Doctor Who_ Storm Harvest - Mike Tucker [102]
‘What are you planning?’ Bisoncawl asked.
‘If the ship’s guidance systems are still operational I’m going to pilot it into the asteroid belt. The Coralee ring. Destroy it up here.
‘There are Krill on the command deck,’ said Bisoncawl. ‘I shall come with you.
‘Thank you, said the Doctor, sincerely.
Bisoncawl grunted. ‘You remember what General Mottrack said –
Cythosi do not abandon their ships. He hefted his gun. ‘Follow me,’ he said.
The shuttle doors closed and the crowded vessel slid towards the airlock.
Garrett staggered down endless corridors. He barely heard Mottrack’s bellows somewhere behind him. His world was collapsing – without his sceptre the Krill didn’t recognise him. He had already narrowly avoided death at their hands.
He rounded a corner, to be confronted by six of the monsters. They turned to face him, spitting and mewling.
‘No, he called. ‘I am Treeka’dwra – I am your master!’
‘Skuarte!’
Mottrack lumbered round the corner. He was badly wounded now, and weaponless. With a snarl he lurched forward, his mighty hands closing around Garrett’s throat. The pair fell to the floor and rolled towards the Krill.
The monsters swarmed over them, claws flailing and slashing.
‘There are only three of them, Bisoncawl whispered to the Doctor.
With surprising elegance the Cythosi commander spun through the door to the command deck, his heavy gun blazing. All three Krill fell back in a volley of plasma fire, snarling and mewling. Bisoncawl slammed the door shut behind them.
‘There are more out there,’ he said. ‘I won’t be able to hold them off for long.
The Doctor was poring over the ship’s flight controls.
The helms have just about had it,’ he said. ‘But there might still be enough power...’
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He began keying instructions into the console. He felt the deep vibration of the huge vessel’s engines engaging.
The door to the deck was suddenly sliced through by Krill claws.
Bisoncawl opened fire again, advancing on the door. The claws continued to slash the door, combining with the commander’s blaster fire to reduce it to strips of hanging metal.
‘Hurry, Doctor,’ said Bisoncawl, still firing furiously.
The Doctor’s hands flew over the controls.
A Krill leaped through the door, to be cut down by Bisoncawl.
Another followed.
‘Goodbye, Doctor,’ the Cythosi commander said. ‘I will give you what time I can.’
Bellowing a bloody, guttural oath, he charged through the wrecked door, his gun blazing.
The Doctor stepped back from the console. The ship was turning slowly. He hoped his guess at the coordinates was good enough.
The firing from the corridor stopped.
The Doctor ran across the command deck as the Krill burst in. He dodged into the corridor that led to the shuttle bay and closed the door behind him. He ran into the bay. Why? Trying to delay the inevitable...?
It was what he did.
There was no escape here – but at least he might be granted a short time to reflect, to gather himself, before the marauding monsters tore him to pieces or the ship crashed into the asteroid ring.
For almost the first time since boarding the ship he thought of Ace.
He wondered what had happened to her in the jungle of Coralee. She was a woman now – tough and resourceful. If anyone could survive down there, she would. But so many would die...
The remains of the Krill that Bisoncawl and the humans had felled was lying at his feet. Already its hide was thickening, glandular secretions were creating the cocoon in which it would heal itself, waiting for rebirth.
The Doctor was seized by a desperate idea. The front of the Krill had been blown away, leaving a ragged hollow. He dragged it towards the docking bay of the shuttle in which Bovril’s people had escaped, and placed it on the launch pad. He keyed the undocking sequence into the pad, then crawled on top of the Krill. He buried himself as best he could inside its shattered trunk and clung on tightly. The body was disintegrating beneath him.
The monster’s secretions washed over him. He felt them stinging into his flesh, painfully cold. He began to lose feeling