Doctor Who_ Battlefield Part 8

'Elizabeth, I need to use your phone. The one in my car's not working.'

'Doctor Warmsly,' said the Doctor. 'Just the man I've been looking for.'

Peter was already barking a number down the telephone at the electronic operator. He turned round and seeing the Doctor, snapped, 'They've driven a b.l.o.o.d.y great rocket on to my land. My land!' He slammed down the receiver and swore. 'The line's dead!'

'I'm sorry, Peter, it must be the storm,' said Elizabeth.

'About this scabbard,' b.u.t.ted in the Doctor. 'Where was it found?'

Peter's mind was elsewhere. 'What are you saying?'

'The scabbard.' The Doctor began to unhitch the relic from the wall. 'Do you remember where it was found?'

'Careful with that?' He lifted the scabbard away from the Doctor and cradled it protectively. "The scabbard's worth..."'

'"...worth ten of the sword," said Merlin,' chorused the Doctor.

'I found it at the dig by the lake.'

'What period?'

'Eighth century AD.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'No, that can't be right.'

Peter curbed his temper. 'Excuse me Doctor, but getting that rocket off Trust land is a bit more important. The whole place is crawling with soldiers.'

'No, the scabbard's been waiting around longer than that.' The Doctor looked through the window at the sunlit garden. Smashed trees and the empty sky above.

'Waiting? Waiting for who?' said Peter.

Smashed trees below and figures like ants in the confines of her crystal sphere. Seen from on high, as the world looks from a window in the High Tagel.

'Waiting for me.'

The Black Knight waited until the two grey hunters had pa.s.sed on the false trail. He had recognized Sir Comus and Sir Madlamor immediately. Both knights from Morgaine's closest retinue; cronies of the ruffian Prince Mordred. And somewhere there was a third, the leader of the sortie.

He started to retrace his steps back to the road. Through his helmet's receiver, he caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of localized transmissions. Flashes of thought in the ether, but whether they were the spells and incantations of this world or glimpses of angels, this lowly knight had not the wit to understand them. But he could seek out someone who might.

He stepped out onto the path and the tree beside him exploded in flame.

The hunters had doubled back as well. Shots exploded round him as he ducked into the cover of the smoke.

He placed himself behind a fallen branch and waited, gun in hand. The Grey Knights were calling out ahead of him and another surly voice answered them from behind.

The sortie leader at last.

'Do you have him?'

'Yes, my lord. Pinned down yonder between us.'

The Black Knight rose to make a run, but another blast of fire scored across his flank. He crouched down again, feeling the heat of the blast through his armour.

Already his suit a.s.sessed the course of action. Its umberere screen scripted out a clear route to the left. He turned to run, but a movement in the bushes caught his attention. A metal-grey capsule clattered at his feet.

A firecone. No runner was swift enough to clear its scatter zone.

Only one course was open. With his armour only half-powered for the leap, he leapt. The blast caught him just hands high in the air and flung him into the sky like a projectile from a ballista.

Shou Yuing couldn't fathom Ace out. The teenager defied all attempts at social stereotype categorizing that Shou Yuing's amateur psychology could throw up. The clothes and the att.i.tude were all wrong. The vernacular was bizzare. This one has problems, she thought, and liked Ace even better.

They pulled up a couple of overturned chairs and sat with their drinks at a damp garden table.

Ace never stopped talking. She treated Shou Yuing as a soul mate who she hadn't seen for years. But if she and the Doctor had been travelling for a long time, then that could be a lonely business. Her eagerness reminded Shou Yuing of her own brother, except that where he was into motorbikes, Ace was into explosives. And it was clear that she was no innocent on the subject either.

Out of her bag, Ace produced two canisters of something called nitro-nine. Shou Yuing would have laughed it off, but she and her brother had helped out on the local Guy Fawkes night displays. The fireworks there were supervized by experts, but Shou Yuing could tell just by sense of smell that these little bombsh.e.l.ls were twice as potent and real.

Ace could only be categorized as an embryonic anarchist, yet Shou Yuing was certain there was not an ounce of malice in her. 'I started with homemade jelly,'

Ace said. 'That's gelignite. I used to put it together in the art lessons, right?'

'Right.' Shou Yuing giggled warily.

'So Mrs Parkinson, the art teacher, catches me and asks what it is. So I told her it was plasticine. Well, I couldn't tell her what it really was...'

'The gelignite... '

'That's right. So we're in the corridor by now, and she tells me to put what she thinks is plasticine back in the art room.'

