Doctor Who_ Remembrance of the Daleks - Ben Aaronovitch [6]
Ace watched the explosions rack the shed reducing it to a ragged, debris-strewn cave. The size of the blast indicated a fairly low-grade explosive core wrapped in a fragmentation shell; she would have to acquire one to make sure.
She rushed over to the Doctor.
‘Did you see that, Professor?’ she said as she reached him. ‘Unsophisticated but impressive,’ she added airily.
The Doctor, however, ignored her.
Gilmore looked with grim satisfaction at the remains of the lean-to. ‘I believe that should do the trick,’ he said to the Doctor.
The girl in the strange jacket was staring at the wreckage. The enthusiasm on her face disturbed Gilmore: he was reminded of France in 1944 and the two German soldiers his men had scraped off the interior of a pillbox.
Sergeant Smith was hovering waiting to do something.
Gilmore ordered him to call up further reinforcements and an ambulance. The Doctor frowned at this and told him that reinforcements weren’t going to make any difference.
‘My men have just put three fragmentation grenades into a confined space; nothing even remotely human could have survived that.’
The Doctor’s eyes fixed on Gilmore’s. ‘That’s the point, Group Captain,’ the Doctor said softly. ‘It isn’t even remotely human.’
The warrior’s sensors were still flaring from the aftermath of the explosions. A blizzard of metal had engulfed it; there was damage, but it was minor – only chips off its armour. It quickly sought to regain its perception of the outside world.
The first data came from modulated signals in the low frequency electromagnetic spectrum. The battle computer identified them as communications: the enemy was seeking to communicate, perhaps with its gestalt, probably ordering up more forces. Target-seeking routines locked on to the source; infra-red detectors once more probed through the wall of smoke.
A primitive vehicle was the source. The warrior could make out the shifting blur of an enemy partly masked by the cold metal. A data search lasting nanoseconds brought priorities: neutralize communications, destroy the force opposing it, crush all resistance, obliterate the enemy for the glory of the race. Fulfilment of its function brought a strange excitement within the warrior’s twisted body.
A very real and terrible emotion.
Mike was out of the van and in the air before any details of the attack registered: a bang, glass in the side window shattering, the radio handset slapped out of his hands, the smell of ozone, and the ground slowly rising to meet him as he dived out of the open door. He tucked in his head and felt the world roll over his shoulders; he could smell the dust of the yard. Mike snapped to his feet still holding his submachine-gun.
Private John Lewis Abbot counted himself an old soldier at twenty-six years of age and definitely planned to live long enough to fade away. The rest of the squad shared this ambition. To them hostile fire was hostile fire, whether it was a machine-gun round or a funny looking bolt of lightning, and everyone dived for cover and then blazed away in the direction of the enemy until Gilmore yelled at them to wait for a target. Abbot crouched down, snapped a new clip of ammunition into his rifle and carefully sighted down the barrel, waiting for a target.
Then it came.
It was grey and metallic, a stunted thing that glided with ugly grace out of the smoke. A tube protruding from the smooth top dome swung deliberately from side to side.
Energy belched from a gunstick midway down the thing’s body.
It was a target and Abbot fired.
The FN-FAL automatic rifle is a Belgian design which weighs 4.98 kilograms loaded and fires a full-sized cartridge. The 7.62 millimetre bullet leaves the muzzle at 2756 feet per second and has an effective range of 650
metres; at close range the bullet can pass through a concrete wall. In accordance with British military doctrine that an aimed round is worth twenty fired rapidly, the FN-FAL used by the RAF Regiment fires single shots only —
one squeeze on the trigger, one carefully