Doctor Who: Drift (9 page)

Melody laughed, a gentle echo to her partner. She was hard not to like, sure, but trust was a whole different matter.

Lagoy watched Jacks grab their leader as he fell into her, and they shook their heads at the creature he had become. Mitch couldn‟t make up his mind, but Emilie was looking at Crayford like he was a lame thoroughbred.

She didn‟t take up her rifle though, just gripped him hard and tried prying him open with a stare. „Crayford,‟ she barked, „it‟s me!
Emilie!
What happened up there?‟

Crayford was on his knees, staring straight back at her but something else blocked his view. Their guru had lost it. All that hair on his face, he was starting to look like some Neanderthal raw recruit.

„Emilie? Where were you? I was - we opened the gateway, Emilie, it‟s
wide
open! But they cheated us. They betrayed us! They didn‟t want us to join them - they wanted to cross over! And now they‟re here, they‟re here, they‟re here, they‟re here.‟ The great man laughed like a frightened kid, then trembled uncontrollably. „And what they are - oh God, what they are!‟

Mitch wanted to say something, snap him out of it. But Jacks was in command, just about.

She shook him hard to beat the tremors. „Crayford! How can we have opened the gateway? I‟ve got the key here!‟ She tugged at the left strap of her backpack. „We found it. It‟s the real thing, Crayford. Genuine United States Air Force ET hi-tech - and it‟s ours! Everything you dreamed of, everything you saw, it‟s right here in this pack! You can‟t have opened any gateway. This is the key right here, has to be!‟

„Then close it. Use it to close the gateway, Emilie.‟

For the first time Crayford was actually looking at and seeing Emilie. And that, for Mitch, was scarier than when he‟d been out of it.

„We can stop them. We can stop them sending any more.

The Army can‟t stop them. No, the Army - the Army,‟ he yanked at Emilie‟s coat, trying to bring her down to his level,

„the Army is too busy hunting
me.
They brought a Psi with them, Emilie. She touched my mind. They‟ll find me. They‟ll find all of us and they‟ll finish us before we can stop them.‟

Jacks swallowed on a bad taste. Suddenly she shoved Crayford off and smacked him hard, a man‟s punch. Mitch blinked. Crayford squirmed in the snow, squirting blood from his nose.

„What did you just do?‟

„If he wants to run so bad,‟ determined Jacks, hypnotised by the sidewinder rhythms of the fallen man, „he can carry on. The Army must have hit us and this one cracked like an egg. We‟re going to pay them back. You and me, Mitch.‟

Mitch Lagoy was the one with the bad taste now.

Commanders‟ speeches were supposed to be inspirational.

„You just knocked Crayford Boyle on his ass! And now you want to take on the Army?‟

Jacks didn‟t like that: she turned on him, and her wild glare drove him back a pace. „That,‟ she wasn‟t satisfied until her face was right into his, „isn‟t Crayford Boyle any more. I don‟t know what that is, but it‟s all finished.
We
are finished.

Our dream, our mission. It‟s over,
Mitch.
‟ She never called him Mitch.

She left him then, spinning around and ripping herself free of the pack. She chucked it onto the writhing pile at her feet.

„We won‟t be needing this any more. Total waste. Time we were leaving, Lagoy.‟ When the bitch finally looked his way, she was evil on fire.

„We should tidy up before we go.‟

Clad in her overwhites, Leela was looking forward to being at one with the landscape. This first stage of the hunt was not about stealth though. It was about speed. For Leela, it was also about hanging on in fear for her life.

She rode with her arms anchored around Kristal‟s waist.

The vehicle ploughed along, churning up the snows like mushy paper, the sky and trees zipping by in flashes. Her limbs were taut, and the engine sent powerful vibrations through her calf and thigh muscles. Despite the goggles, Leela felt the full blast of wind in her lace whenever she peered over Kristal‟s shoulder, and yet she felt a frequent need to keep looking. The fierce noise and the occasional bump did nothing to ease her fears.

