DOCTOR WHO.
AND THE TIME WARRIOR.
by Terrance d.i.c.ks.
Prologue.
Linx was his name. He was a microsecond from obliteration.
A million miles out in the sterile black infinity his starship"s sensors had warned him of the asteroid belt. His heavy, triple-digit hand moved just once and the starship, silent as a whisper in the night, curved in towards the very centre of the belt.
It was a tired, suicidal gamble.
An aeon had pa.s.sed since his first sighting of the Rutan squadron. He had been making a fly-pa.s.s through the constellation of Sagittarius, where Rutan forces were reported to be ma.s.sing, when the fighters had vectored on to him.
Linx was flying a reconnaissance ship, a lightly-armed V-cla.s.s cruiser. He had turned for base, engaging spectronic drive and confident that he could out-run the fighters.
But they had stayed with him. Worse, they had out-manoeuvred him, cutting off every twist and turn, seeming to antic.i.p.ate every feint and stratagem he had dredged up from his long career in the s.p.a.ce Corps.
The Rutan leader was an expert. Linx knew the difficulty of holding a squadron in combat formation. But all through the long chase the nine pursuit-ships had maintained their perfect parabola, never varying by a single degree, never offering the faintest hope of breaking past them.
Linx had waited. His ship matched the fighters in speed. They had no chance of coming within torpedo range. Normally, in such a situation, the pursuing force eventually broke off the chase.
In three galactic wars against the Rutans, as each side developed increasingly sophisticated sensors, Linx had grown accustomed to these inconclusive encounters.
Not so, apparently, in the Rutan leader"s case. He held on with dogged persistency, forcing Linx"s cruiser inexorably further and further out from the centre of the galaxy. They were already among the fringe systems when Linx, with chilled respect, suddenly appreciated the depths of the Rutan"s strategy-saw how long ago the plan had formulated.
Soon he would be driven out even beyond the fringes of the galaxy. Out into the deep s.p.a.ce of the inter-galactic wastes. Out into the terrible regions where even light itself faded and died...
The vortex. The great ebb. They would finish him there. That was the chosen killing ground.
And the Rutan leader had seen it all in the first flashing instant of contact, seen his opening in the very second that Linx turned for home, seen, a thousand pa.r.s.ecs away, the inevitable end.
As his starship plunged into the great ebb and lost way, the Rutan fighters would stand off at a safe distance and launch their torpedoes. There could be no escape.
Then his sensors detected the asteroid belt.
Unchartable as icebergs, drifting forever through the dark interstellar void, the asteroids formed a ragged arc millions of miles across. Some-Linx knew-would be vast mountains of rock and iron and ice. Others were probably no bigger than a single grain of sand.
He sat now at the control module and watched his detector screens. Nothing showed. Perhaps nothing would.
With the cruiser in spectronic drive the scanners would barely pick up an approaching image before impact. At that speed even a single grain of sand striking the hull would have the effect of a fission sh.e.l.l. The cruiser would simply vanish.
Linx himself-the heavy bones, the flat powerful muscles, the leathery, hairless epidermis, the calculating brain... all that was Jingo Linx, Commander in the Sontaran s.p.a.ce Corps-would cease to exist. Instead, a million tiny globules of organic matter would be left floating like a giant puffball in s.p.a.ce.
A microsecond from obliteration...
Linx moved his hand again. The blood-stirring ineffably sweet strains of the Sontaran Anthem pulsed through the ship. Linx never took his eyes off the screens-little, red eyes that were like fire-lit caves under the great green-brown dome of a skull-but he felt a thrill of pride run through his body. He was a Sontaran and he was dying as a Sontaran should... throwing a challenge to the Rutans.
They would not follow him into the asteroid belt. They were cowards by nature. It was only because of their enormous natural resources that his people hadn"t yet finally defeated them. In individual quality, in pride of arms, Sontarans were the rightful rulers of the galaxy and this time there would be no armistice; this time the war would be fought until the Rutan Empire-every last satellite-had been reduced to radioactive dust.
