Doctor Who: Drift (34 page)

‘Doc,’ Parker poured a Scotch and tipped in a splash of water, ‘don’t get me wrong, we all appreciate your scientific brilliance, but as far as I understand this thing is encircling the town. So unless you’re expecting to fit the entire nucleus of this thing into that beaker, I don’t see how electrolysis amounts to much of a master plan.’

‘Hm?’ The Doctor absently registered the extra drinks being lined up for him. ‘Oh, trust me. Agent Theroux, this is no storm in a teacup. No, we need a much larger receptacle.

Which is why I’m doubly glad you’re here. Lieutenant Hmieleski.’

The Doctor patted her heartily, before returning to his perch on the barstool. ‘There are a few details of this operation I’ll need you to pass on to your Captain. For one thing, I’ll need one of his vehicles; and you can have him prepare a supply of timed explosives. I don’t very much trust my demolitions skills under the influence, you know. Which reminds me, I’ll drink while we talk, if you don’t mind. I have a few more of these to get through before our enemy calls time.’

Joanna regarded the diminishing row of Scotches and wondered if she was watching a man bracing himself for a suicide mission.

One premature whoop of victory and Ray Landers realised he’d be paying for the rest of his short life. The ice monster is out to get him, the Captain damn near blows his head off, he’s damn near showered in lethal crystals; and now, to cap it off, the Captain’s shouting at them to fall back and he catches sight of two comrades fenced in by buildings and monster ice.

He didn’t stop to check his own escape route. He swung the grenade launcher and popped a shell into the house where the ice had broken through. It lit up beautifully - and the stretch of thicket went into spasms. It was still an obstacle, only now it was thrashing insanely.

Ray swore and thumped the nearest trashcan. The garbage hadn’t been collected lately.

Ray pulled and primed an incendiary, flipped the lid and dropped the grenade in the trashcan. He threw himself on his back and kicked the can hard at the lashing thicket of ice.

It went flying into the tangled mass, belching superheat out of one end. Ray was up on his feet and charging forward, giving it everything for the vault of his life. The heat and the frost were on him in different places, but he hit the ground roughly, rolling onto his back.

Godzinski was there, helping him up. Zabala was there too, eyes so wide she looked little more than a kid. Neither of them looked too impressed with Ray’s rescue bid.

The walls of their arena were the only enemy. And they were closing in fast.

Leela was crestfallen. The Doctor was continually forbidding her to follow him into battle, and on this occasion the blow to her pride was especially hurtful: the enemy that had driven Kristal’s spirit from her body was the same one the Doctor was intending to fight alone.

‘I want you to stay with Parker and Melody here,’ he commanded her sharply, gesturing with an arm thrown wide.

Then he cuffed her chin affectionately. ‘You came out of that last encounter rather well, I think. A frosty expression and a few grey hairs.’

At that, he left her to brood, a slight sway to his stance as he turned to the agents. ‘Now, is everyone clear on their role in this? I’m sure you took the opportunity to search my coat pockets, Melody, but I’m afraid the item you were after is safely tucked away here.’ He patted one side of his waistcoat.

His face sank - until he patted the opposite side. ‘Here,’ he looked relieved. Then he shoved his hands in his coat pockets and mastered the most serious of expressions. ‘You’d best find Corporal Pydych and brief him on what’s required.’

‘Hey, just one thing you overlooked. Doc,’ the man, Parker, assumed the posture of a male contesting leadership, ‘I don’t do menial labour. I
investigate.’

The Doctor stood straight and gave the man a patronising slap on the arm. ‘Then I suggest you investigate your versatility, there’s a good fellow. Good luck, everybody! And remember. Leela. Stay close to Parker and Melody here. They need constant guarding.’

With that direst warning - and a gentle collision with the doorframe - he made his exit. Leela regarded her two charges uncertainly.

