Doctor Who_ Father Time Part 41

'And if you were to attack me?' the Doctor asked.

Computer didn't respond.

'Answer the Doctor's question,' Ferran told it.

'One shot from any of our weapons systems will destroy Atlantis Atlantis. If Atlantis Atlantis merely collided with our defence screens there would be a major hull breach on the human craft and it would be rendered inoperative.' merely collided with our defence screens there would be a major hull breach on the human craft and it would be rendered inoperative.'

There was a moment's hesitation from the Doctor.

'Gosh, how impressive,' he said finally. 'And a voice-activated computer, too. Keyed to your voice patterns and only your voice patterns?'

'That's right.

The Doctor's face beamed. 'How marvellous.'

'I have you in my sights. Do you have any last words?'

'Actually, yes, I do. Computer,' the Doctor said, imitating Ferran's voice precisely, 'deactivate all s.h.i.+p defences and all systems not essential for the support of life for twenty minutes. This order cannot be countermanded.'

'I obey,' Computer said, before shutting itself down along with the rest of the s.h.i.+p.

The lights all over the surface of Ferran's s.h.i.+p dimmed right down.

The Doctor threw his head back and laughed. 'Typical master criminal: loves the sound of his own voice.'

'That's a quote from Blackadder Blackadder, isn't it?' Debbie asked.

The Doctor grinned. 'No, not really. This is a different thing: it's spontaneous and it's called wit.' He checked his pocket watch. 'Commander, we have nineteen and a quarter minutes left. I suggest we take advantage of them.'

The commander nodded over to the pilot. 'Commence landing sequence.'

There were clanks, an unwelcome sense of movement as retro rockets fired. The s.p.a.ce shuttle drifted into the hangar bay of the alien craft. There was emergency lighting on, signs of activity. But no guards, not yet.

'Undercarriage down,' the pilot reported.

'Clear for landing,' the commander acknowledged. Then, like a light being turned on, there was gravity. Atlantis Atlantis lurched a little as the undercarriage took the weight. Strapped into their seats, they were no more shaken than they would be by the lurch as a train comes into a station. Going from nought to eleven stone took the breath from Debbie for a moment, though. lurched a little as the undercarriage took the weight. Strapped into their seats, they were no more shaken than they would be by the lurch as a train comes into a station. Going from nought to eleven stone took the breath from Debbie for a moment, though.

The crew began flicking switches, shutting the s.h.i.+p down. A well-rehea.r.s.ed routine, Debbie a.s.sumed.

The Doctor was already out of his seat, seemingly untroubled by the return to gravity.

'We will stay here and get ready for a quick getaway,' the commander told him, beginning to unstrap himself. 'Mather is going with you.'

The Doctor was waving his hands at them. 'That isn't necessary, I '

'You don't have time to argue. Doctor: you need a combat specialist, and Mather is a member of Delta Force.'

'That's like the SAS, isn't it?' Debbie asked, dim memories of Barry's military magazines coming back. 'What are you doing in s.p.a.ce?'

'That's cla.s.sified,' Mather said, curtly.

'He's launching a military satellite,' the Doctor said. 'A prototype deuterium-fluorine laser weapon connected with an SDI programme the American public thinks has been cancelled.'

The commander and Mather looked at each other and then at the Doctor.

'I saw your mission objectives,' he explained.

'A laser? Could we use it against Ferran?' Debbie asked.

The Doctor gave a sly laugh. 'No, won't work properly.'

'That's what we came up here to test,' Mather said curtly.

'Oh, any fool can see the mirror on it's all wrong. You should have asked me before you launched it off into s.p.a.ce you'd have saved yourself some money. Eighteen minutes. Are you coming or not?'

Chapter Twenty-five.

Power to the People Cate sat silently opposite Miranda, staring ahead.

Miranda wondered what thoughts were going through the woman's head. It was clear that whatever a 'micro-relay' was and however many Cate had in her head, the effect was to create something indistinguishable from the workings of an organic brain. Miranda found it easier to understand Cate's thought processes than those of Ferran.

They were the only two pa.s.sengers in the travel tube. The hangars were about halfway along the s.h.i.+p, so the journey should take only a couple of minutes. Those minutes were a long time coming.

'Ferran has the interests of his people at heart,' Cate insisted.

Miranda must have had the oddest expression on her face, because Cate immediately followed it up with, 'He wants to keep the Empire together; he wants to maintain the rule of law.'

'He just said he was was the law,' Miranda reminded her. 'He tortured you, abused you. He treats you like his property.' the law,' Miranda reminded her. 'He tortured you, abused you. He treats you like his property.'

'There is no other way. Think about it, Miranda think of the difficulties there are of maintaining such a vast empire. Do you know how much power is needed for intergalactic travel? Even using dimension drives, it needs the rarest fuel sources, the most skilled technicians.'

'Perhaps the Empire is too large, then.'

'You would split it up, break it down into administrative areas? A recipe for rivalry and conflict. Above all, there must be one leader, one authority.'

'Or no leaders at all,' Miranda said. 'Do you know what gramdan gramdan is?' is?'

'No.'

'I've just been to India. It's a scheme that Gandhi thought up.'

'Those names mean nothing to me.'

'No, I'm sure they don't. But their ideas perhaps you don't need an empire at all. You need local communities, ones that run themselves. India's a large country, with all sorts of religions and races, but it's also a democracy. It's not perfect. But nowhere is, I don't think.'

