Stoker watched him leave and then sank back down into her chair. Her hand trembled as she raised another cigar to her lips.
"I insist on coming with you," Tegan said. "And I won"t take no for an answer."
"Tegan..." the Doctor began hopelessly, faltering the moment she turned those fiery brown eyes on him.
Bunny Cheung said, "It could be very dangerous."
Tegan looked at him witheringly. "I"ve been in shootouts with Cybermen. Have you?"
"Er, well... no."
Sensing victory, Tegan pressed on, "Besides which, Doctor, you need me - to keep a clear head, remember? In case you start getting confused again."
Bunny glanced nervously at the Doctor, who looked uncomfortable. "All right, Tegan," the Doctor sighed. "Let"s get on with it."
The plan was brutally simple: track down the Bloodhunter and kill it.
Crook wanted to conduct a systematic cave-by-cave search for the creature until the Doctor politely suggested a different approach.
"Does the Adamantium Adamantium have bio-tracking sensors on board?" have bio-tracking sensors on board?"
Crook nodded as he turned the beam intensity control on his blaster up to maximum. "State of the art sensor array. The best Consortium money can buy."
Bunny growled, but the Doctor carried on. "Recalibrate your scanners to detect an Akoshemon-human DNA combination like this," he broke off to scribble something on a sheet of notepaper. He pa.s.sed the note to Crook. "You should be able to pinpoint the creature"s exact location. It might save us a little time."
They found the creature within half an hour of the Doctor"s instruction being relayed to the scan officer on board the Adamantium. It was almost too quick for Tegan"s liking: her stomach started churning the moment the order to move out came through from Crook.
Tegan had done her best to w.a.n.gle a gun from Crook, but he had refused, citing Consortium regulations as the reason. Tegan might have suspected it was a s.e.x thing, certain that 400 years" progress since 1982 would have done little for gender equality among humans, but Crook wouldn"t give Bunny a blaster either. The Doctor, of course, did not request a sidearm, although he positioned himself right at the front of the party with Crook. Tegan instinctively stuck close to the Doctor.
Following instructions radioed from the Adamantium, Adamantium, they found the Bloodhunter very quickly. they found the Bloodhunter very quickly.
Or rather, the Bloodhunter found them.
Whether it was simply the creature"s natural instinct to attack, or whether it was forced into fighting like a cornered rat, n.o.body could be certain. But it leapt out of the shadows at the end of the tunnel with shocking speed and fastened itself onto the nearest human being.
Tegan yelled as Bunny Cheung collapsed beneath the ugly, brutish form: then she heard its awful, sucking grunts as a number of thick white tubes sprouted from its face and latched onto Bunny"s head and neck.
Chapter Eleven.
No one could see clearly what was happening, but they could all hear the sounds of the beast as it tried to suck the life out of Bunny Cheung. That, and the cries of the men around him: "What is it?"
"Do something -"
"Open fire!"
"No, you might hit Cheung!"
"Get back!"
There was a bright flash and then a horrible squeal as someone took a shot at the thing.
"Wait!" the Doctor yelled. "You can"t see properly -"
But his only reply was the sharp crackle of more blaster fire; Tegan saw Crook step forward, bringing his pistol up in a two-handed grip and taking careful aim. She saw past him, and realised that, for a moment, the creature"s back was turned towards Crook, presenting a perfect target. His blaster shot sizzling lumps out of the Bloodhunter"s flesh. It howled and squirmed away, but still maintained a hold on Cheung.
"Get this thing off me!" Bunny screamed. Somehow he had wrenched his head free of the thing"s tentacles.
There were too many of them in the narrow tunnel. No one could get close enough for a clear shot. The Doctor had managed to slip forward and grab hold of Bunny"s arms; Bunny gripped the Doctor"s wrists for dear life. The Bloodhunter was in retreat, but it was determined to drag its prey with it.
"Help me!" Bunny yelled. His eyes were wide and full of terror, his face wet with blood.
The beast was now pulling both Bunny and the Doctor. It was phenomenally strong, dragging them across the floor.
Even braced as he was, and with the rubber grips on his running shoes, the Doctor could not stop slipping inexorably forward.
"Can"t you shoot it?" Tegan asked Crook desperately.
"I can"t get a clear shot - I might hit the Doctor or Cheung!"
It"s going to get away!" Tegan shouted. "It"s making for that crevice!"
The Bloodhunter was backing into a narrow fissure in the rock wall. Bunny was already jammed against the entrance, his teeth bared in agony. "It"s got me! It"s got me!"
The thing was extending more tubes, sinking them into Bunny"s flesh, burrowing through his clothes. He started to shake violently.
"Come on!" bellowed the Doctor. "Don"t give up now! Try and brace yourself against the floor!" The Doctor"s face was purple with the strain, veins standing out on his forehead.
Tegan grabbed the blaster pistol off a startled Crook and ran forward. Stepping over the Doctor, she pointed the gun into the crevice and blasted away at the monster. She was rewarded with a screech of pain and the smell of burning meat. She couldn"t tell if she"d hit anything vital, but the creature lost some of its grip on Bunny and the Doctor started to haul him out of the crevice.