Only a couple of the guys from Morgan’s HQ squad had managed to follow him up the main street, tossing a grenade or two and letting rip with burst after burst of automatic fire; covering their retreat and shoring up their shaken morale at the same time. He just hoped the others could find a way out round the back of the houses.

‘Little bro!’ Makenzie came running out of the churchyard to intercept him. Morgan could tell he had a problem on his mind, but he said, ‘How bad is it?’

‘Getting worse.’ No sense in dressing it up. ‘You have to get those folks moving now.’

‘I can’t. Not yet.’ There was a hesitation, as if Makenzie had a bullet to bite. ‘I have to find Amber. She upped and ran.’

Morgan bit a magazine full of bullets. He badly needed to yell, but he didn’t know quite where to start.

‘Captain!’ Joanna Hmieleski came to his rescue. He guessed she must have emerged from the hotel. She looked a little dazed, but was holding it together - probably better than he was, give her credit. ‘Captain,’ she halted in front of him.

puffed out a breath or two, ‘the Doctor’s got a plan together.

We need to get some things set up for him.’

Morgan held up a hand to wall off his brother for the present. ‘Give it to me.’

He listened intently while Joanna parcelled up the list of wants concisely and took him through the various components of the operation. ‘And he wants a gap broken open at least a half mile wide in that ice.’

‘He wants what?’ Far as he knew, he hadn’t been wounded, but Morgan felt the blood draining out of him all the same.

‘What the hell does he think I am? The Moses of the North?

I’ve just been praying that ice can support a convoy. Eight inches! There’s no way in hell we’re going to blow that much of it open!’

While there was garbage in there to burn, Ray Landers gave the trashcan a shove with the butt of his rifle, sent it rolling into the other icicle thicket. Give that side something to think about, while he checked out the two buildings walling them in here.

There was only one window, and that was in the side of the house he’d torched. Hell, least ways it would be warm in there.

Head down, he charged into a headlong dive through the window. Layers of armour saved him from the glass and padded out the worst of the impacts as he crashed over the sink unit. Burning timbers collapsed overhead and hit the kitchen floor about the same time as he did.

‘Come on in, ladies!’ He kicked the timbers away and ducked clear of the window.

Flames were crawling all over the woodwork in livid streams. They’d have to get back out into the snow pretty damn soon.

White Shadow’s demolitions maestro had been Ben McKim: one more option Morgan Shaw didn’t have. Still, the two guys he’d brought with him could handle it, and O’Neill knew more electronics than just comms and sensors. He set them on the modest production line in the second Snowcat. Which left him to concentrate on coming up with a miracle.

Makenzie was still hanging like a spare limb, and Morgan was grateful when the Doctor burst out of the hotel, looking up and down the street and not really focusing on anything.

‘Doc,’ he motioned him over, ‘I can give you six pounds of C4, timed detonators and a remote trigger. We’re going to need the rest for the lake.’

‘And then some, I should imagine,’ the Doc commented sagaciously. There was something unnervingly mystical about the guy’s gaze right now, more so than usual.

Morgan let it go. ‘Just let me worry about that.’

‘I will. And your first priority should be evacuating the town.’

Makenzie, predictably, barged in: ‘I can’t supervise all of that until I’ve found Amber. I know she picks her times, but she’s gone missing again.’

The Doc fixed Makenzie with an omniscient stare. ‘Oh, I doubt she’s run away this time. Trust me, I’ll find her. And don’t worry, Makenzie. She’s safer than any of us right now.’

Makenzie took his time reading the Doc. Morgan alerted him with an upward nod. ‘Hey, bro, you heard the man. Best get those people moving. Okay?’

He softened the last word considerably. He’d never seen his brother looking so lost.

Orders from the Doctor were one thing, but when Parker had instructed her to wait right here - alone with the dead, in the middle of the room - Leela was inclined to be suspicious, as well as disobedient. She crept towards the door and pressed her ear to it.

She could hear the two conferring in hushed, insistent tones.

