Doctor Who_ The Dying Days - Lance Parkin [70]
'Deep breath,' the Doctor whispered to Benny.
The Martian's gun burst into life, and there was a noise so loud, the air pulsed.
Benny stared at it, saw the flash of the muzzle.
The Doctor's hand was on her neck, tugging her down.
The transparent door crazed as if someone had just driven a juggernaut through it.
Both she and the Doctor were through the doorway before the shards of glass had finished falling. Benny squeezed her eyes shut to protect them.
It was like diving into a swimming pool - the air was so much colder out of the reception chamber. More than that -
the amount of available oxygen had just become rather more limited. She opened her eyes to find that it was much darker, too.
The Doctor ran through the wide corridor, used to the light and thin air. She fol owed, already wheezing. He was moving with a reassuring confidence.
The Martian ship rocked. Presumably the helicopter was beginning to loose off its air-to-air missiles.
The Doctor was clambering up a ladder, the rungs of which were almost a metre apart. She followed as best she could, her chest tight.
The Doctor pulled open a hatch above his head, and warm night air seeped in.
'We're moving!' Benny shouted. She hadn't realised until she poked her head out of the hatch.
'I know,' the Doctor replied. 'Heading towards Whitehall.' He was already outside, standing astride, like a ship's captain at the wheel. Benny clambered out, pul ing herself up by tugging the tails of his frock coat.
When she was out, the Doctor kicked the hatch shut and held the sonic screwdriver over it. Something fizzed and sparked. They were perched on one of the ship's fins.
The drive systems were silent as a hot air balloon's. Underneath them, though, the noise was horrendous. It was a chaotic mix of gunfire, artillery and screaming civilians caught in the crossfire.
The flash of gun muzzles and the crump of grenades. The Martian ship hadn't fired on the surface, not a single warrior had left the ship. The fierce fighting down there was strictly human versus human.
Benny felt safe up here, she realised. This ship should have been the focus for the attack, but nothing seemed to be troubling it. Benny would much rather be here, two hundred feet in the air, with a million tons of Martian armour between her and the ground, than down on the streets.
A helicopter that she hadn't even heard exploded half a mile ahead of them. Its rotor blades were backlit by the burning fuselage as it plummeted down somewhere between Horse Guards Parade and St James Park.
The Doctor stood there, watching it fall through the night sky.
'What do we do?' she called.
The Doctor began striding over to the edge, quite a distance. Benny tried to keep up and quickened her pace.
After a few moments, she caught up with him, almost going over the side in the process. For the briefest moment there was nothing beneath one of her feet but a two-hundred foot drop down to the war torn streets of SW1.
'How do we get down?'
He turned to her, a sad smile on his face. 'Ask me again in a week's time,' he replied.
The ship was slowing down again, turning through about thirty degrees,
'Doctor, I know everything there is to know about Martians, why don't I know about this? Even if we beat Xznaal tonight, the historical implications of this are huge. Why didn't I know? There were Martians at my wedding and no-one mentioned this, no-one at all. And I met Bambera a few years from now. That time we fought your evil duplicate at Buckingham Palace. Why didn’t she recognise me then, if we’d already met?'
66
The Doctor stood for a moment, watching the fires burning in St James Park. A couple of air-to-air missiles streaked past, like fireworks. There was fresh gunfire, but from much further away, South of the river.
Benny realised that he wasn't going to answer. 'Did you know this was going to happen?'
He didn't hesitate. 'No.'
'Before you changed, you seemed to know everything about everything.'
The Doctor turned to