Doctor Who: Dreams of Empire: 50th Anniversary Edition

by Richards, Justin

  Prion paused, waited for them to catch up at the junction with another corridor. He waited before he set off along the next corridor. Then he said to Jamie, ‘Trust is earned, or so it is said. I have to assume from your comments that I have not yet earned it from you.’

  Jamie was amazed that Prion had overheard. He thought they had been far enough behind him to be well out of earshot. He covered his embarrassment by attacking: ‘Well perhaps you’ll tell us why you’re so keen to be away from the main action with this toxin bomb thing? Are you not intending to take part in the battle?’ He nodded to Victoria. That had told him.

  Prion’s answer was as calm and composed as ever. ‘I see there is another gap in your knowledge that I should remedy. You know my name?’

  ‘Yes of course.’ Victoria gave a short laugh. ‘It’s Prion.’

  ‘Actually it is Prion Seven.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It is an abbreviation. I am the General in Chief’s Primary Automaton.’ As he spoke, Prion’s head angled slightly, and Jamie could see again how symmetrical, how perfectly formed his features were. As the two friends watched, Prion reached across his chest and unclipped his tunic. It was heavier than the under-armour that Jamie and Victoria wore, though it seemed to fit him as tightly. ‘I distance myself from the toxin because it could destroy me as surely as it could the VETAC commander that my construction is modelled upon.’ While he spoke, Prion drew back the tunic. Jamie expected to see the pale skin beneath contrasting against the dark metal of the tunic. But there was no skin. Instead there was a metal framework with strange-looking boards slotted into place. Tiny lights winked on and off, and the faint humming of gears and motors was audible as Prion’s hand and arm moved.

  ‘Circuit boards,’ said Prion, ‘and other electronic paraphernalia that wouldn’t interest you.’

  ‘You’re a robot,’ Jamie breathed.

  Prion nodded. ‘If my social programming offends you,’ he said, ‘then I apologise on behalf of my programmers.’ He refastened his tunic, pulling it tight as if it were a real garment rather than a shell. As if he were a real person. Then he turned and set off along the next corridor.

  Jamie waited a moment before following. ‘I’d never have guessed,’ he said almost to himself. Then he became aware of Victoria standing beside him. ‘Would you?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Her voice was quiet as she started down the corridor after Prion. For some reason she was facing away from Jamie as she spoke. Her voice was quiet, so quiet he could barely hear her say, ‘No, I wouldn’t.’

  The bullet-nosed projectile was silent in the darkness. It arced out over the battlements on an elliptical course towards Rogue One. It started broadcasting its message of destruction as soon as it was clear of the osmotic field, although none of the systems at Santespri risked monitoring it.

  Beyond it, in the night-black sky, the tiny point of light that was Rogue One was growing ever larger, plainly visible now to the naked human eye.

  ‘Projectile One away.’ Sanjak traced the course of the projectile on the screen. A moment later the expert system plotted its course, agreeing with Sanjak’s prediction. The line came close to the projected course of Rogue One.

  Along the bottom of the screen, data scrolled across in a rolling strip of ever-updating information. Course and speed were calculated and recalculated. The estimated time to incursion – ETI – was now counting down into its final minutes.

  There was a hush in the Banqueting Hall. Trayx and his immediate entourage, minus Prion, watched the screen. Warden Mithrael, Darkling and the Doctor all watched closely. With them was Helana Trayx. She was still wearing her long white gown, but visible through the slits at the side and at the low neck was the dark under-armour she now wore beneath it. Almost everyone else was down at the docking bays, manning the defences.

  The relative calm was broken by the heavy booted footsteps of new arrivals. Kesar, Cruger and several of their soldiers, including Haden, crossed to join the group by the monitor.

  ‘Status?’ Kesar rasped.

  ‘We’ve launched the first projectile, sir. The second has been primed and returned to the arsenal for possible use later.’ Darkling pointed to the trace on the screen. ‘It’s approaching Rogue One. We have ETI in less than a minute.’

  ‘Logall is setting up defensive positions in the docking bay and adjacent corridors,’ Trayx said. ‘Most of your men are with him.’

