiating energy at such levels that the ship’s automatic defences responded as if the vessel were under attack.
The systems co-ordinator was bombarded with a rush of data. It quivered in its shell as atrophied glands released adrenalin into its body.
Power source detected. Its amplified thoughts coursed through the corn-net – full alert. The signal radiated out of the bridge in a controlled chain-reaction.
The alert bridge crew slammed into their connections.
Neuro-receptors engaged into command jacks. The system operator shunted scanner, weapon and defence functions over to the bridge crew.
Scan-op quickly tested the signal and reported: It is the Omega device.
The systems co-ordinator made its decision.
Inform the Emperor.
The girl skipped through the cemetery. The gravestones shifted like ghosts to her augmented eyes, their shapes overlaid with different, alien meanings. She was so charged with energy that she couldn’t feel her feet touch the ground.
She rounded the church and vaulted the iron railing that surrounded it. Her legs easily absorbed the impact of the landing, transforming the energy into a forward vector with machine-like precision. Her eyes scanned the lines of stones: she had a function to perform.
The girl saw activity and ran towards it.
It happened.
For a second she had no legs; she squirmed in liquid confinement. Thoughts burrowed their way into her mind, her reflexes slowed by pain.
She was lying on the ground, breathing in the grass.
It had happened before.
The girl got up, her nausea overridden by control. She picked up the target activity and became flush with power again.
A group of humans worked at a grave. One of them had a name and designation – Ratcliffe, quisling. He was shouting at the other humans digging in the grave, urging them to work faster. Then he saw the girl.
‘What are you staring at?’
He remembered being a man. The blue-white sun that burned over the mountains on the long summer evenings.
A childhood, adolescence among the debris of Kaled encampments, games of Hunt the Thal played with sticks and mutant beetles. His indoctrination and training, a glittering career, the elite cadre, lovers, adrenalin, blood, bone,