Doctor Who_ The Infinity Doctors - Lance Parkin [18]
But neither side fired first. Today, for the first time in recorded history, Sontaran and Rutan fleets were sharing the same star system without instantly trying to annihilate one another.
The commanders of the two fleets realised that the other wasn’t going to attack at around the same time. Keeping a careful watch on their enemies, the battle computers started looking around for other targets. This was a five-planet star system, with a star that showed signs of extensive re-engineering to keep it within the main sequence. Only one world showed any significant habitation, Gallifrey itself. The largest population concentration was a large domed city in the Northern hemisphere.
As one, every gun, missile and other weapon in both fleets trained themselves on the Capitol.
The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that no one had seen him. He looked around to check, but all eyes were on the image of the fleets. All eyes except Larna’s. She’d always been one of his more perceptive pupils. Paradoxically, the way she had carefully braided her long blonde hair to look older simply emphasised how very young she was. But now she was a Time Lord, and one of only a handful in the room who genuinely wanted this initiative to succeed. He grinned over at her, she rewarded him by smiling back. Larna had only just graduated so this must be the first time she had worn her cranberry robes, but she looked quite at home here.
‘Temporal transfer is now complete,’ the Technician announced.
‘A magnificent display,’ Hedin admitted. ‘But are so many ships really necessary?’
‘They are trying to impress us,’ the Magistrate chuckled.
‘This is intended as a demonstration of their strength.’
Hedin turned away from him, gazing back down at infinity.
‘Surely not… it’s quite impressive, I suppose, but –’
‘They betray their insecurity,’ a female voice blurted.
The Doctor and his colleagues turned around at the sound. The people around Larna seemed to edge away, leaving her exposed. The Doctor fancied that he could actually hear the sound of so many eyebrows being raised.
‘What are you teaching your students these days, Doctor?’
Voran asked. He was a long, thin man, a professor nine times over, a member of the Council, but no one liked him.
‘That their elders can be their betters. That every teacher is still a student. Larna was one of my very best pupils. You could learn a lot from her.’ Baiting such a man wasn’t satisfying, the Doctor noted. He wouldn’t change his opinions, he’d go out of his way not to.
‘Come and join us, Larna,’ the President said. She stepped a little closer, her face flushing. ‘Closer, child,’ the President said, delighted with her. Although he was amongst the oldest of all the Time Lords, the President loved the company of the young. That, the Doctor reflected, was one of the reasons his own activities were tolerated and encouraged. He and the Magistrate were the only members of the Council less than two thousand years old.
‘Go on,’ the Doctor prompted gently.
Larna stepped a little closer to them, clearly trying to collect her thoughts. ‘These are warrior races. Their cultures are based on power, military superiority. But they must know that Gallifreyan technology is far superior to theirs. They know that if they fire their weapons then they’ll just bounce off the quantum forcefields and transduction barriers. We could dematerialise every weapon, we could make it so that their home planet never existed.’
One corner of the Magistrate’s mouth rose, a sure sign that he was enjoying himself. ‘So why aim all their weapons at us? Who are they trying to impress?’
A rhetorical question, but one that Larna was happy to answer. ‘Not us. The Time Lords aren’t warriors, they know that. They are trying to reassure themselves. They think of themselves as… not our equals… but they want to be able to think that they have power. Why else would they send a hundred ships? We can guarantee safe passage far better than a fleet of their warships. The Sontaran delegation