Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [97]
Ace got out her Draconian army knife, grabbed a handful of vines, and started sawing at them.
He shouted with pain, making her jump backwards. ‘No,’ he wheezed, ‘Cut the root . . . closest . . . the wall!’
Ace scrambled behind the mass of vines, found a single thick cord where they converged, leading back into the stuff of the wall. It was already starting to wilt. She sliced through it.
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Now it was easy to cut through the vines. She knelt and heaved the Doctor out, with more force than was needed. He leaned heavily on her. ‘Are you alright?’ he said.
Ace would have laughed if she hadn’t been so nauseated. His shoulder was a bloody mess. She took hold of the wet, warm flower to cut its stem, but he raised a hand between the blade and the blossom. ‘Leave it,’ he begged. ‘Just leave it.’
His eyes were still green, still blind, the optic nerve jammed with plant tissue. ‘You’re injured,’ he gasped. ‘We have to . . . get out of here!’
‘Kadiatu barbequed my hopper.’
‘Then we’ll use the rift.’
‘How?’ There was a great creaking noise, and the floor lurched underneath them. ‘Doctor,’ said Ace. ‘Are we going to die together?’
‘You shouldn’t have followed me,’ he murmured.
‘ Bien de rien, ’ she said. ‘I think I’ll enjoy being dead. I could use the rest.’
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Chapter 16
Set, Game, and Match
Getting a Purple Heart proves that you were smart enough to think of a plan, dumb enough to try it out, and lucky enough to survive.
(US Army tradition)
Ship rocked, as though something had exploded distantly. Ace and the Doctor were thrown against a wall, tumbling to the heaving floor. They lay there for a few seconds, waiting to see if another quake would slam through the dying vessel.
The Doctor’s blood was soaking into Ace’s clothes. Her own pain was distant, like the sound of a phone left off the hook, like the big grey ringing in the back of her head, trying to suck her down. She hoped she didn’t die suddenly, that could be awkward.
They dragged one another to their feet. Ace stumbled, started to laugh.
‘I’ve sprained my ankle,’ she said.
Cold storage. Repair butterflies crunched under their feet. The rift’s light jumped and seared. One of the glass walls had collapsed, letting the unfiltered radiance into the chamber.
‘Can we go through it without force shields?’ said Ace.
The Doctor’s blind eyes were half-closed. ‘Where . . . controls?’
She guided him over to a panel in the wall, limping. The controls were a mass of tubes and knobs, pulsing coldly. He reached out and ran his fingertips over them.
‘I suppose my combat suit is here somewhere,’ said Ace.
‘Storage,’ said the Doctor. ‘No time.’
‘Forget it.’
The Doctor was doing things to the controls. ‘Enough power . . . ? Hope . . . ’
he coughed.
He turned suddenly. Ace’s head snapped around a moment later. ‘Is it –?’
‘It’s Kadiatu,’ said Ace steadily. ‘She’s holding a blaster.’
The Doctor reached out to Kadiatu with a trembling hand. ‘We need your help.’
Kadiatu’s face contorted, jerkily, as though two different puppeters had hold of her strings. ‘Get!’ She tried to speak, but it was cut off. Her arm jumped up.
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‘Ship’s got her,’ said Ace.
‘Fight it,’ breathed the Doctor. ‘It’s falling into death, you can fight it.’
Kadiatu’s hand moved wildly, trying to keep the weapon trained on them, trying to shoot the controls, the walls, anything.
Ace flinched as a ball of plasma pumped out of the gun. But the space was suddenly full of roaring light, glaring sound. There was a gaping melted hole in the transparent shield that held in the rift.
Ace stepped away from the Doctor. Give her a moving target. ‘Come on, you bitch!’ She shouted, waving her arm. Hot pain rippled up her side. ‘Whose side are you on? Come on!’
Kadiatu’s green eye moved wildly in her head, following Ace’s movements.
Ace risked a sideways glance at