Cate watched her carefully.

Was she doing the right thing? Miranda wondered what she could do other than escape find a self-destruct mechanism, go after Ferran himself? She'd run through a couple of scenarios, but couldn't see how she could do anything constructive here. It wasn't heroic to run away and leave Ferran to it, preferring to go home and forget all about it. Was it really that cowardly to calculate the odds of survival and realise that she stood no chance against a legion of soldiers?

About eighty seconds into the journey, the lights dimmed, then the tube slowed and stopped.

'What's going on?' Miranda asked.

'I don't know,' Cate confessed.

'They're on to us.'

Miranda tensed. She would go down fighting, take a few of them with her. She got ready, pumping adrenaline into her system, clearing her mind, prioritising her visual acuity and reflexes.

Beside her, Cate was doing the same. She had the same body, of course, an older version, but one that was at least as well honed. Cate was combat-trained. Miranda was, or at least liked to think herself as, merely a talented amateur.

The door of the travel tube slid down, but there wasn't a squad of guards waiting for them on the other side. There was nothing, just an empty corridor. The lights here were also dim.

'Where are we?' Miranda's voice echoed off the metal walls and pipelines. She felt a little disappointed. An empty corridor was an anticlimax.

Cate shrugged. 'This looks like a service area, right in the middle of the s.h.i.+p. We may be the first crew to come here. If there was a problem with the tubes, it may have dropped us off here. This is an uncharted area.'

Pilot Mordak watched as Prefect Ferran lurched through the gloom towards him.

The only source of light was the scanner, the image frozen where it had been when the systems had shut down. The Doctor's face, staring down at them, eyes wild, his face split by a broad grin. The pilot had heard legends of the Doctor everyone had: how he'd destroyed planets, how he'd wiped out whole intelligent species, how he'd brought darkness to the universe, how he travelled through time wiping out his enemies and turning those he abducted into monsters and terrorists.

The Doctor had killed the Prefect's father, single-handedly wiping out a saucer and its crew of elite troops and hunters. Even Sallak hadn't returned from that encounter.

'We have emergency lighting,' Mordak said, pulling himself away from the image, trying to stay calm. 'Gravity, life support, limited travel-tube use. The medical units are active. We have use of some internal communications emergency channels, alarm systems and the like.'

'Computer!' the Prefect shouted. 'Computer!'

'It's offline, sir. There ' Mordak pointed at the display that was counting down the minutes until Computer reactivated itself.

'Turn it back on.'

'It's impossible. All the security measures you insisted upon are working.'

The Prefect flung the man out of his chair and took his place. Mordak watched nervously as his master looked over the consoles, but after a moment's work it was clear that the pilot had been right.

The Prefect slumped forward, his head in his hands.

'The human s.p.a.cecraft has landed in the hangar deck, sir. Should we dispatch security teams there and to the Last One's quarters?' Mordak realised he didn't know whether the communications circuits were counted as 'essential'. All sorts of systems could be down even the doors may be stuck.

The Prefect sat immobile.

'My Lord, we have to react to this problem.'

Ferran looked up at Mordak, fire in his eyes. The pilot had thought he was a broken man, but 'I hate him,' he said simply.

The Pilot stood, ignored the crewmen scurrying around trying to find some power for their consoles.

'He and I are two sides of the same coin. We are equals and opposites. I am everything he is not, I have everything he wants but can never have. It is fate that we should meet here for a final confrontation. This is destiny.'

'You are talking about the Doctor,' Mordak reminded him. 'Even in this time zone he is a powerful adversary, not to be underestimated.'

Ferran looked him square in the eye. 'That was the mistake I made last time. I thought I could s.n.a.t.c.h his daughter away, that he would be powerless. But he is here, he's disabled my s.h.i.+p against all the odds. He has come to reclaim his daughter, and I must stop him. Oh, this is almost mythic mythic.'

'I will dispatch guards to the hangar. They will kill him.'

Ferran looked around. 'No. I must face him. Face him alone. Ready my armour.'

The pilot hesitated.

'You heard me! Let the Doctor go where he will. I'll track him down and I'll tear those two hearts from his chest.'

'This is too easy,' Debbie warned.

The hangar bay was empty. They'd been able to leave the shuttle and cross the deck without impediment. Mather had come with them. The others had stayed behind, keeping the shuttle ready for a quick escape.

'I have to agree,' the astronaut said. 'Why aren't the guards all over Atlantis Atlantis by now?' by now?'

The Doctor scowled and waved his hand at them. 'Don't knock a bit of luck. This is a big s.h.i.+p they might be at the other end of it. They must have some sort of internal transport, and that won't be working.'

The Doctor had found a computer terminal. He'd pulled a grey box from his pocket and connected it up to the console with a length of black wire.

'And I know for a fact,' Mather continued, 'that you won't be able to access an alien computer using a Psion organiser.'

The Doctor held up the little grey box, showed him that the LCD screen was flickering with alien symbols.

'I've had almost ten years to decipher this technology,' the Doctor explained. 'I know more about this lot's software and wetware than even they do.'

'Wetware?' Debbie asked.

'I'll explain later.'

'What are you doing?'

'This is a big s.h.i.+p. We need to know where we are going.'

The liquid-crystal display resolved into a deck plan.