Shou Yuing was revelling in this story even though she could see exactly where it was going. 'So what did you do?'

'I chucked it over my shoulder.' Ace screwed up the crisp packet and threw it. 'Like that! It landed right in the middle of 1C's prizewinning pottery pig collection and,'

she flung her arms wide, '... boom!'

The sky momentarily flickered white towards the lake.

'Boom?' shouted Shou Yuing.

'Boom!' yelled the anarchist.

The distant crump of an explosion rattled the windows of the hotel. Ace and Shou Yuing stared at the sky as something like a suit of armour whistled overhead and hit the roof of Pat Rowlinson's brewery.

'I'd better get the Doctor,' shouted Ace.

The door opened. 'Good idea,' said the Doctor as he stepped outside. 'Did you see it?'

'Yes.' they chorused.

'And?'

'It looked like a man,' said Ace.

The Doctor frowned. 'A man flying through the air?'

'And then through the roof,' added Shou Yuing.

He regarded the brewery roof where it was punctured by a large hole. 'I think you should stay here,' he said, setting off.

'Be serious, Professor,' yelled Ace.

Shou Yuing grabbed at her arm. 'What's going on?'

'The business.' Ace started to run after the Doctor, who had already reached the brewery. 'You'll have to ask the Professor.'

They caught up with the Doctor as he leaned an ear against the wooden door.

'What's going on?' insisted Shou Yuing.

The Doctor shushed her and slowly pushed the door inwards. Inside, he grappled about in the dark and finally found a switch.

Cold fluorescence lit the tall fermentation vats. A haze of dust was still settling on the bricks and broken tiles that littered the floor. The place reeked of beer.

One of the vats was dented. At its foot lay a figure in black armour, his suit battered and the mirrorshade visor cracked.

The suit's arm rose weakly and fell back again. A man's voice groaned and muttered, 'Excalibur. Darkness must not prevail.'

'Is it an android?' asked Ace.

Shou Yuing stared at Ace and the Doctor and then back at the broken figure. This was crazy. These two weirdos were behaving as if this was an everyday occurrence. Who the h.e.l.l were they? She forgot that she had promised to be back home by teatime.

The Doctor knelt by the knight. 'No Ace, it's a man in powered armour.' He felt around the edges of the helmet, found the clips and pulled it away.

The Black Knight looked up at them with ice blue eyes.

Long yellow hair framed his cla.s.sically handsome features.

'Oh, very Teutonic,' observed the Doctor. 'How do you do? This is Ace and I am... '

'Merlin!' cried the Black Knight. His smile broadened in wonder and recognition. 'Merlin, against all hope!'

Part 2

Scenario: Broken Arrow

'....Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts, Had built the King his havens, s.h.i.+ps and halls, Had built the King his havens, s.h.i.+ps and halls, Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens... Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens...

'The Idylls of the King'

Tennyson

Chapter 1.

Doris watched the helicopter settle on the lawn like a malevolent black insect. The trees and plants quailed under the surge of its propwash.

She turned and re-entered the house where Alastair was finalizing arrangements. She thought that his Brigadier's uniform looked a little tight, but there was a rightness to it.

For all his acquired domesticity, the man of action still lived on underneath. She reprimanded herself for being fl.u.s.tered, while he, who was going off to face heaven knows what, maintained an outward appearance of complete composure.

The cup of coffee with which she always finished lunch was stone cold. The food was hardly picked at.

He had finished his.

She tried to imagine the magnitude of crisis that could summon him out of retirement. Worse, she was sure that he was eager to go.

There had been a night when his restless sleep had woken her. She had heard him mutter: 'Corporal Bell.

Chap with the wings. Five rounds rapid.' And then he grabbed her arm and yelled: 'Doctor! Don't do it!'

Although names like Mike Yates and Sarah-Jane Smith occasionally cropped up in conversation, the true nature of his military career was kept a closely guarded secret. She respected him too much to ask about it.

She had gleaned information from other sources, notably the State Secret State Secret TV doc.u.mentary, but the Doctor had never been mentioned at all. TV doc.u.mentary, but the Doctor had never been mentioned at all.

'What do you think?' Lethbridge-Stewart asked. 'I'd worried it wouldn't fit me. But not bad, eh?'

'Alastair,' she said. She had kept his UNIT cap badge hidden in some vague hope that it might delay his departure. But there was no point. It was better to wave him bravely and dutifully off. She pressed the badge into his hand. 'Alastair, I found this.'

He smiled and pinned it on to his cap. 'Thank you.'