  ‘Good.’ Kesar leaned close to the screen. His metal face seemed to glow in the light from it. ‘Will the countermeasures work?’

  ‘I think we’re about to find out,’ the Doctor said. ‘The ship is slowing.’

  A moment later, the speed reading at the bottom of the screen started to decrease. The projectile edged closer to Rogue One.

  ‘They must have detected it by now,’ Mithrael said. ‘Any moment – any moment now and they’ll receive the signal.’

  The flight deck was large and functional. The control consoles were fixed to the floor at the ergonomically most efficient points relative to the command station. There was no thought for or concession towards comfort.

  The VETAC commander, designated VC5, was socketed into the main systems. An infrared link kept him in touch with every reading, every adjustment, every thought within the cruiser. Normally, it kept him in touch with everything monitored from outside as well. Normally.

  But the cruiser was now within range of the fortress’s countermeasures. There was no reason to suspect that countermeasures would be available or would be released if they were. But VC5 was programmed to be cautious. His artificial intelligence drew on the expert knowledge of the greatest commanders in Haddron history – their thoughts, words and deeds. Of the more recent commanders, he could also access the knowledge base compiled from brain scans, simulations and actual battlefield situations they had encountered. And VC5 counted it an advantage – an advantage in purely strategic rather than emotive terms – that one of those strategists, probably the greatest of them all, was now in command of Santespri. The entire experience and strategic thought processes of Milton Trayx were in effect wired into the VETAC battle network.

  The use of a ‘footbath’ unit so close to the target was a natural precaution. The footbath was a single VETAC legionnaire connected to the ancillary external monitoring and communications. The main systems were shut down, and the VETAC trooper was not connected into the command network. In fact, it was not connected into anything within the ship other than the backup external monitors. An audio channel was used to relay information from the unit. It was inefficient, old-fashioned and safe.

  ‘Projectile approaching on elliptical path.’ The VETAC legionnaire’s voice was flat and devoid of intonation, a scraping electronic verbalisation of its thought processes.

  ‘Track it.’ VC5’s voice was slightly louder, slightly lower pitched. But it carried no more emotion than his subordinate’s.

  ‘Projectile is transmitting a signal. Signal now being received.’ It took almost a million times as long for the voice to convey the information as it could have travelled to VC5 through the net. But it carried only the information intended: there was no bandwidth in speech for any extraneous material, for a ‘piggyback program’ or toxin.

  ‘Analyse signal. Report contents.’

  The VETAC trooper downloaded the signal from the monitoring systems. Its comtronic brain scanned through the digital contents looking for patterns within the ones and zeros. A separate function within the VETAC’s computer-brain detected faults within the external monitors even as the patterns within the signal resolved themselves into the viral toxin that Trayx had authorised.

  Lights started flashing discordantly on the console in front of the trooper. A klaxon sounded from deep within the electronic systems. The lights flashed faster, the klaxon became more insistent.

  At the same time, warning lights flickered into life on the front panel of the VETAC itself. Its voice seemed strained, higher-pitched, as it struggled to
make its report. ‘Faults detected within – within – within external monitoring systems. Hypothesis: toxin received on carrier signal from projectile.’

  The lights on the VETAC were on constantly now. The klaxon was a single continuous note that fought with its failing voice.

  ‘Toxin detected within VETAC footbath unit.’

  The klaxon cut out and the lights on the main control panel flickered and died. A moment later the console itself exploded, showering debris across the flight deck. A cloud of smoke erupted from the broken surface of the console. The VETAC trooper sank heavily to its knees as two other units stepped forward.

  VC5’s head turned slightly as he surveyed the scene. ‘Extinguish fire,’ he ordered the two units. ‘Maintain strictest isolation for footbath unit.’

  A stream of halon gas poured from nozzles built into the VETACs’ wrists, killing the fire before it could take hold. Under normal circumstances, the fire would never have started, as the flight deck, like the rest of the ship, would have contained no atmosphere. But for the sound waves to carry the footbath unit’s reports, there had to be an atmosphere, and air was carried for use when a human was on board.

