Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin [79]
‘If I have to. It takes years to qualify to pilot one of these. We’ve got two guys in the cockpit who’ve been trained to deal with all sorts of emergencies.
There’s nothing we can do that they’re not already doing. If it crashes, we get out as soon as possible and get clear, OK?’
‘Yeah, of course.’
The plane was now bobbing around like a boat on a stormy sea.
‘So why isn’t the swarm in Brazil, like we thought?’ Fitz asked.
‘It is. Weather radar won’t pick up individuals. It looks like the monsters can work at night too.’
‘So neither of the only two things we knew about them are true?’
The intercom pinged, and the captain told them: ‘Assume crash positions, brace for impact.’
They were way ahead of him.
The plane was only a hundred feet or so up now. The captain had found an area clear of buildings. Fitz couldn’t tell if this was the airfield or not. The plane was steady now, but the engines were straining and spluttering. The moment before they landed the monsters leapt off the wings, spiralling up and leaving the plane to its fate – and destabilising it one last time.
There was a roar of air.
Fitz twisted his head to see. A window had broken.
A judder as the plane hit the ground. Normal, but Fitz could already feel the undercarriage giving way. He realised he had taken Trix’s hand in his own.
It took a couple of seconds for the landing gear to wrench away. They heard it clattering off down the runway as the belly of the plane hit the tarmac, forcing the air out of their lungs.
The plane swerved, tried and failed to right itself, then scratched its way across the ground, which was hard. The wings were swinging up and down.
Out of his window, Fitz saw the wing tip touch the ground and throw up 163
sparks. This was a runway, Fitz realised, as they ploughed through a cluster of landing lights and on to soft grass.
The plane slid to a rest.
Fitz was very aware of how heavy his brain was and how much it had sloshed around in his skull.
‘Up,’ Trix said, already unbuckling her belt.
‘Yeah.’ He fumbled for his belt. ‘Any landing you can walk away from. . . ’
‘We’ve not walked away from it, not yet.’ She was standing, heading for the door.
‘We should check for monsters,’ Fitz said, unsteadily.
‘No. We should get out of the big metal thing full of sparks and aviation fuel.’
‘You’re right,’ he said groggily.
Trix was pulling handles to open the door and deploy the emergency slide.
‘Ladies first,’ Fitz told her.
It was two hundred feet of running before Trix looked back and realised Fitz wasn’t with her.
They’d come down the emergency slide and started to run. The captain and co-pilot had been right behind them. They’d overtaken Fitz and come alongside Trix. The air had been humming the whole time, and she’d thought it was the blood rushing into her ears after the crash. It was only when she looked up that she saw squadrons of monsters passing overhead.
The plane was pretty well intact, but there were flames on the ground and she could smell fuel so there was a real risk of an explosion. Emergency vehicles were heading their way, blue lights flashing. Fire tenders, an ambulance, smaller vehicles Trix couldn’t yet make out in the evening gloom.
She stopped and turned around.
There was a crowd of monsters between her and Fitz.
A dozen of the creatures, about twenty feet away from each of them.
Fitz had skidded to a halt.
‘Go!’ Fitz shouted. ‘They’re after me.’
So, these were the Vore. Almost as one the insects were looking from Fitz to Trix, as if they were unsure what to do. They were grey flecked with silver, their bodies ungainly and a little asymmetrical. The light was glinting off compound eyes the size of beach balls. Their joints clicked and clacked as they moved.
Trix stood perfectly still, tried to work out why she wasn’t dead. They were following their instinct to attack the nearest human, but with two targets identical distances away they were having difficulty deciding between them.
164
They were animals, Trix realised, not intelligent beings. Some sort of