Doctor Who_ Shakedown Part 23

The sentry trooper swung round in challenge.

'Where are you going?'

'To the a.s.sault vessel.'

'I have orders to admit no one.' The sentry came closer. 'I do not know you. Who are you?'

Ignoring him, the newcomer went on opening the door.

The sentry grabbed the trooper's arm, attempting to pull him away. There was a crackle of power and the sentry was hurled back, collapsing against the corridor wall.

The newcomer turned back to the door.

Lieutenant Vorn came round the corner and saw one trooper on the floor, and another opening the airlock.

'What is happening?' he called.

The trooper at the airlock ignored him.

Vorn drew his blaster. 'Stop!'

When there was still no response Vorn fired but his target had disappeared. The trooper dissolved into a blur of light and disappeared down the long corridor. Vorn ran to the remaining trooper and dragged him roughly to his feet. He was shocked, but apparently unharmed. 'Are you functional?'

'Yes, Lieutenant.'

'Guard the airlock. Let no one pa.s.s. No one!'

Vorn hurried away.

Commander Steg was alone on the sail deck.

He was studying the holograph and musing on the strange ways of humans. Choosing a slow and difficult means of propulsion, just because it was was slow and difficult. He reflected on the curious differences between them. slow and difficult. He reflected on the curious differences between them.

The two females, the young and the older one, and the young male he dismissed as insignificant. But for all his apparent calmness there was something disturbing, and somehow familiar, about the human called Kurt. And the Captain female...Steg remembered how she had met his eyes, challenging and unafraid.

It occurred to Steg that there was something interesting about all this variety. He dismissed the thought immediately as being unsound and un-Sontaran.

He swung round as Lieutenant Vorn hurried onto the sail deck. There was nothing strange or different about Vorn, he thought. He was utterly Sontaran, brave, loyal and stupid.

Vorn seemed strangely agitated. 'Commander!' he gasped.

Steg pulled him up sharply. 'Report in the proper form.'

Vorn came to attention and flung his arm across his chest.

'Lieutenant Vorn reporting, Commander.'

'Has the s.h.i.+p's engineer been found?'

'No, Commander.'

'Have the search patrols found our enemy?'

'No, Commander.'

'You do have something something to report?' to report?'

'There has been an attempt to leave the s.h.i.+p. The guard trooper was stunned.'

'An attempt by whom?'

'By what appeared to be one of our troopers. When I fired '

'It vanished in a blaze of light?'

Vorn gasped at his Commander's amazing prescience.

'Yes, Commander!'

'You are sure you hit it?'

'Yes, Commander.'

'Blaster on maximum charge?'

'Yes, Commander.'

Exultantly Steg's fist smashed down on the holograph console.

'Excellent! Our enemy is here, and it is wounded. Organize a thorough search of the power room. Rip the place to pieces if necessary.'

Vorn hesitated. 'If the power drive is destroyed, the s.h.i.+p will be unable to proceed.'

Steg's mouth twitched in the rare Sontaran smile. 'Vorn, this s.h.i.+p isn't going anywhere. Not any more.'

Vorn saluted and hurried away.

Steg stood alone on the darkened sail deck, his eyes glowing red in triumph. He had made the right deduction. The Rutan was on board Tiger Moth Tiger Moth. It was here, and it would die here.

Even if the s.h.i.+p had to die with it.

Steg's thick finger stabbed at a control. The glowing holograph of Tiger Moth Tiger Moth disappeared into darkness. disappeared into darkness.

The Rutan ent.i.ty that called itself Karne drifted along the dark corridors at the core of the s.h.i.+p, heading for the power room.

Vorn's shot had caught it unawares, before it had time to throw up an energy s.h.i.+eld. The close-range blast had led to cellular disruption and consequent energy leak. Weak and wounded, the Rutan desperately needed more energy.

It picked up the vibrations of heavy, booted footsteps and shrank into a side corridor, its glow dimmed, as a Sontaran trooper marched past on patrol.

When the danger was past, it resumed its journey to the power room. It arrived at last, only to find danger waiting. The thick-set shapes of Sontaran troopers moved about the engine room, dismantling the power drives.

The Rutan retreated into the darkness, awaiting its chance.

Lieutenant Vorn looked on, blaster at the ready, while a trooper removed a hatch from one of the power units.

Suddenly the trooper stepped back. 'Lieutenant, look!'

The trooper stepped aside and Vorn saw something dangling from the open hatchway.

It was the arm of a dead Sontaran trooper.

When the Sontaran sentry made his occasional checks, things seemed peaceful enough in the crewroom. The prisoners were properly subdued, talking quietly amongst themselves. Under the surface, however, quite a lot was going on.

Mari was fussing over Nikos, now pretty much recovered, but enjoying the attention. The fall had done no real damage, but it had left him shaken and bruised. His ego had suffered most of all. His attempt to protect Mari had been contemptuously brushed aside, and it was Kurt who had saved the day.

He glanced across the room to where Kurt and Lisa were deep in conversation. They seemed to be arguing.

Zorelle was hovering between the two groups, straining to hear what Kurt and Lisa were talking about.

'What makes you so sure?' Lisa was saying. 'Steg said himself he had no reason to harm us.'

Kurt sighed, despairing of making her realize the total ruthlessness of the Sontaran mentality.

'Look at it from their point of view,' he said quietly.

'Suppose they don't find this enemy they're looking for?'

Lisa shrugged. 'Maybe they'll decide it's not here.'

'Or maybe they'll decide it is, and they missed it. If they blow up the s.h.i.+p, they're covered either way.'

Lisa was trying to figure every angle. 'And if they do find it?'

'Why leave us all alive to complain? If we just disappear...'

'What about all the other s.h.i.+ps they'll be stopping and searching?'

'Same problems, same solution.'

She looked at him unbelievingly. 'They're that ruthless?

How do you know so much about them anyway?'

Kurt didn't want to say too much about the circ.u.mstances of his meeting with the Doctor, so he changed the name and the place to protect the guilty.

'I met this weird hobo once,' he said vaguely. 'In...in a bar on Metebelis Three. Called himself the Alchemist, or the Dentist or something.'

'Frontier worlds are full of them,' said Lisa impatiently.

's.p.a.ce-b.u.ms wandering about in battered old s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps. So?'

'He knew a lot about Sontarans. Said they live for war.

Don't value their own lives, let alone anyone else's.

Reproduce by cloning, millions of warriors at a time.'

Lisa shuddered, thinking of the squat armoured figures taking over her s.h.i.+p.

'You'd think the galaxy would be overrun with them.'

'War with the Rutans keeps them busy.'

'And they think there's a Rutan on my s.h.i.+p?'

'Apparently.' Kurt paused for a moment. 'All the same, with all these s.p.a.cecraft to stop and search, the Sontarans are spread pretty thin. There can't be more than a handful of them on this s.h.i.+p.'

'So what do we do?'

'We kill them,' said Kurt. 'Kill them all.'

Lisa looked at him, her eyes widening. Suddenly she saw, in this quiet man, a ruthlessness to match that of the Sontarans.

She drew a deep breath. 'How?'

'Apparently they've got one weakness '

He broke off as the door opened, revealing not the sentry but Lieutenant Vorn.

Vorn jabbed a finger at Lisa. 'You. Come!'

Lisa looked at Kurt. He shrugged imperceptibly, and she got up and followed Vorn out.

As soon as they were gone Zorelle swung round on Mari and Nikos. 'You heard what they were saying?'

Nikos shook a still-aching head. 'I wasn't paying attention.'