Part 28 (2/2)

The cultists, he could see, were not convinced. He took a tight hold on the woman's wrist. 'They're trying to destroy the Miracle,' he intoned, lending equal gravity to each syllable.

'This is the only way to stop them!'

She allowed him to move her hand aside, although she didn't step back. The Security Chief smiled tightly. 'Recommence firing,' he spoke into the grille. 'Aim for the girl - she's the only one armed!'

The screen flared white as the s.h.i.+pboard camera tried to cope with an influx of blast radiation. When its picture rea.s.sembled, the Chief cursed to see that the alien had escaped incineration, albeit by inches, and that another smoking hole had marked Enros's gift to his planet.

'Keep on her!' The camera zoomed in closer. The woman had given up running and had rolled onto her back, her gun aimed upwards and directly at the screen. 'in Enros's name, what is she trying to do?'

'Perhaps she is desperate,' said the cultist doubtfully.

Ace was was desperate. desperate.

She had seen many films in her time in which great flying dreadnoughts had been brought down by one carefully placed blast up an exhaust port or some other such convenient weak spot. In practice, she knew that that was a pretty slim option.

But when you're pinned down on an artificial planetoid by the gravity thrusters of an enormous battles.h.i.+p which is using weapons more properly reserved for interplanetary war with the express intention of blasting you into boiling atoms, a slim chance is better than none.

She loosed shot after shot, but each one ricocheted off the hull of the Morningstar Morningstar without damage, as she had expected. There was still one trick to try, though: if that Detrian, Mortannis, could control the fictional energies here, then surely she could too? without damage, as she had expected. There was still one trick to try, though: if that Detrian, Mortannis, could control the fictional energies here, then surely she could too?

Ace concentrated, trying to envisage a simple, handy shaft, just above her head, leading straight into the most fragile part of the s.h.i.+p's core. The effort was far more than she had 220 antic.i.p.ated. Her head ached and she couldn't see for sweat, but she thought she could feel it . . .

The shaft was forming, the s.h.i.+p's metal skin receding before her brain power like an ice cube before a red hot poker.

Then she doubted for a second, and lost it.

She heard the clunk of the Morningstar Morningstar's guns recycling.

Ace had long since given up closing her eyes and making peace with her maker at moments like this. Instead, she closed her eyes and just hoped that the Doctor would be able to pull off his usual last-minute, split-second rescue.

She wasn't disappointed.

With a blast of hot air, the s.h.i.+p sped away, and Ace, coughing and blinking, recovered her vision in time to see an outboard propulsion unit attached to its stern and shooting it skywards at an impossible speed. The word 'ACME' was picked out in blue on the engine's front. She had been saved by Jason.

The young man was standing now, watching after the departing vessel, his features lit by a triumphant grin. So distracted, he failed to see that Mortannis was up and Wielding a heavy spanner which he had created himself. Before Ace even had time to shout, the Detrian cracked the implement down onto Jason's head and her saviour fell, unconscious before he hit the ground.

'There goes our most powerful weapon,' Ace grumbled.

There were three rebels left now, lined up against the Doctor and Ace. The Doctor and Mortannis could fight it out between them with their make-believe toys. That left her with the other two. But she felt unsteady and not at all sure that she would be able to handle them. She levelled her gun, but Mortannis reacted fast and tendrils of electricity closed about it, scorching her hands and making her drop the weapon.

For the second time, salvation came from an unexpected quarter. Bernice Summerfield appeared at the TARDIS door, blaster in hand, and shot down Mortannis before he even saw her. The Doctor moved in quickly and felled one of the others with a deceptively simple shoulder-grip. As Ace reached for her gun again, their final opponent risked all in a full frontal charge.

221.

She halted him with a stiff upper-cut to the chin, followed by a crack across the jaw. When that dazed but didn't topple the muscular youth, Ace grabbed the blaster anyway and brought it down on his skull.

'That's the last,' she reported as he sprawled at her feet.

'Thank you Benny,' said the Doctor graciously. 'A timely intervention.'

'It was nothing. We saw what was happening on the scanner and - '

'”We”?'

Benny looked over her shoulder, puzzled. Ace guessed what had happened. As, unfortunately, did the Doctor.

'I suppose I should be grateful that she didn't actually come out and fight against me,' he said with forced bravery. Ace could see that the rejection had left him feeling more miserable than he would dare admit. She tried to see Mel's side of it too: she was no doubt in the TARDIS, watching and wis.h.i.+ng that she knew which side to be on. Ace had been through all that herself, in her own time.

The trio stood in silence now, amongst the unconscious bodies of their fellow fighters. Seven Detrians and one of their own side. 'Makes a change for me not to be down there,'

remarked Benny.

'What now?' asked Ace, more practically.

'Now,' the Doctor said, 'we wake up Jason. He can send our friends here back to their planet. Then we can all get on with our mission.'

222.

24.

The Day G.o.d Went Mad

Kat'lanna and Thruskarr had checked each one of the four large wooden doors which led into Enros's Great Hall. They were all guarded, of course, by larger than normal contingents. The two intruders crouched in darkness around the corner of a long street leading to the eastern entrance, at which only five robed figures stood sentry.

'Perhaps we were wrong,' whispered Thruskarr eventually.

'We've seen no sign of Rokk or the others.'

Kat shook her head. 'They would have come here. We must have missed them.'

'So what do you think?'

'I think they're in the Great Hall. It might be over already.'

'Then there's nothing we can do.'

Kat thought for a moment, then made to step out into the main pa.s.sage. Thruskarr jumped, startled, and pulled her back.

'I'm going to talk to them!' she protested.

'They'll kill you!'

'I'll say I've converted. I'm here to inform them of the rebel plot to murder Enros.'

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