Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [132]
‘Acting-President,’ the rasping voice began, ‘you have had your chance. You have not presented Sobtar to us. In full knowledge of the Supreme Sontariat, I formally announce that the Sontaran Empire is now at war with the Time Lords of Gallifrey.’
‘You can declare war all you like, it still doesn’t mean I know where your General Sontar is.’
Grol’s eyes narrowed. ‘You have violated every principle of Galactic Law.’
‘We enforce those laws, Grol. We wrote most of them.’
‘That gives you the right to break them at will?’
‘Chief of Staff, we have misplaced your leader, and I’m terribly sorry about that, but what would you have us do?’
‘We could check the last place we saw him,’ Pendrel suggested.
Voran scowled. ‘Has anyone actually checked the xenodochia?’
There were a few muttered comments from the monks behind him.
‘Now you must face the retribution of the Sontaran race for the terrible crime you have committed,’ Grol growled.
‘Vengeance will be swift and massive, and the universe will long sing of the day when –’
Voran yawned. ‘Do what you will, Chief of Staff, we are currently dealing with a situation that –’
‘Acting-President,’ a voice behind him interrupted.
‘Shut up, Pendrel. I’m sorry about that, Grol. As I say, a situation that requires our full attention, one that is a little more important than looking for some lost alien.’
‘Acting-President,’ Pendrel insisted.
He turned away from the Sontaran to see Pendrel. The ridiculous man was virtually tugging at his robes. ‘This had better be important.’
‘It is, Acting-President. It’s the transduction barriers.
They’ve been switched off.’
‘What? On whose authority? Turn them back on, you idiot.’
Another aide came over to one side. ‘There is no power going to the transduction systems or to the quantum forcefields.’
One of the Technicians was frantically squinting into his eyeboard. ‘Total power drain on all systems. We’re losing them all, one by one.’
‘Gallifrey is utterly defenceless,’ Pendrel concluded.
Grol’s face was set is a long, lipless smile. Then his eyes narrowed, stared straight at the Acting-President.
‘Admiral Krax, you are authorised to commence the attack,’ the Sontaran said, his image fading away.
The Sontaran fleet had held its position since its arrival. Now, as one, their spectronic drives fired.
The fleet maintained its double arrowhead formation, their weapons systems coming on-line. They were quickly at battle speed. For the last few days, the strategy computers had been analysing Gallifrey. Bomber units were already streaking ahead of the main fleets, torpedoes ha already been loaded into their tubes. The energy weapons had bee charging up for days.
Behind them, the Rutan fleet was also powering up.
The Sontaran strategy computers had predicted this, but had concluded that the Rutan computers would not be expecting the Sontarans to attack Gallifrey itself. Caught unprepared for vital seconds by the Sontarans’ audacity, the Rutan strategists would realise that there were two possibilities: either the Gallifreyans would swiftly annihilate the Sontarans, or the Sontarans had a secret weapon powerful enough to punch its way through technology a million years more advanced than the Rutans’ own. Neither option favoured Rutan intervention.
The sudden power loss was unexpected, but a sign of providence, a sign that the war gods favoured the Sontaran.
As predicted, the Rutan ships let the Sontaran fleet power forwards, monitoring it closely.
The bridge of a Sontaran ship is a womblike space, suffused with red light, power cabling and umbilicals.
Admiral Krax sat at its heart, a hundred pilots and warriors at their stations around him. He couldn’t see them, his eyes were covered by blinkers that gave him independent displays of fleet and enemy strength.
Fighter and bomber units were streaking ahead, already in the Gallifreyan atmosphere. The combined firepower of the fleet could shatter the planet into