• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

'Good work.' Lethbridge-Stewart turned to the others. 'What about a direct assault?'

One of the soldiers handed around copies of a glossy tourist brochure, requisitioned from the official Tower gift shop. There was a detailed black and white aerial view of the Tower and its walls.

'Three entrances,' Bambera said.

'Four,' Lethbridge-Stewart corrected, pointing at Traitor's Gate. It was set low into the wal , facing directly onto the Thames. 'We might be able to lead an assault from the river,' Bambera mused.

'There would be heavy losses,' the Brigadier responded.

'Professor Summerfield just isn't worth the sacrifice.' No-one said it, but everyone was thinking it.

'What's the spaceship doing?' Lethbridge-Stewart asked without looking away.

'Holding its position,' Bambera replied. 'Wait. It's rising!'

It was getting lighter outside. Sunlight began to stream over Tower Hill.

'Look at this, Doug! I've got the Brig's email address, I've got his home phone number. What's this? BN45 7ED.

I've got his smegging postcode!' Oswald could barely contain his excitement. He was waving the business card like it was a winning lottery ticket.

'The ship's moving,' Doug noted.

Oswald wasn't listening. 'I could get more for this than that box full of FHMs I bought last April. This is worth more than my autographed copy of The Killing Stone.'

'Yeah, but you'll have to sel it fast. The ship's moving.'

***

Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield

I glanced up. Although it had been making its ascent for a good few minutes, the Martian ship was still filling the sky. When I turned back to Xznaal, he was studying a holographic display that hung level with his head. I could see the mob outside, baying for blood. Rocks and bottles were being thrown at a line of Provisional Government troops.

'Gunnery officer,' Xznaal grunted. 'Fire.'

For a moment I couldn't connect the words with what I was seeing. I looked up again. The Martian ship looked like a gravestone.

And then the sky pulsed.

My teeth were rattling, my ears were ringing. A globule of sonic energy slammed down through the air, impacting the ground on Tower Hil . Not the ground. It had hit the heart of the crowd. I could hear them screaming over the sound of a hundred burglar alarms.

Xznaal gave a wheezing laugh.

'Fire!' he barked.

A second blast fell just the other side of the walls, right on the banks of the Thames. There was a geyser of hot mud, a column of steam that shot fifty feet into the air. And, of course, there was screaming.

113

'Both planets could survive, Xznaal,' I insisted. 'You have the power to end this war.'

He turned to me, and growled words that sent a chill down my spine. 'I don't want to end the war. I want to win.'

'At any cost?'

He cocked his head to one side. He hadn't understood the question. I tried to put it another way. 'If, when this is over, there are two Martians, but only one human alive, wil you have won?'

Xznaal lifted his head. I saw him standing where he was now, bathed in moonlight in the ruins of London, mist on the ground, the sky icy blue. His heavy claws were raised in triumph. The image was so strong, so familiar, that try as I might, I couldn't see it ending any other way. I was crying even before he had given his answer. I was only human, after all.

'That would be victory,' the Martian concluded.

End of extract

***

'They are firing on the crowd. We need an air strike,' Bambera declared. Before she had finished speaking, there was another banshee wail, another tremor as a sonic blast hit home.

'We need a miracle,' the Brigadier replied, reaching for his radio. 'And this is our last chance to make one happen.

Greyhound to Eagle. Launch.'

***

Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield

Xznaal grabbed the back of my head and forced it down onto the block. I turned my head as far as I could without breaking my neck. The axe was in his other claw.

'That's a two-handed axe,' I told him. 'Don't I get