With a ravenous snarl the Bloodhunter leapt back, fastening itself onto Bunny"s right arm. Bunny"s shoulder was jammed painfully against the edge of the hole.
Tegan opened fire again, unsure if it was having any real effect but not knowing what else to do.
The Doctor switched his grip on Bunny, but the big man continued to be drawn into the crevice. "It"s going to rip my b.l.o.o.d.y arm off!"
Suddenly the Doctor jumped to his feet and began to stamp hard on Bunny"s shoulder.
"What"re you doing?" Tegan gasped.
"Saving his life!" The Doctor was kicking down with his heel now, using all the strength he had to break the man"s arm. The Bloodhunter was squealing and grunting like a rabid pig. Suddenly, Bunny"s arm broke free. Bunny lurched back out of the crevice as the Bloodhunter fell back, taking his arm with it.
The Doctor heaved Bunny aside as Crook took his chance, stepping Into the gap and opening fire with another pistol. They all heard the Bloodhunter let out a blood-curdling cry and Tegan saw it reel back, lit for a moment by the flash of the blaster beams. Crook adjusted his aim in that fraction of a second and managed a head-shot. The creature recoiled, suddenly silenced.
"Got you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"
Tegan caught her breath and knelt down next to Bunny.
He was shaking, his face ashen and webbed with blood, his left hand clamped over the stump of his right shoulder. Tegan stole herself to look, but where she expected to see bone and b.l.o.o.d.y tissue, saw only metal and wires.
"What -?"
"Sorry about the arm, Bunny," said the Doctor. He caught Tegan" confused look and said, "It"s all right, his arm was a bionic replacement."
Bunny smiled grimly. "Lost my own in an explosives accident years ago."
Tegan looked at the Doctor. "You knew this?"
"A good guess, Tegan. It all added up: Bunny"s prodigious strength, his supernormal dexterity..."
"You mean the juggling?"
"I"m afraid Bunny"s juggling days are over for the time being."
"What"s happened to the Bloodhunter?" Bunny asked.
"I think I"ve killed it," Crook told them. He was peering into the shadows, but there was a lot of smoke. "I can"t see much yet" A sudden cold seemed to fill the cave, as if the ghost of an icy wind had drifted down the tunnels. Everyone noticed it, and Tegan shivered. "What was that?"
"Some kind of localised temperature drop," the Doctor said.
Tegan hugged herself. "What could cause that?"
"I don"t know," the Doctor replied, but he looked worried.
He lowered his voice so that only she could hear him. "I"ve got a feeling - a sensation, nothing more... the creature"s dead, but something else is there, waiting, something intensely evil... and it"s not very pleased. Shh!" the Doctor snapped a finger to his lips. "I think I can hear it, too... Vega Jaal mentioned it not long before he died: he said he heard the distant screams of an entire planet destroyed by evil. Can you hear it?"
"Actually, no" Tegan frowned. "Are you all right, Doctor?
You"re not having another funny turn, are you?"
"It"s shock," Crook informed her. "Happens to the best of us. Better get him out of here."
The chilly atmosphere increased to the point where they could see their breath in the air. A damp, deadening breeze swept along the floor of the cave, dispersing the dregs of the smoke and then dying out further down the tunnel system with a soft moan.
"He"s right," the Doctor told Tegan. "And Bunny needs medical attention, anyway. Come on, lend a hand!"
With a nervous glance back at the hole where the Bloodhunter had been, Tegan did her best to help the Doctor get Bunny to his feet. It wasn"t an easy task, but Crook ordered a couple of his men to help. Bunny didn"t want any fuss, a.s.suring them all that he could walk unaided before collapsing to the floor in a dead faint.
In the laboratory complex, Nyssa had suddenly sat up straight with a little gasp. In fact she had flinched visibly several times during the last few minutes, and Ravus Oldeman had noticed.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
Nyssa"s eyes were shut, her head tilted back slightly I"m fine," she told him firmly. Her nostrils flared and a trickle of blood ran from her nose.
Nyssa opened her eyes and quickly wiped the blood away with a hand. She smiled at Oldeman. "Really, I"m fine."
She looked down at her hand. The blood on her fingers was as black as oil.
"What do you think you"re doing?" asked Stoker. A couple of Consortium crewmen had come into the comms area and were starting to dismantle the communications unit.
"Orders," said one of the men, without looking up. He produced a tool kit and set to work.
Stoker interposed herself between the man and the comms unit. "Beg pardon?"
He looked up. He was young, sallow-faced and full of Consortium arrogance. "Got orders to take this thing apart, miss." He picked up a heavy tool and smacked it against the palm of his free hand. The implication was obvious: don"t get don"t get in my way. in my way.
Stoker didn"t move. "Now look here. This is my equipment. If you so much as touch it, I"ll -"
"It"s Captain Lawrence"s orders," the crewman told her.