Doctor Who_ The Forgotten Army - Brian Minchin [49]
The Doctor and Amy were astonished.
'What's got into you?' Amy asked, upset that Sam was so cross at them.
'You left me in there for ages!' Sam screamed, desperate to get his frustration off his chest.
'That's interesting.' The Doctor was talking more to Amy than to Sam. 'It's made of Vykoid technology. So it's immune to the Time Freeze.'
'You were only in there for a minute.’ Amy explained,
'but we're all being slowed down by
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the Vykoids. In there you must have been going at normal speed.'
'So this means we can fight them at their own speed!' Sam exclaimed, realising that his ordeal had not been in vain.
'Yes,' the Doctor agreed. 'But only if we all get inside the mammoth.'
'You cannot be serious?' Amy stared at the Doctor. 'You are, aren't you? I should have known!'
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Chapter
17
Commander Strebbins was having a very bad night.
First, a mammoth had come alive, destroying the Grand Hall of the most famous museum in New York. Then the city had blacked out. Now she was losing units of men, all over the city. Her decision to go onto the streets herself had been popular with her officers. They had been scared by reports of an unseen enemy, and were worried for their colleagues.
But now she was at the helm they felt protected. Patrolling the streets like an American Boadicea, Strebbins had her head poking out of the top of an armoured vehicle, surveying all the damage to the streets as she went.
'Take me to City Hall.’ she hollered down to her 185
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driver. 'I want to see this for myself.'
The convoy rolled along the empty streets like an army conquering a ghost town. Strebbins had never seen the city like this, and she was determined to restore it to its roaring, all-night-long self.
On the lawns of City Hall, Lieutenant Red of the Vykoid army lowered a tiny telescope and smiled with triumph. He'd seen their main prize - the human identified as running the city, Commander Jackie Strebbins.
She was the woman who had put the city under Martial Law. If they took her, they could do what they wanted. Red signalled for his men to spread out across the road. Working at top speed, they unrolled nets across every stretch of sidewalk, and a specialised climber Vykoid ran a cord up to a pivot point on the fifth floor of City Hall. Meanwhile, a team of twenty Vykoids leapt into a human jeep and, with different teams on each pedal, manoeuvred it into position. The trap was set...
Strebbins pulled up in front of City Hall, the car jolting to a stop to avoid a water main bursting a fountain over the sidewalk. On her signal, the officers piled out of the back of the van.
Yaara seemed immediately unnerved. 'Ma'am, there's something on the road.'
Commander Strebbins was already climbing 186
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down from her vantage point. 'I'm sure I've stepped on worse in my time.’ she said drily.
But as her feet hit the ground, they stuck to it firmly. It was as if her shoes were made of Velcro. She tugged and yanked with all her might, but she couldn't move.
'Eyes all round!' Strebbins commanded, determined that she would not be ambushed like this.
Somewhere close by, an engine fired up. A jeep zoomed away from City Hall, pulling with it the cord that gathered up the huge nets that Strebbins and her officers were standing on.
The nets had been designed to subdue a Tyrannosaurus Rex, so Commander Strebbins didn't stand a chance. As either side of the nets pulled up, the entire unit of armed police officers was bundled together. Like rabbits caught in a trap, they were dragged into the air, legs and arms poking through the holes in the net. They were helpless.
Deep underground in a Subway station, General Erik inspected the work of his Vykoid scientists. He'd been forced to adapt his battle plan to the unfortunate mistiming of their arrival, and he was more than happy with what he'd