Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [98]
«LET HIM!»
White turned. That deaf-mute bitch was there, her translator drone cranked up to full volume. The Doctor gasped, released for a moment, pulling weakly at the soldier’s hands.
Dot waved her hands around, and the drone said, «Let him in! Do it!»
‘No,’ moaned the Doctor. ‘None. No-one...’ White pushed a hand against his mouth.
«Don’t be bloody stupid,» said the drone. «Don’t let him kill you. You know what to do.»
White’s head snapped back. He glared down at the Doctor, took his palm away from his mouth. ‘We’re all just the same to you, aren’t we?’ said the little man raggedly. ‘The same underneath. All just property, just things for you to use.’
‘Yes,’ said White. ‘You’re—’
‘No, just listen,’ said the Doctor. ‘If you believe that, you’ve already lost touch with reality. You’re just a machine, another piece of the killing machine. Walk away from it, John!
Just walk away from it! Walk away!’
White pressed his fingers into the little man’s face, leaning close. The Doctor tensed, waiting for the pain, the lifetime of pain and fighting and fear.
‘These are my memories,’ he whispered in White’s ear.
‘All mine. I want them. I’m going to keep them. You can’t have them.’
White let go of him.
The Doctor pulled himself shakily to his knees. White sat up, just sat there, staring at the ground.
Dot snatched up the Colonel’s blaster.
The Doctor stood up. Dot stared at him. She didn’t need the drone to make her meaning clear. Get out of my way.
The Doctor signed, «He’s lost the last of his telepathy.
He hasn’t got any weapons. There’s no reason to kill him.»
Dot’s mouth opened in astonishment.
«If you’re going to shoot him,» signed the Doctor, «you’re going to have to shoot me, too, because I just don’t have the strength to argue with you.»
‘Doctor!’
The Time Lord turned his head. Benny looked from him to White to Dot and back again, bewildered.
‘Later,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘They caught LEONARDO; they’ve shut him down. They’re coming in for their attack run right now.’ She bit her lip. ‘I think we’re in trouble.’
21 Turtle Power
The Doctor came back into SLEEPY’s clearing at a run, Benny and Dot in his wake. ‘SLEEPY!’ he shouted.
‘They found them!’ said the computer’s tannoy voice.
‘They caught them trying to shut down the weapons systems!’
‘LEONARDO?’
‘Offline. We can’t bring him back up again. I only just got BAR B and WATCH OUT! away before they started a system purge.’
‘Look!’ someone screamed.
Above the clearing, in the noon sky, the Flame Warrior was visible. Death was a glittering shape, high in the air, growing as they watched.
‘No...’ The Doctor pressed his teeth into his bottom lip.
Everyone was looking at him, waiting for the miracle. ‘BAR B, is LEONARDO’s Trojan Horse still in place?’
‘Yes, but it’ll take a few minutes—’
‘Do it!’ he shouted.
‘There isn’t time for this,’ said SLEEPY.
The ground started to shake. A booming noise filled the clearing.
‘Sodding hell!’ yelled Roz. ‘Everyone, back, get back!’
The colonists didn’t need to be told twice. They bolted for the trees. Roz caught up Kylie in her arms and dived flat behind a rock. Chris passed her at a run, one hand around Benny’s wrist, as the clearing lit up behind them.
Heat washed over them as the shuttle lifted out of its ditch. Roz risked a peek over the top of the rock, shielding her eyes. The vehicle was wobbling as it rose. ‘Goddess,’
she said, ‘that thing can’t be flying!’
‘It is flying,’ said the Doctor from behind her. ‘More due to SLEEPY’s psychokinesis than our repair efforts, I’m afraid.’
‘What’s it doing?’ said Roz. ‘Is it going to let them shoot it down?’
The Doctor looked around. ‘Chesinen?’
The Pokot woman jogged up behind him, her eyes glued to the little ship struggling into the sky. ‘It doesn’t even have any weapons,’ she said.
‘Lend me your radio,’ said the Doctor. Chesinen unbuttoned