‘This is the Prism we’re talking about here, Melody! Even if this nutball scheme of his blows up in his face, our ticket out of here is probably going to get fritzed!’

‘Sure, I take your point, but I don’t see how your going after him is going to-’

‘Well, honeybun, I would nominate you, but he’s a guy and he’s twice your size. No, you’re better off sitting on Pydych and doing what you can to fix things from your end.’

‘Parker, I’m just not sure-’

‘Shush.’

Leela backed away from the door. She knew now what the Doctor had meant when he had told her these two needed guarding.

Dermot Beard’s squad was scattered and running, but they were only following their leader’s example. Derm didn’t know where they all were: it was down to him and Kyle by the time they reached the third line of defence.

Picket fences dowsed in gas, and a shallow trench dug across the avenue between them. Derm squatted down in one of the yards and looked at Kyle as he hopped the trench.

Kyle shook his head as he hunkered down next to Derm.

‘Sorry, sir. I’m all out.’

Derm let out what felt like his last breath. They’d exhausted their incendiaries and even the frags just getting here. He wasn’t even packing any more flares.

Through the snowfall, he could make out the drifts, rolling in like crystallised fog.

‘Damn, soldier,’ he forced a pained smile, ‘we need a light.’

Makenzie played shepherd to the refugees of Melvin Village, packing them into every available vehicle and sending them on their way with a wave or a slap on each vehicle’s rear. As the cars and trucks filed past the church, it was like watching his town breaking apart and flaking off in pieces across the desolate lake.

He had them slide Martha into the rear of his Police truck.

The cold he felt right then was something new. Martha without Amber would never be the warm, shining Martha he loved; the Martha who smiled so fine with just half her mouth.

Makenzie realised he was mourning a family, as well as a town.

‘Lots of luck. Doc. You’re going to need it.’

Joanna wondered just how much luck was on offer. The Captain was standing there watching the Snowcat trundle down the street, the ferocious engine noise eventually lost in the winds, and she was fairly sure he had no idea that the Doctor was drunk in charge of a vehicle packed full of jerry-rigged bombs. She muttered her own personal good luck wishes to the back of the Snowcat before it vanished altogether in the storm.

‘Sir,’ she spoke her next thought loud, ‘what about the lake?’

‘I’ll think of something, don’t rush me.’ Morgan scanned the street, and stamped. ‘Okay, let’s get organised. Joanna, you’d best find yourself a place with the evac.’

‘Uh-uh.’ Joanna stood straight and blinked back on the remains of her headache. ‘I’m starving.’ She made sure her eyes said how much she meant it. There was a clear understanding in Morgan’s nod, and she relaxed immediately. ‘Thank you, sir.’

Morgan’s shake of the head was rueful, but the slam of a vehicle door distracted him from what he was about to say.

Joanna looked back along the street to where Agent Theroux was bundling the girl Leela into the rear of one of the Hummers. Irving Pydych and Melody Quartararo were clambering into the front.

Theroux simply waved them goodbye then came striding up to greet the Captain.

‘Captain, I’d like to commandeer one of your snowmobiles. I figured I’d ride shotgun.’

Joanna figured the man’s smirk alone was enough for a trial and conviction, but Morgan wasn’t in any mood to argue. She looked away as he assented all too easily.

And she frowned at the departing Hum-Vee.

The rear passenger door swung open and she swore she’d seen something tumbling clear as the vehicle pulled away.

The Doctor was getting the distinct impression he had never driven a Snowcat in a previous life. Still, he had to make allowances for the appalling conditions, of both the terrain and his reflexes.

He had to filter out the engine noise in order to focus; and yet focusing was one of the worst things he could do. He could purge his system of the alcohol at any time, but for the moment its effects were vital. He only wondered if they would prove as effective as he was hoping.

Flakes of snow hurled themselves against the windscreen in their millions. If the Doctor had been prone to more fanciful thoughts, he might have imagined they were ganging up on him.