Nothing showed on the screens. Linx checked the panel readings. The cruiser was now more than halfway through the belt. And still there was nothing on the screens.
Almost for the first time since the fighters had locked on, Linx felt a tiny glow of hope. Even if the Rutan leader was taking his squadron round the belt, his chances of making a second successful interception were mathematically negligible. If the cruiser pa.s.sed through the belt unscathed he would at last be free to turn for base.
His home planet, Sontara, was on the further side of the galaxy. To reach it would entail a long voyage through largely hostile zones where he would need to maintain constant vigilance. Linx decided to take an energy burn while he had the opportunity.
He switched the deck monitor to active and unclipped his feeder hose from the control module. Fumbling slightly, he connected the hose to the small vent behind his neck. On entry into the s.p.a.ce Corps all fliers underwent mechasurgery. A probic insertion in the trapezius enabled them to live as cyborgs, drawing energy from the burners that powered their starships.
It was just a small example of Sontaran technology, Linx thought loyally, allied to Sontaran will: the sublimation of self to the greater end of military efficiency.
Even so he hesitated before pressing the switch. He always dreaded taking a burn.
His hand moved on the switch and immediately the almost-pain came screaming up into his skull, bursting inside his brain in a searing silver convulsion. He had spoken with other fliers who claimed to be totally oblivious throughout the period of a burn. If only it were so with him.
The flood of power through his tissues was like a roaring madness, a chaotic maelstrom of colour and sound depriving him of all sentient knowledge of the outside world. He felt himself clinging like a limpet within some solitary crevice of consciousness, aware only that he still existed... still existed... still...
The cruiser had cleared the asteroid belt by the time the auto-valve ended the burn. Linx came instantly awake, feeling wonderfully serene and composed. But, as always after a burn, he had an urge to remain connected to the feeder, free from the necessity of making decisions, drifting warmly in a gentle euphoria.
It was a dangerous urge and Linx forced himself to unclip the hose within moments of cut-off. He switched the deck monitor back to latent and keyed the astrochart to lay course for Sontara. The course-pattern came up on his display panel almost immediately. Before relaying the pattern to the gyrotillers, however, Linx conducted a manual sweep with his scanners. It was a mandatory procedure before any change of course and he had no expectation- He made a soft, bitter noise and stared in shock at the detector screens. Unbelievably, the Rutan squadron had followed him through the asteroid belt. The lean black darts of the pursuit ships formed a pattern of doom on his screens, seeming to stretch towards the cruiser like the talons of some giant claw.
The new energy drained from Linx"s body. He felt a cold, despairing tiredness. No escape now. No chance of turning for Sontara. The gamble was finally lost.
All at once he noticed an apparent error on the display.
There were nine ships in the Rutan squadron and only eight showed on the screen. Eight. There was only s.p.a.ce where the port wing-leader should have been. The asteroid belt had claimed a victim.
Without pause for thought, Linx flung the cruiser towards the gap. The deck plates thrummed under his feet and he heard ice cracking from the hull as the ship twisted under torsional stresses far in excess of its design limits.
Then the starship was round and leaping forward again.
And behind him, on the detector screens, the Rutan fighters were swinging to follow. But now they were strung out, their formidable formation broken, and the Rutan leader, for the first time, had been a fraction late in responding. Perhaps he, too, was at last beginning to feel the strain.
The eighth and closest ship was holding its original course. Linx had expected that. The cruiser would cross its bows and for an infinitesimal but precisely calculable moment he would be vulnerable to its torpedoes.
On his screens the two tracks were converging fast. A red cross, projected by computer, pinpointed their exact intersection. The Rutan pilot, Linx knew, would be watching a similar display. Only on his screens there would be a second symbol, the small green circle of the firing activator. Theoretically, when the cross and the circle came together, the Rutan"s torpedoes couldn"t miss.