„How much further?‟ she tried to shout in Kristal‟s ear, but her driver did not hear her.

Ahead and behind, other members of Kristal‟s squad rode more of these dumpy little monsters. The Captain had allowed seven of the
snowmobiles
for the hunt, so some soldiers doubled up like herself and Kristal, while the lead troops, some distance in front, rode singly.

Kristal glanced west. The visibility was fair but Leela saw nothing.

Kristal made a swift motion with one hand though and Leela realised they were slowing, veering around to an eventual halt. Past the trees the ground fell away fairly steeply and the open terrain below looked like a giant thumbprint stamped in the mountain. A gentler hill dropped into the bowl at the north and Kristal‟s gaze was trained there as she hopped from her seat. Leela dismounted to stand beside her.

Her nose wrinkled and she pulled a strand of hair under her nose for a tentative sniff.

„Smell like a tailpipe, huh?‟ It was the big sergeant tramping up, carrying the large gun with its jingling ribbon of bullets.

„What is a tailpipe?‟

„You‟re really quite a girl, you know that?‟

Leela did not know what to say to that.

„Ignore him,‟ Kristal advised her, still watching the far hill.

„Hey, I love that smell of gas. Never get enough.‟

„Marotta.‟ she spared him a fleeting scowl, „when you‟re done sweet-talking Leela here, take Landers and two of the guys a couple of hundred yards up. Move down slope and hide yourselves in the open down there. Hide yourselves good.‟

„You got it, Kris - Lieutenant.‟

„With any luck, we can take our man alive. I‟m sure he‟s the one blew his way out of the parlour window.‟ She closed her eyes and breathed in, long and deep. „He‟s three minutes off from that north ridge. Get moving.‟

Sergeant Marotta headed off at a trot, collecting his chosen team. Kristal looked back and motioned the others to move up, even as she dropped to her knees. Leela followed her example, and inched closer to the scout‟s side.

She searched along the crest of the hill. „I do not understand, Kristal. Do you see this man in your mind?‟

„I see him. And I feel him in the pulse of the land. Besides, he has the Stormcore.‟

Leela was wary of troubling her friend further, but felt com-pelled: „What is the Stormcore?‟

Ben McKim was the new kid on the block. Just over a year with this outfit, and he‟d figured it was one of the reasons he‟d drawn guard duty on the vehicles back there.

It was dumb speculation really, because ultimately every outfit was the same: you had to work lights and scenery if you wanted to make centre stage. Now, posted at the house, left behind again, he couldn‟t decide whether he was being given the bum‟s rush or his shot at the Oscar. On the face of it there wouldn‟t be a lot to do here besides more waiting.

Unless some cultist stragglers started rolling in - which was doubtful

McKim saw his two sharpshooters stepping through the front doorway. He‟d called them in from the perimeter and they‟d probably jogged all the way, although they both had their breathing under good control. Falvi was being funny, wiping his feet.

Falvi and Barnes, each a head shorter than him. They took to the waiting game like they were on a diet of time and boredom. „Glad you could make it, people. Welcome to the House of the Dead. Find yourselves a room, high as you can go, one each flank of the house. I want every approach covered far as the eye can see.‟

At least, he added with a look, as far as anyone can see in what passed for weather in the Granite State.

„You got it, sir,‟ the young man, Falvi, acknowledged and the two of them were vanishing up those stairs like they were keen to start the next round of waiting
ASAP.

He let them go and moved on to the lounge. He‟d seen tidier craters, but his grenadier, Pelham, had shovelled enough trash off a sofa so he could lay back. Eastman kicked the guy‟s boot and stood to attention. McKim signalled her to rest easy.

He ran through the list, checking it off: snipers up top, three-man patrol stalking the fences, two at the downstairs windows, three - including himself - grabbing some rest and cleaning weapons. It was a system of sorts and they were wired for action, looking out for it; something the cultists hadn‟t been doing. It bothered him, the way these amateurs had been about as heavily armed as his squad, give or take a grenade launcher.

