Doctor Who_ Remembrance of the Daleks - Ben Aaronovitch [43]
Scout eight took the corner more sedately, pirouetting to cover the left-hand street with its gunstick. Scout seven wound down the power and scanned the area ahead. The street was clear of life or power emissions. Ahead it ran under a bridge, creating a long lightless tunnel.
Scout seven raised the shuttle commander on the VHF
link. Scout seven reporting – area 25 – 09 clear.
Shifting its vision to infra-red, scout seven moved forward.
In the darkness the renegade warriors were waiting. They were veteral campaigners, their battle computers old with experience. Every stratagem, every tactic learned on a thousand worlds was captured in prisms of crystal.
Now they waited, powered down, with baffles deployed to mask their emission signature. Remote sensors deployed in the street beyond the tunnel pinpointed the position of the approaching imperial scouts and fed data to the warrior’s fire control units.
Their orders were to hold off the imperial Daleks, even at the cost of their own destruction. They would do this thing and sacrifice themselves without question.
They were Daleks.
The attack came as a blizzard of electromagnetic static.
Electronic countermeasures pods twinned with the remote sensors attacked scout seven through its sensor pods. The wave of static crashed over the sensitive instruments causing feedback to lash up the data bus and into the Dalek proper. Scout seven went blind in a microsecond. At the same time, machine code instructions hidden inside the random noise laid siege to the processors that regulated the Dalek’s life support. The internal systems fought back, defence subroutines attempted to locate the intruder program and eliminate it. They failed. The program was in. Front that moment on scout seven began to die. Rogue commands from the intruder program voided food and waste tanks into the life chamber. The creature inside drowned.
The blaster bolt that blew away its top half was little more than a coup de grace.
The imperial Dalek shuttle commander checked the updates on the fighting. Advance scouts had encountered renegade warriors in prepared positions. Battle projections indicated that both the northern and southern routes would be costly to force. The central route was equally well defended, but was the shortest to the renegade base.
The shuttle commander reached a decision. Sections one and three would attack along the north and south flanks as planned. Section two was to clear the preliminary positions on the centre, while section four moved into position for a final assault. The Abomination would be held in reserve.
The shuttle commander issued its orders over the command net. Section four formed into an attack phalanx behind it and moved out.
The Doctor watched from the chemistry lab as the remaining Daleks in the playground filed out. As opponents, the Daleks were nothing if not predictable.
He heard Gilmore come through the door behind him.
‘The imperial Daleks appear to have committed their entire force,’ said the Doctor.
‘Meaning?’ asked Gilmore.
‘There’s only a skeleton crew left on board.’
‘They’re very confident.’
‘Too confident,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s a Dalek weakness.’
Gilmore turned to go.
‘Group Captain?’ called the Doctor.
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you for co-operating.’
Gilmore looked at the Doctor, his eyes were bleak.
‘Only a fool argues with his Doctor,’ he said.
14
Saturday, 16:05
Section one on the northern route engaged the enemy first.
The renegade warriors were dug in at the end of a broad road flanked by residential housing.
Scouts one and two had reported that the terrain on either side was impassable. The only possible tactic open to the imperial Daleks of section one was a frontal assault.
They went in Cach ya Beng, the six finger formation –
three pairs, forward Dalek and back-up. The forward Daleks maintained a steady fire on the renegade warriors while each back-up Dalek strove to locate