Linx switched on his port shields and then waited a little longer. Move too soon and the Rutan would have time to correct. He had to judge the move to a thousandth of a second, the very instant that the torpedoes streaked from their firing pads.
He had survived such encounters before; he was a s.p.a.ce veteran. And so he sat coolly, tense but without anxiety, listening to his instinct and experience. The machinery and computers had played their part. Now it was flier against flier, Sontaran versus Rutan...
Linx moved. The circle and the cross had come together. He knew it as certainly as if he had been sitting on the Rutan control deck.
The cursitor heeled three degrees to port. The track shots on his screens flickered and adjusted. His own blip was central on the cross and now it was through, moving away, the two tracks no longer converging.
For a second he failed to recognise the alarm; it was so unexpected. And he had felt nothing. Not a tremor in the ship, not a single indication of damage. But already the control deck lights were fading.
Linx switched on the reserve circuits and hurriedly started a systems search. The deck monitor found the fault first.
"CVT check. Critical malfunction," it whispered.
The Cyclo Vybe Transmitter was the heart of the ship.
Even as Linx switched the monitor to component inspection its power register faded to zero.
"CVT check. Total malfunction," the deck monitor reported.
Linx cancelled the inspection. It was pointless. The CV Transmitter had suffered a ma.s.sive rupture. The Rutan fighter pilot, he realised, had played for safety, firing a bracket cl.u.s.ter in the hope of crippling the cruiser rather than aiming for a direct hit. And, ironically, his own evasive manoeuvre had turned the cruiser into the periphery of a burst.
Now, indeed, all hope had ended. The ship"s speed was falling. It was only a matter of time-very little time- before the pursuing fighters overhauled him. All he could do now was to play the game to its finish.
A small solar system showed directly ahead on the screens. The star-chart identified it as Sol, a fourth magnitude star with nine planets. There was no other data; the system had never been surveyed.
Linx switched off the star-chart. He had hoped for something bigger. But he would head for the system.
Within an inter-planetary atmosphere, spectronic flight was impossible. He might conceal for a little longer the extent to which the cruiser was damaged; he might even- if luck was with him-swing round the blind side of one of those tiny planets and get in a cannonade at his pursuers.
It was worth trying. If he could destroy just one more Rutan ship, he would not be totally dishonoured in death.
Sol was looming on the screens, its central ma.s.s obscured by the blazing incandescence of its gases. Linx felt the cruiser slowing still further as it ploughed into the ion streams surrounding the star.
And a crazy idea occurred.
The dancing mantle of solar eruptions that concealed Sol"s core would conceal the cruiser-if he could fly that close...
For a brief time-for perhaps twenty seconds-his starship"s image would disappear from the screens of the pursuit ships. And if, during that time, he escaped in the scout ship...?
Coldly, Linx calculated the risks. The little scout vessel, stored in the cruiser"s underpod, was an inadequate ship.
Its heat shields had not been devised to withstand solar temperatures. Its motors were comparatively puny, too- they might not pull the ship clear of Sol"s gravity.
Then, finally, if he escaped from the sun and the Rutan fighters, hurtling on after his abandoned cruiser-finally he would still have to face the unguessable hazards of traversing the galaxy in a tiny craft intended only for shuttling between planets.
But such journeys had been made before. Linx remembered sagas about the heroes of antiquity. They would have considered the little scout a superbly equipped ship.
Already the blazing face of Sol was engulfing the screens. If he was going to make the attempt he would have to hurry. Swiftly, he programmed an orbital path above the star"s surface. The cruiser"s hull temperature was rising rapidly as he disconnected the recorders and carried them down to the scout ship.
There was no time for pre-flight checks. Settling behind the single console of the control bridge, Linx reached immediately for the emergency firing pin. He barely heard the m.u.f.fled explosion of the launching rocket that catapulted the little scout ship out into s.p.a.ce; the g-pressure was like a giant hand crushing him into unconsciousness...