And where did all that firepower get them? Nobody knew.

Not even Joanna, and she was probably the smartest on this crew. Except for the newcomer, maybe.

But Captain Shaw was not going to come back up the mountain to find White Shadow guns lying smoking on these floors, the men and women of Ben McKim‟s team only a cold memory. Not a chance in hell.

He made that promise to the walls right there and then. He made it in silence so neither Eastman nor Pelham could hear the worry on which it was founded.

„You know, usually in any investigation I try to leave no stone unturned.‟

„That‟s a commendable work ethic, Doc. Shows dedication.‟

„Yes, but it‟s also very time-consuming when you find yourself in a quarry as often as I do.‟

The Doctor let the edged comment ride a while, waiting for it to pierce Captain Shaw‟s military hide. He was a shrewd young officer and it wouldn‟t take very long. Not long at all.

The Doctor could ignore the constant jostling. It was, he decided, like riding the London tube during rush hour, except the Snowcat wasn‟t as cramped or filthy. The cabin lights on, it might have been night outside: white night. The snows had started in again, spattering softly on the panes and dying slow deaths as they met the warm air heating the interior.

Captain Shaw leaned forward in his seat. „Doc, believe me, I want to help you turn over every stone, but you‟ve got to realise, the Stormcore isn‟t my baby. I‟m just the sitter.‟

„But you were supervising an experiment, Captain. Some ambitious project using extraterrestrial technology.‟

That had the others sitting up: Lieutenant Beard and the other soldier sharing this ride. The driver up front was well beyond earshot, with the constant rumble of the engine, not to mention the shake and rattle of the chassis to contend with.

„Who told you that?‟

„The tooth fairy. Does it matter? The important thing you have to ask yourself is am I a spy and since the answer is no, can you really afford not to let me in on your little secrets?‟

„Captain,‟ Lieutenant Beard offered a warning note.

„It‟s okay, Derm. The Doc and I understand one another.‟

The Doctor decided this wasn‟t much like a tube ride after all. There wasn‟t even a sense of a tunnel wall slipping by outside. There were the window panes, all around, and then the world stopped. The substance was here in their conversation and this young fellow‟s remarkable will. He decided he rather liked this Captain Shaw.

„See, I have this problem with you, Doc. I believe what you say you are, as far as it goes. Don‟t get me wrong, if I had the comms to run
extensive
checks, I would. Now, I want your help and you‟re no use to me working blindfold, but I can‟t afford to let anything I tell you find its way back to Geneva, you know?‟

„It‟s a terrible pickle to be in,‟ sympathised the Doctor.

„I‟m not about to put my career on the line here, so I figure, I tell you
only
what you need to know and if any of it gets talked about in UNIT circles, I‟m going to point my finger in your direction. There‟s going to be no culpability for my people and as far as my bosses are concerned, you, Doc, are a dangerous masterspy. I‟m going to paint you as a James Bond with a twist of lime and they‟re going to come after you, wherever you roam, and they‟re going to poke laser designators through your bathroom window‟

Really? All that attention, just for me?‟ The Doctor held his grin for a moment, and then leaned forward seriously, glad the preamble was over. „Now, what about this Stormcore?‟

„For my people, the Owl is a wise and friendly spirit, possessed of powerful love medicine. But among the Sioux, Hin-Han the Owl guards the entrance to the Milky Way, the river of stars‟ - Kristal swept a hand overhead - „over which the souls of the dead must pass in order that they might reach the spirit land.‟ She waited, and she looked pleased to see Leela so engrossed. „When they first asked me to touch the device and divine its purpose, I felt I had climbed upon the wings of Hin-Han and he showed me the world and the Milky Way and the endless expanse of other galaxies.‟

„And did he show you the spirit world, across the Milky Way?‟

Kristal smiled, the river of stars running to the horizon behind her gaze, asking her to join the scout in her memories. But Leela did not know how to take up the invitation.