  The footbath unit was still struggling to complete its report. One heavy metal arm thrashed uncontrollably in front of its face. ‘Analysis ind-ind-indic-indicates presence of of of –’ Its voice was an electronic screech as it pitched forward on to its face. The final words were muffled and distorted as the pitch of the voice varied erratically before crashing to a low, drawn-out rumble. ‘Joolyan toxinnn verssssionnn fiiiive poooiiint seeevvvvveeeennnnn.’ After another moment, the VETAC lay completely still.

  VC5 watched impassively as his soldier died. A pulsed message sped through the command net at the speed of light, directed to his second in command, VL9: ‘An old version. Inefficient.’

  The VETAC lieutenant’s response was instant. ‘Their other weapons systems and defensive munitions will be equally antiquated.’

  ‘Agreed.’ VC5’s next signal, issued less than a hundredth of a second after his initial comment to VL9, was to the weapons officer. ‘Destroy projectile.’

  A single, smart, distronic missile lanced out from one of the tubes set into the cruiser’s nose cone. Its targeting systems acquired the hostile projectile almost as soon as it left the tube. They locked on and determined the best approach. It assumed the projectile had defensive capabilities and was aware of its approach, although this was not in fact the case.

  The missile arced round the projectile, scanning it and attempting to draw out any defences. Then it changed course abruptly and threw itself into the projectile’s exhaust port. The distronic missile did not explode its warhead until it had used secondary charges to drill its way through to the centre of the projectile.

  The explosion was silent in the vast vacuum of space, a brilliant burst of colour against the night blackness.

  Trayx was the first to turn away from the monitor. ‘Get Prion back here,’ he told Darkling.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And send a signal to Captain Logall.’ Trayx was aware that he was breathing heavily. ‘Tell him we can’t stop them docking now.’

  The whole of the main thoroughfare to the docking bay had been blocked off. Heavy duralinium blast shutters had been drawn across the corridor. They were a precaution against decompression, against a catastrophic failure of the osmotic field. But they also served as a defensive barrier.

  It was not impossible to open them from the docking-bay side. Logall knew that an override program could be fed into the mechanism that would order the shutters to pull back. So he had ordered distronic charges placed within the opening mechanism itself. If the gears that controlled the heavy shutters began to move, the charges would blow apart the whole area behind them. It was crude as such traps go, Logall knew. But he hoped it would suffice. If nothing else, it should buy them time.

  Logall was a veteran of Trophinamon. He had started his service during the civil war as a boy without a commission. That one final decisive battle had made him both a man and an officer. Most of his battle group had been cut down by one of Cruger’s gunships, and he had assumed command of the few who survived. They had rallied, attacked a heavily fortified emplacement, and destroyed it. The moment had been decisive for Logall as well as for that part of the battle. In those moments he realised that he could never return to civilian life. Despite his reluctance at being called up for his military service, he now knew that it was a calling in more ways than one. And for the same reasons that he had found the thrill of the battle exhilarating as well as terrifying, he now relished the siege ahead almost as much as he was afraid of it.

  ‘You’re too valuable to fight with us,’ Logall told Prion. He knew the automaton would not argue, just as he knew that what he said was true. Prion was a strategist, not a trooper. He would be of limited value at the barricades, but of immense help to his commander at the control centre. Logall turned from Prion to Jamie. ‘But if you want to help, we need every man we can get. I take it you have combat experience?’ There was a manner to the boy, a way in which he surveyed the preparations, in which he stood, that suggested he was not an onlooker by nature. He had certainly seen action. Perhaps more action than Logall had.

  Jamie nodded. ‘I’ve been in a fight or two,’ he agreed.

  ‘And what about you?’ he asked the girl, Victoria.

  ‘Oh, she’ll go back with Prion,’ Jamie said before she could answer.

  Victoria looked at him. For a second it seemed as if she was going to argue. But then she bit her bottom lip, and nodded. ‘All right,’ she said quietly. ‘Take care, Jamie. I’ll tell the Doctor where you are.’

