He wasn"t sure. It was heavy. Probably couldn"t keep up with him.
"Please don"t be foolish," the bot said. "You may indeed be able to outpace me over a short distance, but I never tire, and I know this city like the back of my hand."87.
It didn"t sound like a bot. Powerless Friendless had dealt with a lot of them, over the years most of them securitybots, admittedly and he knew how they talked. Pedantic. Literal. Uncompromising. Not like this one.
The bot made a sudden movement towards Powerless Friendless.
He flinched, but all it had done was raise its hand and look at the back of it.
In some strange way, the bot"s inflexible face radiated regret.
"Well," it said, "like the back of another hand, a long time ago."
A metal fist lashed out, smashing into the wall and crumbling the stone to dust. Powerless Friendless"s basal foot lost its grip on the wood, and he fell backwards. The bot strode forward, the walkway trembling beneath its heavy tread. A flattened hand sliced towards Powerless Friendless"s face. He ducked, and the metal caught his eyestalk, momentarily blinding him.
Blue blood was pouring into Powerless Friendless"s mouth. He wiped a pseudo-limb across his face as he writhed backwards. Krohg shifted in his rucksack. Briefly he considered pulling the creature out and throwing it at the bot in an attempt to blind it or distract it, but he knew that it would only buy him a few seconds at best.
A metal foot sent him flying through the air, his torso a ma.s.s of pain. He hit the walkway, sending ripples along its length. The bot strode towards him: implacable, unstoppable. Powerless Friendless couldn"t raise his head from the planks. A pseudo-limb crept up one of the cables, trying to find some purchase, some grip with which he could pull himself up, but the plastic was slippery with the rain, and his pseudo-digits just slid vainly along it.
The bot stopped beside him. A metal hand reached down.
The unyielding fingers closed around his eyestalks.
Powerless Friendless could feel the pressure building up. A red haze crept across his vision. His lymph pump was beating wildly, pumping fit to break through the muscle sheath of his chest. He couldn"t feel his pseudo-limbs or his basal foot. He couldn"t feel anything apart from the pounding of his blood, the pressure in his head and the spikes of pain where his eyestalks were being dragged from their roots. He could see nothing apart from the silver face that gazed impa.s.sively down at him.
With his last ounce of strength, Powerless Friendless lashed out with his basal foot, kicking not against the bot but against life itself, against every human who had ever hit him, or laughed at him, or ignored him. He felt his foot crash against something hard, something that sent shock waves rippling through his body. There was resistance for a moment, then there was nothing.
The pain eased miraculously, leaving a sick residue behind. The red haze vanished.
Powerless Friendless pulled himself slowly to his foot. The bot was on the edge of the walkway, holding onto one of the thick cables that supported 88it with one hand while the other flailed around, searching for something to grasp. Its feet had slipped off the rain-slicked wood.
Powerless Friendless stared at it.
The bot"s hand slipped a few inches down the cable.
It smiled. "Another time," it promised.
Something died within the bot"s eyes. The hand spasmed open, and the bot dropped away, like a falling statue.
The splash when it hit the ca.n.a.l seemed to go on for ever.
As the purple canopy of the jungle rose up to greet them, Private Enquorian kept his eyes firmly fixed upon the kirilian scanner. A number of life-forms were registering, but two of them were larger than the rest.
"Enquorian, report," the under-sergeant growled. The way his skull-like cybernetic face reflected the orange sky made him look as if he was aflame.
"Auras are still steady," Enquorian said. The other nine Landsknechte in the flitter were silent, but he could feel the tension as they came in to land.
"Bearing?" the under-sergeant growled. Behind him, two winged reptiles were heading for the flitter. Their heads seemed to be made almost entirely of teeth.
"Unchanged on vector five-five-niner."
"Let me know if they move."
The reptiles exploded into b.a.l.l.s of flesh and flame.
"Who fired?" The under-sergeant"s gravelly, part-synthesized voice hadn"t changed tone.
Private Kipps, his eyes shielded by his visor, spat on the muzzle of his blaster.
The spittle sizzled briefly. "Me, sir," he said. His voice burred with a Helvetillian accent.
"You"re on report."
"But sir," Kipps cried. He was known for his short temper, and his stupidity.
"I didn"t authorize firing."
"But them d.a.m.ned reps were "
"I know. Enquorian."
"Sir."
"Stun him."
"Sir."
Before Kipps could react, Enquorian fired from the hip, catching him high in the chest. He slumped sideways. The two men on either side slapped at their arms to minimize the splash-over pins-and-needles effect of the stun ray.
The under-sergeant leaned across and took hold of Kipps"s tunic. The metal weave material bunched up in his hand. "Lesson one about jungle warfare,"89.
he growled. "Jungles are full of predators." He heaved Kipps towards the open hatch. "If you want to keep them off your back, use some bait."
He pushed Kipps out of the hatch. Enquorian watched the man fall. Within moments, he had vanished into the purple canopy. A series of crashes was curtailed as he hit the ground. The sounds of the jungle halted for a moment, then cautiously re-established themselves.
A flock of winged shapes in the distance began to dive towards the point, where Kipps had vanished.
"That stun was sloppy, Enquorian. Should"ve switched to multiple shot."
He didn"t know whether to acknowledge the advice, ask why or keep silent.
Eventually he settled on a noncommittal "Sir?"
"Narrower beam than single shot. Just have to s.n.a.t.c.h your finger off the trigger before you let loose a volley. For that, let"s see you act as point for the landing party."
The under-sergeant"s cybernetic leg caught Enquorian beneath the chin, pitching him out of the flitter. He fell towards the canopy, tumbling through the humid air. His fingers scrabbled across his belt, looking for the repulsor switch. Leaves slapped at his face as he dropped through the canopy of veg-etation. He felt a branch impact in the small of his back and snap across the body armour.
