Doctor Who_ Storm Harvest - Mike Tucker [98]
The harsh sound of ripping metal filled Bavril’s head. A Krill claw was coming through the wall next to him. It ripped the panel away exposing him to the corridor that ran alongside the duct. The beast was 189
next to him, roaring and flaying.
Bavril swung the gun up and pumped blast after blast of plasma energy into the creature’s trunk. It screamed and staggered backwards.
Bavril kept on firing, his eyes shut tight. The blast was burning him, but the creature was retreating. Bavril heard the sound of Cythosi shouting. The Krill staggered to one side as three Cythosi troopers opened fire on it.
Bavril threw himself forward and scrambled through the tangled barrier, severed cables spitting like snakes on either side of him.
The shuttle bay was empty. The quiet felt unnatural after the chaos of conflict. Blu’ip scuttled furtively from a corridor. Six troop shuttles were berthed in the bay. The dolphin approached the first, his twin machine guns sliding from their chest-panel.
He approached the first shuttle and fired with both barrels into the docking mechanism. It broke open, crackling and sparking.
He moved to the next shuttle and did the same. He crippled each of the shuttles in turn, leaving only one – his lifeline. The Cythosi, he knew, would not evacuate; he was determined that no humans would get off the ship.
Glancing with satisfaction at his handiwork, he left the shuttle bay.
The refugees had been crawling like moles through the tunnels for well over an hour. The Doctor could hear mutterings in the column behind him. People were getting nervous. ‘We’re lost, somebody said.
‘Shut it!’ Peck shouted. ‘We are not lost. It’s a long way, that’s all.’
He turned a corner, and froze.
The Doctor could see a service robot directly ahead of Peck, and bearing down on him fast.
For a second, Peck glanced back at the Doctor, a fearful yet determined look in his eyes.
‘Get back,’ he said, bringing up the laser-cutter as he crawled forwards.
The Doctor could see the beam of the cutter lancing out and severing a robot tendril, cutting into the machine’s breastplate. The robot squawked and struck out at Peck, who screamed in pain.
‘Back!’ the Doctor shouted to the column. He began pushing himself backwards through the tunnel and bumped into the man called Huttle.
‘Quickly man! Reverse gear!’
Peck was trying to buy them time – they had to use it.
They scrambled backwards, metre by metre. The Doctor saw the robot’s tools cut into Peck, sparking as they did so. Finally the tunnel turned and the sight was taken from him.
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The convoy backed into an open area where several tunnels converged. The Doctor tried to think. ‘Peck’s dead,’ he announced.
‘And I don’t know the way.’
‘I do,’ said Huttle timidly. ‘I was in engineering with Peck. I’ll go in front.’
The Doctor looked at the little man. Huttle was terrified.
‘Thank you, Mr Huttle,’ the Doctor said.
Huttle scrambled around him.
‘We can go this way,’ he said, and began to crawl down one of the cramped tunnels.
Ace and Rajiid hit the storm wall of the colony at about the same time as the hurricane. The wind was lifting wet sand and whipping it across the beach. Ace felt her face stinging as sand scoured across it. Rajiid’s head was tucked against his chest, his eyes clamped shut.
‘Rajiid!’ Ace screamed. ‘How do we get in?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. There are hatches, but I don’t know the security overrides.
Ace ran her hands over the delicate outline of a hatch in the smooth metal. Sealed. Solid. She stared desperately at the metal walls, looking for some way over. The storm shutters towered above her. A violent gust lifted her feet from the beach and she scrabbled for a handhold.
Frantically, she hammered at the control panel.
After a while, Huttle stopped.
‘We’ve got to climb now,’ he said. The command deck and shuttle bay are five decks up from here.
The Doctor peered up the shaft which extended vertically from the tunnel. A wide rail, serrated with metal teeth like a comb, ran up it. The robots used a sort of ratchet system