Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin [64]
The amplified reality crashes for a moment, before reasserting itself. There is an energy source down there, something so exotic the databanks are having trouble finding a match. It is large, and the ‘searchlight beams’ are radiating from it.
The ship is being tugged down.
‘I’m trapped in one of the beams,’ he shouts, in the hope that someone can hear him. But the communications links are all down, as far as he can tell.
‘I’m losing power,’ he reports. ‘Attempting a landing on the surface. You regroup and take full scans of this area. Then activate cloaking devices, return to Home Constellation. The High Council will need to –’
The planet is looming up in front of him.
∗ ∗ ∗
133
The ship crashes into the crust at several hundred times the speed of sound, then skips out of the impact crater, cartwheeling up and then crashing down through the loose gravel and dust of the surface, plummeting into a subterranean chamber. It quickly comes to rest.
The inside has barely shuddered, but the ship has been heavily damaged.
Lucky for him this is the latest model. Now all available energy is being channelled into the self-repair circuits and defences.
There isn’t enough power left to operate the scanner.
It will still be possible to investigate the energy source, if he goes outside.
He heads to a number of storage lockers and removes items he thinks might be useful, like a torch and gloves.
After a little consideration he removes his robes and collar, deciding they would be too cumbersome. The instruments have enough power left to tell him the atmosphere outside is breathable, then just enough to get the door open.
The thin air is hotter than he had expected, heavy with carbon dioxide.
He moves out of the TARDIS, torch in one hand, pistol in the other.
A blizzard of dust motes passes through the torch beam. The light runs across the far wall of the rock chamber. This seems to be a natural formation, not part of a hive. There are no monsters here, not yet. His arrival has hardly been discreet, however, and they will be heading this way.
The ship had been pulled in by a beam from the energy source, but had come to rest several miles away from it. He soon finds himself in hollowed-out tubes in the rock, which are high enough to allow him to stand up.
The creatures have tunnelled these. Examining the rock, he finds marks and gouges made by insect jaws. There is a breeze, heading upwards. A ventilation system, he realises. The insects are warm-bodied. Their hives would become too hot and suffocating without some way of circulating the hot air out and fresh air in.
A leg lashes out towards him, embedding itself in the rock like a pickaxe.
He whirls round and finds himself staring into an insect’s face. It hisses at him. Its breath smells like bleach, its mandibles are gnashing.
His pistol is already up at the creature’s thorax. He fires, killing it in a burst of red light. It slumps right in front of him. Its foot is stuck firm in the rock.
He continues on his way, checking his wrist computer. It hadn’t warned him about the monster. The warm air moving around, the exotic energy source and the sheer number of insects on the planet are all conspiring to jam his detector’s effectiveness. No doubt he could have done something about that back in the TARDIS. Out here in the field, he’ll have to rely on his own senses instead.
134
These tunnels aren’t populated. The monster he met must have been one of very few maintenance drones. The floor twists underfoot. The insects are able to walk up sheerer surfaces than he can. The gouges and teeth marks must make pretty good footholds for them.
He continues on his way, sticking to the ventilation tubes. He doesn’t seem to have attracted any attention. This is not easy going. He is used to life in the Capitol, where the most treacherous surface is an age-worn step, each one of which is utterly familiar. His ankles and calves are already in a little pain from