Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [100]
‘So I see,’ said Turlough as the pair entered the mess room and found Paynter and Tegan glued together, attached at the mouth, eyes closed.
There was a disgusted look on Turlough’s face. ‘Can we go somewhere else so that I can tell you everything I know about the Jex’s plans?’ he asked.
Some moments later Mel Tyrone returned to the mess room to find Tegan and Paynter still in the middle of their (seemingly breathless) eternal kiss.
He coughed, loudly. Three times. Finally the pair parted and stared at him with a look that asked What’s the matter, have you never seen two people who hate each other’s guts going at it like rabbits before?
Tyrone coughed again. Apologetically. ‘OK,’ he said, with bright embarrassment. ‘Sorry to interrupt, kids, but from what Turlough has just told me, I’m thinking it might be wise for Captain Paynter to get over to the InterCom complex with a few guys and a lot of guns.’
Paynter dropped Tegan like a piece of hot coal and grabbed his Kalashnikov from the table. ‘Trouble?’ he asked, seemingly desperate that the answer be in the affirmative.
‘Forearmed is forewarned,’ replied Tyrone as Paynter rushed from the room.
The things that had been Sanger, Joyce, Elphistone and Bois closed in on Shaun Ryman.
He gave an animal scream and savagely tore the skin from his face to reveal the alien features beneath.
‘He looks the same as them,’ whispered the Brigadier as the Jex closed in on their enemy.
‘Genetically engineered,’ the Doctor speculated. ‘Deep plant. He’s probably been with the Jex since he was a child. Indoctrination is a persuasive tool Brigadier,’ he continued as they reached the door, forgotten by the aliens who were about to settle some long-term accounts.
The thing that had been Ryman sprouted limbs and claws and emerged from the wreckage of its human form in a terrifying eruption of meshed mem-branes, veins, arteries, flesh and bone. Its clothes lay discarded on the floor, ripped and saturated with thick and viscous alien haematemesis and protein that clotted to the material and hardened almost instantly.
‘Witness the new flesh,’ croaked the thing that had been Ryman, its teeth cutting through the remains of Ryman’s jaw mask and tearing it away from the chin. ‘I am whole again,’ it continued.
191
The thing that had been Sanger flew at the thing that had been Ryman, followed by the rest of the Jex and they fell to the floor with a sickening thud in a furious mélange of limbs and torsos. The Jex poured on to the traitor, tearing at its skin with their claws and teeth, ripping it to shreds.
‘We can end this now,’ the Brigadier said, reaching into his pocket and removing the grenades.
The Jex continued to grapple with the dying Canavitchi. Then the thing that had been Theydon Bois looked up from its feast, blood cascading from its mouth. ‘We’ll be right with you,’ it said, horrifyingly.
That settled it.
The Doctor gave Lethbridge-Stewart a sad glance. ‘I’m not a man of violence,’ he said simply.
‘Doctor for God’s sake, this is war,’ urged the Brigadier, removing the pins from his three grenades and tossing them in an arc towards the alien creatures. Then he grabbed the Doctor and they hurled themselves through the door as, behind them, the room exploded in a pyrotechnic cascade.
For several seconds Lethbridge-Stewart and the Doctor lay in the corridor, covered in dust, rubble and fragments of the exterior wall that had been unable to withstand the impact. Finally, as the ringing in his ears stopped, the Doctor slowly picked himself up from the floor and looked into the room.
Through the billowing smoke and amid the carnage it was difficult to see where one creature ended and the next one began. The huge panoramic window of the conference room was gone, replaced by a few jagged fragments of glass. Through this escape route the smoke and dust streamed out into the Los Angeles sky, completely blotting out the sun.
The walls of the room had buckled, but had held. Somewhere within the room, a sprinkler system had automatically kicked into operation and the