  Logall waited as they said their goodbyes. Then Prion led Victoria away. Logall watched Jamie as he watched Victoria leave. Did he know, Logall wondered, that in all probability he would never see her again? He forced the thought from his mind. Start thinking that way and the logical progression might persuade him to give up now. ‘All you need to know is that the objective is to stop them,’ he said to Jamie. ‘We can’t let them pass. Above all, we keep them away from Kesar.’ He grabbed a blast-bolter from a collection of weapons on the floor beside him and pushed it at Jamie.

  Jamie took the heavy gun. ‘And how will we tell them from us?’

  Logall did not answer. He just stared.

  ‘I mean,’ Jamie went on, ‘I’ve been in a few battles. There’s smoke and confusion and rush. How will I know our people from theirs?’

  ‘You’ll know,’ Logall told him. ‘Believe me, you’ll know.’

  As he finished speaking, there was a low rumble of sound, and the floor shuddered under their feet.

  ‘What was that?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘They’ve docked.’ Logall pointed Jamie to his post. The corridor was littered with makeshift barricades and areas of cover built out of packing cases, empty munitions boxes, benches and overturned tables – anything they could find. Logall’s men – which now included Kesar’s troops as well – were already in position ducked down behind the various pieces of cover.

  Jamie settled himself into position behind a large metal crate. There was one other soldier there already. As Logall passed behind them to take up his own position, he heard Jamie introduce himself to her.

  ‘And who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Haden,’ she told him. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you keep your mouth shut and your attention focused on the shutters.’

  Logall smiled to himself. It seemed that he need not worry about Jamie. He did not know Haden, but it looked like she would keep the boy in order.

  ‘What happens now, sir?’ Milles asked Logall as he settled into position. He had a clear view down the length of the corridor.

  ‘Now we fight,’ he said. All his attention was on the shutters. Any moment now they might start to open. And a second later the corridor behind them would be ablaze. The confusion and subsequent caution on the part of the VETAC commander could determine the course o
f the battle.

  Except that it did not happen like that.

  The shutters did not begin to slide open. The VETACs made no effort to operate the mechanism, and so the charges remained embedded in the systems, primed, ready, and waiting.

  As Logall watched, there was a sudden, huge rush of flame from the metal shutters. Instinctively he ducked, covering his head, shouting for the others to get down as well. The sound of the blast came a split second later, drowning out his voice. The fireball followed that.

  He risked a look over the barricade. The dark smoke was clearing slightly, and he could just make out the remains of the shutters. They had been blown to pieces: the whole middle section was missing and the metal at the sides was ragged and torn. Through the gap, the first VETACs were already appearing.

  ‘Back,’ Logall screamed. ‘Fall back!’ In a pitched battle like this they would stand no chance. They had to recapture the advantage. Energy bolts cut through the air close to him as he ran. Beside him Milles twisted and fell, the right side of his body ripped apart by a blast from a VETAC. He was vaguely aware of others rushing past him, turning, firing back into the smoke as they went. Haden was dragging Jamie as she raced for the next hold point. The heavy clang of metal feet on the stone floor echoed through the confusion.

  Jamie’s head was still ringing with the sound of the blast. He was dazed and confused as the woman dragged him away from the battle. He was shouting at her, telling her to stay and fight, although he could not hear his own voice. He caught sight of Logall as she pulled him back through the smoke. The captain was also running.

  Then, as he twisted and finally managed to pull free, Jamie saw one of the attackers emerging from the smoke behind them. It strode towards him, light gleaming smokily off its armoured body. The figure was huge – tall and broad. It reminded Jamie of the suits of armour in the Banqueting Hall, though it seemed even larger as it approached. It was not slow and cumbersome as he would have expected from its bulk, but quick and lithe. The whole time, the metal head scanned to and fro for targets, its eyes glowing red from behind the heavy visor. The creature’s right arm was pointing forward from the elbow, and he saw that at both sides of the gauntlet-like hand were nozzles. As he watched, the nozzles spat fire, sending energy bolts streaking through the mêlée.