Doctor Who_ Sleepy - Kate Orman [99]
‘Here, Doctor.’
‘How are you going?’
‘LEONARDO’s still offline,’ she reported, ‘I’m trying to find the cache of files he left. Doctor, they’ve got SLEEPY’s shuttle on their radar.’
SLEEPY felt his engines falter, groped around with his psychokinetic sense. There was a loose connection between the power buffers and the intake array. He grabbed the lead and forced it into place.
‘Unidentified shuttle,’ said the Warrior. ‘Get the hell out of our way.’
‘Why are you even bothering to talk to me?’ he said. ‘I’m what you’ve been sent to kill. Why don’t you just shoot me down and be done with it?’
He veered left, violently, as the Warrior launched a missile. It missed him by inches. As it turned for a second pass, he reached into it, ripped its guidance system loose. It spiralled off into the trees, out of control, and burst in a flash of light before it hit the ground.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Because the Yemayans are carrying my memories. Even some of your own people here are carrying them. And some of that information would be enough to bring you down. To break your whole filthy Company. Right?’
There was no answer. Warrior was coming at him out of the sun, a blurred shape in the brilliance. ‘I must have tried to blackmail you. To get you to leave me alone. But you couldn’t leave me alone, could you? You couldn’t just leave me alone, and now you’re going to try to kill all these people, all these little pieces of me!’
He kicked in the engines and revved them up to full. It didn’t matter if the strain tore them apart. He only needed them for a few more seconds.
‘The hell with you,’ he said, and flung himself at the sun.
‘BAR B!’ shouted the Doctor, anguished.
‘It’s happening,’ said BAR B, ‘it’s happening right now!’
‘There isn’t enough time!’ he said. ‘There isn’t going to be enough time!’
‘The Warrior is taking evasive action!’ said BAR B. The Doctor looked up. He could see the ship turning, a black shape over the horizon, the bulky thing trying to twist aside as the twinkling silver point of the shuttle hurtled towards it.
SLEEPY hit the side of the Flame Warrior at escape velocity. For half a second, the huge ship hung in the air. It exploded in a hot red fireball. The sphere of expanding gases reached up into the sky, down to the forest, setting the trees alight. For a moment, you could see great pieces of the hull before they dropped out of sight.
Their ears rang. Spots danced before their eyes.
Kylie burst into tears.
‘BAR B,’ said the Doctor urgently. ‘Come on, program, answer me! Did they get out?’
‘With seconds to spare,’ came BAR B’s voice, crackling.
‘The blast very probably caught the escape pod, and they might have landed in the forest fire.’
‘We’ve got to get over there straight away,’ he said, jumping down. ‘Come on, Chris. Explanations later!’ he shouted at the dazed group behind him.
The Doctor bolted across the clearing to his hoverskimmer. The ground was melted and charred where SLEEPY had managed his vertical lift-off. Chris stumbled, picked himself up, ran after the Doctor.
He waited until they were airborne before he spoke.
‘Doctor—’ he said.
‘LEONARDO set up a program that would trigger an evacuation sequence,’ said the Time Lord. His arms were folded tight across his chest. ‘BAR B managed to find and execute it. Hopefully none of them stopped to question it.’
‘You were planning to empty the ship,’ he said. ‘They couldn’t attack us if there was no-one on board.’
‘Unless they set the auto-pilot,’ said the Doctor. ‘Are you all right?’
Chris realized he was weeping. He wiped at his eyes, keeping one hand on the controls. ‘This is getting to be a habit,’ he said.
‘It’s good for you,’ said the Doctor absently. ‘Releases endorphins.’
‘It’s like losing a relative,’ Chris mumbled. On the control panel, something bleeped. ‘The pod’s sending out an automatic homing signal; we’ve got it. Heck, they’re surrounded by the fire.’
‘Do you think we can fit twelve more people in here?’
‘We’ll have to.’ Chris brought the shuttle around.