Doctor Who_ Silver Nemesis - Kevin Clarke [36]
In the hallway, she pulled the catapult from her pocket and tugged a second gold coin from the pouch. She loaded the sling.
As she did so, the heavy tread of the Cybermen thudded on the ceiling above her head. They were moving from the bedroom towards the stairs, evidently having decided to continue their search.
Ace slipped quickly out of the front doorway and stood to one side of it, listening intently, with her back against the wall. The heavy steps moved along the upper’passageway to the top of the stairs. The boards creaked and the tone of the next step was different: the first Cyberman had stepped on to the top of the staircase. It took another step; then another.
Ace swung into the doorway, tightening the catapult elastic as she did so. Her small figure framed in the light gave her a moment before the descending Cyberman spotted her. This was just long enough to give her a bearing on his chest panel as she brought the child’s weapon up to her own eye level. Automatically, his weapon raised.
Ace fired first, in the instant of surprise. The coin sparkled through the air as the deadly laser sought to find her, and was immediately followed by the pure ring of a metallic note, clear as a tuning fork, as it lodged itself in the Cyberman’s grating. Ace did not stay to see the results of her action but she had no need to do so. As she fled across the open space of the building site she could clearly hear the heavy crashing as the creature tumbled helplessly down the stairs. Ace gained the cover of another incomplete house and hid in a front room. Cautiously, she peered over the window ledge but she had evaded any pursuit. The other two Cybermen emerged at the bottom of the stairs and stood for a moment looking down at their stricken companion. Two down, five to go she thought; not bad for a beginner. She wondered how the Doctor was managing with his sums.
No sooner had the question raised itself, however, than the Cybermen looked up and saw her. The lasers raised and fired instantly. This time they were much nearer the mark and the brickwork and unvarnished window frame next to Ace’s face shattered into smouldering matchwood.
Ace instinctively threw herself on to the floorboards.
For the first time, the deadly pursuit became entirely real. Behind and across the room from her, a large smouldering hole had suddenly appeared in the wall. Ace caught her breath, and carefully pushed back the feeling of shock and terror that threatened to grip her uncontrollably. The only possible course was to keep the Cybermen’s attention entirely concentrated on herself and away from the Doctor, whatever the cost.
Keeping this thought clearly in the forefront of her mind she stood up, next to the ruined window frame, in time to glimpse two Cybermen carefully making their way across the muddy open space, pitted with tyre tracks, towards the house were she was hiding. Ace rallied herself.
‘Try to keep up,’ she shouted, as contemptuously as a child.
‘I’ve heard of metal fatigue, but you lot are pathetic.’ With that, she rushed from the room and through the hallway towards the unfitted kitchen at the back of the house. The Cyber Leader’s voice echoed after her.
‘Kill her,’ he shouted. ‘Kill her.’
Ace ran into the kitchen, grabbing the door handle, and stopped. The door was locked. This possibility had not occurred to her. At the same instant she heard the steps of a Cyberman approaching round the side of the house. In a few seconds it would round the corner and she would be in full, and almost unprotected, view. Her only hope was to go back through the house. She turned and ran back into the hallway, only to stop as a laser blast demolished