Doctor Who_ Trading Futures - Lance Parkin [77]
Fitz looked down at Pad, sighed.
‘Er… I have a control box, but I think it’s broken.’
‘May I?’
The Onihr took it in one huge paw. ‘No – look, it’s just a question of…’ he tapped the third button, then the second, then the fourth, and they were on the control gallery.
The Onihr passed the control box back to Fitz.
‘Cheers,’ Fitz said.
The deputy leader was wearing an ornate black and gold suit of armour. It looked practical – bloody practical, actually – but Fitz got the idea it was at least partly ceremonial. It was dripping with fragrant oils. It was overpowering, visually and nasally.
‘Dressed to impress,’ Fitz said cheerfully.
‘I shall lead the delegation to Earth,’ the Onihr announced.
‘Doing a deal?’
‘Yes.’
‘Need any help?’ It was a cheap way to get back home, Fitz thought.
‘No, Doctor, you shall remain here.’
‘I know the, er, humans. I could help you get what you want.’
‘If the human does not give me time travel, I shall tear its head off and take time travel for myself. Then I shall raze all the cities of the Earth.’
Fitz smiled affably. ‘OK. Er… good luck.’
* * *
Relker was getting cold, waiting. Night would be falling soon. The shadows were long, the air was getting a tang of cold. Even on a summer’s night, it would be bitter. Oleson was standing next to him, already shifting from one foot to the other and rubbing his hands together.
The Concorde had been sitting on the runway for an hour, now. The stand off was absurd. Whatever the plane was coated with was thick enough to block IR scans of the interior, but there were a few windows, and the spotters around the plane had been watching, doing a headcount. There were hardly any people on board – the pilot, the man who claimed to be Baskerville, his assistant (who claimed to be Dee) and no more than four or five people in the main cabin.
Even just using the men out here on the runway, they could storm the plane and take it in moments.
Relker was unsure what Baskerville was waiting for. Or, for that matter, who the people on the Concorde were, or why they were here. They knew all about the operation here. But if it was one of the Russian governments cracking down, they’d have sent tanks. The Americans or Eurozone would send helicopters.
The Trojan Horse. That’s the image that kept coming back to Relker. They – whoever they were – had sent the Concorde simply to baffle him. They’d landed it here, made him and his men waste valuable time and energy wondering what on earth it was here for.
A Eurozone plane (a retired Eurozone plane, but don’t dwell on that), adapted using state of the art American stealth technology. Containing a man claiming to be their boss, who claimed – bizarrely – that he had the President of the United States on board, when anyone with a newsfeed knew the President was in a hotel in Istanbul.
Shoot them all and let God sort them out. That was Relker’s preferred option.
A RealWar class two slid easily from the main building. The hover tank. Hovercraft technology had suddenly come back into vogue, with the development of new materials. This didn’t look like a weapon at all, it looked like a sculpture – it was smooth chrome, all sleek curves. He saw the Concorde, the evening sky, even himself and his men reflected against its metal surface.
The gun ports opened, all three cannons emerged.
Baskerville was making a move. Relker wished he’d been consulted first.
He reached for his radio. ‘Baskerville, what’s the HT for?’
Nothing.
Relker was reaching down for his gun when the Hovertank started firing at his men. Some of the idiots were standing up, to see what the noise was. Others had their heads down, and those were the ones who weren’t killed instantly.
The tank moved methodically forwards. His men should know better than to take it on – even if their bullets got past the armour, the chances of hitting a vital component were ridiculously small.
Hopefully someone had got a jammer on them, or something that could cut the