Linx came round slowly. The rasping scream of the motors intruded first into his mind, warning that something was wrong even before he forced his eyes open. Acrid yellow smoke was curling through the vent tubes into the control bridge. He sat up and peered at the display panels.
Seven minutes" elapsed flying time.
Even though it was apparent the little scout had suffered some grievous damage, Linx felt a surge of relief. That length of E.F.T. surely meant that his ruse had succeeded.
The scout ship was clear of the sun and the Rutan fighters were already a million miles away in futile pursuit of the empty cruiser.
After all he had been through, the problem of nursing a sick craft across the galaxy to Sontara seemed comparatively easy. But as the deck computer a.n.a.lysed the damage the ship had sustained, Linx began to see the impossibility of his task. The scout"s main drive had burned out. Its gravity plates had buckled in the heat of the sun and the pressure of the g-forces had sheared both gyro-stabilisers.
The computer went on to produce a list of smaller defects but Linx gave it little attention. Unless he could repair the ship he had no chance of ever seeing Sontara again. But to reach the main drive the ship would have to be completely stripped down. That meant making a landfall somewhere... if there proved to be a remotely suitable planet in this miserable little solar system.
With only nine planets in the system, Linx knew that the chances of one of them possessing a suitably breathable atmosphere were a million to one. He had little hope as he focused the spectograph on each in turn...
And the third planet, the little blue one, showed a reading of ninety four on the scale! Unbelievable luck!
Linx gave a shout of delight and pointed the scout ship towards the planet. Now, he thought, if only the planet proved to be the home of some semi-intelligent species- and oxygen-rich planets often were-he could drum them into a labour force and be on his way back to Sontara within a matter of weeks.
Sontarans rarely smiled, except at the death throes of an enemy. But as his damaged ship flashed towards the third planet, Commander Jingo Linx allowed himself the smallest of satisfied smiles...
1.
Irongron"s Star.
In the great hall of Irongron"s castle they were holding a feast. The long banqueting table was lined with men-at-arms, chewing on stale bread and half-cooked meat, swigging rough red wine. It wasn"t much of a feast, to be honest. But then, it wasn"t much of a castle, either. And Captain Irongron and his men were as scruffy a bunch of cut-throats as you"d find in the length and breadth of Merrie England. Still, Irongron had ordered a carousal - and it wasn"t healthy to argue.
Captain Irongron sat at the head of the long table chewing moodily on a leg of lamb. He was a great bull of a man, clad in steel and leather, a fierce black beard jutting from the ma.s.sive chin. Beside him was Bloodaxe, his chief lieutenant, a long gangling fellow, with greasy yellow locks and a wispy beard grown in emulation of his beloved leader.
Irongron tore a chunk of b.l.o.o.d.y meat from the bone with his yellowing teeth, chewed, and glared and promptly spat it out. "This sheep has been dead a year. Are they trying to poison me?"
Bloodaxe tried his own meat. It seemed no worse than usual. "It was killed long since, Captain. But it"s salted to preserve it."
"Salted?" roared Irongron. "It stinks!" He tossed the bone over his shoulder and it fell amongst the others that littered the rush-covered floor. "Wine!" he bellowed. "Must I die of thirst in my own hall? Bring me wine, I say!"
Meg, the serving wench, a burly woman who looked almost as tough as Irongron, scurried forward with a jug of wine and filled the pewter tankard clutched in Irongron"s ma.s.sive paw. Irongron swigged and spluttered... Meg ducked, just in time. The heavy tankard whizzed past her head and clanged against the stone wall. She backed away.
""Tis the dregs of the barrel, Captain, all there is left."
Irongron glared mournfully round the hall. "Sour wine!
Stinking meat and sour wine! Is this how I am served?"
"Supplies are low, Captain," said Bloodaxe placatingly.
""Tis some time since we went aforaging."