His finger brushed the repulsor stud. With a sudden jerk, he stopped falling.
After he caught his breath, he glanced around. He"d never been in the jungles of Ybarraculos Epsilon before, either for real or on Purgatory, but he"d done jungle warfare courses, and this was no different.
Kipps"s body was crumpled in a heap near the bole of a nearby tree. A couple of vines were already hanging above him, vibrating slightly. Something like a flat worm with green and purple stripes slid down the bole, hissing, and the vines quickly withdrew. Enquorian watched as the worm-thing dropped the final few metres onto Kipps"s head. He wondered briefly whether to fire a shot at it to warn it off, but he could just imagine the under-sergeant"s reaction. No authorization to fire. Kipps would just have to resign himself to an artificial face. Or head.
The canopy crunched above him as the flitter descended. He moved out of the way, scanning the landing area for signs of trouble, descending slowly on the repulsor beams until he was hanging a few metres above the undergrowth.
As the flitter came to rest, he noticed that the worm-thing had vanished, taking Kipps"s head with it. Poor guy. A number of small, multi-legged creatures with pointed heads at both ends of their bodies were already delving inside what remained.
Enquorian had never liked Kipps. Loudmouth. Deserved everything he got.
Nasty way to go, but weren"t they all? At least he"d been unconscious.90.
His feet touched the dank, mossy ground moments before the flitter came to rest.
"Trouble?" The under-sergeant was the first out.
"No, sir."
"What about Kipps?"
"Dead, sir."
"Still useful, though. Let that be a lesson. Which direction are the targets?"
Enquorian oriented himself. "a.s.suming they haven"t moved, sir "
"They haven"t."
"Then they"ll be to your right. About a hundred metres."
"Take three of the men and come up on them from the back. You"ve got two minutes, then I come in from the front. And remember, I want them alive. For a while."
"Sir."
"All right!" The under-sergeant raised his voice. "Disembark!"
Enquorian nodded to the three closest men. They moved to join him.
Something came arcing through a clear s.p.a.ce in the foliage. For a moment Enquorian thought it was a creature of some kind, and tracked it with his blaster. Under-sergeant or not, he didn"t want any alien creature chewing on his face. As it began to fall, he realized that it was some kind of sphere that wobbled as if filled with liquid.
The under-sergeant saw it out of the corner of his eye, and turned to face it. His blaster was only half drawn when the object burst across his chest, splattering him and the five men closest to him with a clear liquid. They brushed at it automatically, and their hands came away sticky. Enquorian took a closer look at the thing It looked as if it had been sewn together from leaves.
"What the ?" one of them said.
"Do you want to surrender now?" a voice yelled from the distance.
The under-sergeant"s impa.s.sive metal face had the ability to reflect a range of expressions without ever moving. At the moment, he looked angry. Very angry. Enquorian didn"t think much of the chances of the targets.
"Kill them," the under-sergeant growled.
"Last chance," the voice called from the jungle.
"Slowly," the under-sergeant added.
Something else flew through the air towards them.
"Fire!" the under-sergeant shouted.
Enquorian"s finger tightened on the trigger just as he recognized the object as another leafy bundle which had been rolled up and tied with a length of vine. The beam from his blaster painted a line of fire across the jungle. Leaves lashed backwards, screaming The bundle exploded in flames. Cinders flew 91away from it. Cinders that turned in mid-air and flew straight for the under-sergeant and the four men who had been splashed with the liquid. Cinders that buzzed malevolently.
The under-sergeant screamed as the first flying creature landed on his neck.
A fountain of blood sprayed into the air, turning his scream into a choked cough. The other men were screaming as well as the creatures burrowed into their flesh, lured by the sticky bait. Without thinking, Enquorian turned his blaster on them. After a moment"s hesitation, so did the three Landsknechte standing beside him.
Within moments, all that was left of the under-sergeant and the four men was a charred area of ground.
"G.o.ddess!" one of Enquorian"s men breathed.
Enquorian looked round. "There are still two targets out there," he said, his voice shaking. "Let"s go get them."
From their position high in the branches of a tree, Bernice and the Doctor watched as the Landsknechte fanned out and moved off through the jungle.
"We"ll give them a few minutes to get going," the Doctor said, "and then we"ll go in the opposite direction."
"Can"t we take their flitter?" Bernice asked, crushing a leaf in her hand and wiping it across her face. The Doctor had picked a number of them from a certain shrub, sniffed them and suggested that they might cover up her scent.
When she had asked him why he wasn"t doing the same, he had said that Time Lords didn"t have a scent.
"They don"t appear to have left a guard on it," he said after a moment. "But they are are professionals." professionals."
"They didn"t look very professional to me."
He tutted. "They weren"t expecting us to fight back," he said. "They antic.i.p.ated frightened rabbits of targets who would keep running until shot. And they didn"t expect us to make use of the local flora and fauna, either."
He craned his neck to try and get a better view of the flitter. "No," he said finally, "either it"s b.o.o.by-trapped, or it"s disabled in some way. I think my plan is better."
"All I know about your plan," Bernice snapped, "is that it involves us moving off in another direction. Is that all there is, or do you want to elucidate?"
"Well, it occurs to me that we"re stuck on a military-controlled planet, thousands of kilometres from the nearest s.p.a.ceport, with no friends and no knowledge of where the TARDIS is."
Bernice closed her eyes and rested her head against the trunk of the tree.
"So," he continued, regardless, "our first priority is to get off-planet without help."92.
"You make it sound so easy," she sighed.
"So we need to confuse things enough around here that they forget about us long enough for us to steal transport of some sort."
"Of course. How?"