Doctor Who_ Autumn Mist Part 23

The TARDIS had materialised, much to Fitz's horror, at the Philadelphia navy yard. From a convenient vantage point, the Doctor sipped some tea as they watched a medium-sized destroyer in the docks. 'There we are,' he said. 'Just over two thousand tons.'

'You can't steal the ship from the Philadelphia Experiment!' Sam protested. 'It's famous.'

'Famous for disappearing, isn't it?' the Doctor pointed out reasonably.

'Well, yes... But...' Sam didn't actually quite know what to say. 'That's not the point! What happens to the ship when the rift closes?'

'It'll be buried under the Eifel.'

'That'll confuse the h.e.l.l out of Tony Robinson if ever they do a Time Team Time Team here.' here.'

'If she means it's going to play havoc with future archaeologists,' Fitz said, 'she's d.a.m.n right.'

'Oh, I can think of at least one who'd see the funny side,' smiled the Doctor. But then it was time to move, as the ship began to glow.

Leitz was glad to see that the gunfire had died down. Sitting comfortably, half out of the turret of his SdKfz 232, he doubted that the fierce battle had been a sign that Lewis had betrayed him.

The American colonel would have to have put on a show for the benefit of his subordinates, so that they wouldn't know about the private deal between the two of them. It was also possible that lone pockets of isolated resistance still remained behind the new lines. Perhaps a few soldiers, cut off from their units.

Whoever they were, they were no longer firing at the impromptu roadblock. Leitz ordered his driver to halt for a moment to survey the situation. There was still no sign of Lewis's Shermans, and the fallen trees were pushed far enough to the side that his 232 could get past easily.

To his right, a dented Hanomag was listing in the roadside ditch, a couple of bodies draped over the side. The rest of its occupants must have spread out on foot in the woods to either side.

'Go ahead,' he told the driver.

As the first of three armoured cars approached, Kovacs tensed. He was crouched down in the abandoned Hanomag, and the three-man armoured car looked like just the sort of thing he'd been waiting for.

As it pa.s.sed, Kovacs sprang up, firing both his Colt and the Luger at a couple of footsoldiers who were walking beside it. They fell, and the Sturmbannfuhrer Sturmbannfuhrer in the 232's turret from the circ.u.mstances, Kovacs figured it could only be Leitz turned in astonishment. in the 232's turret from the circ.u.mstances, Kovacs figured it could only be Leitz turned in astonishment.

Before Leitz could pull a gun, Kovacs had planted a foot on the edge of the Hanomag's side, and launched himself across the gap between vehicles. It wasn't easy at his age, and he knew he'd better hit the mark; if he fell he doubted he'd be able to get up again.

He slammed into the rear deck of the 232, and d.a.m.n near slid right off. Luckily he managed to wrap an arm round one of the supports for that big clothes-rack antenna. All the same, he lost his moment as well as his captured Luger, and Leitz managed to draw a gun.

Kovacs fired blind as Leitz leaned out to bring his own pistol to bear. The shot caught Leitz in the shoulder, and he lost his balance, tumbling from the turret with a yell. Kovacs didn't stop to see whether he was dead or not, but squeezed up under the antenna to drop into the turret.

He let the driver live for now, but shot the other man, and kicked him out the side door that was set into the main hull. Then he put his gun to the back of the driver's head. 'Turn this thing around.'

'What?'

'Turn this thing around or you're dead.'

The driver was sweating with fear, Kovacs saw. It didn't take another order to convince him. He stopped the 232 and made a surprisingly smooth three-point turn. 'Good boy,' Kovacs breathed. 'Now get going.'

'Towards them?' the driver asked in surprise, indicating the other two 232s, which now loomed in the vision-slit.

'That's right. Never played chicken?'

Kovacs prodded the driver's neck with the gun muzzle to reinforce the order. Gulping noisily, the driver started the armoured car moving.

'Step on it,' Kovacs urged. 'As fast as this heap will go.'

The driver complied, sending the eight and a half ton car hurtling towards its fellows at fifty miles per hour. There was a scream and a wet thud, and Kovacs realised with a mixture of horror and pleasure that they had just run over Leitz.

By the way the driver's knuckles had whitened on the steering column with fear, Kovacs knew he'd be the chicken, and turn away first. He couldn't risk it. He grabbed the back of the driver's collar, so that the man wouldn't fall sideways and pull the car off course when Kovacs shot him in the head.

The man didn't. Ignoring the blood that spattered his hands, Kovacs released the body slowly, making sure he kept the car on course. He then ducked back, and dived headlong out the open side door.

As Kovacs thudded into the ground and rolled into the roadside ditch, the 232 sped on. The other drivers had realised the danger too late, and tried to dodge aside. But the lifeless car simply smashed into both.

The careering car went up on one side, a couple of wheels flying off, while slamming one of the other 232s to a complete halt. Then it exploded, scattering burning fuel across the crash site. None of the other cars were in any condition to continue they were mangled, with shattered axles and dead or screaming crew.

Kovacs wanted to get up and get the h.e.l.l out of the way, but he couldn't. His body didn't want to know. At least he was still breathing, which was more than he could say for the red and black mess that used to be Leitz, a few dozen yards along the road.

Kovacs hoped that maybe the Germans would think he was dead too. At least the Sidhe could pick off the survivors. It didn't matter about the remaining half-tracks, or even the Tigers. They couldn't enter the Rift.

Patton had said that no poor dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d ever won a war by dying for his country; that you win wars by making the other poor dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.d die for his. He'd had the wrong end of the stick, Kovacs admitted. Poor dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like himself won wars by staying alive for their country, and keeping their men alive for their country too.

Of course, it helped if you had something to believe in.

Kovacs had another war to believe in. And as soon as the Sidhe reached him, he was going there.

The TARDIS materialised a little more quietly than usual, on the deck of the USS Eldridge Eldridge.

Outside the TARDIS, the sea and sky were a jumble of colours and tastes and sounds. The deck the Doctor, Fitz and Sam stood on wavered like a desert mirage, and fragments of speech and music drifted, just barely on the fringes of hearing. It was uncomfortably warm, and the tonalities produced by the unfelt winds were dizzying.

'Groovy,' Fitz said approvingly. 'This place would give Lennon and McCartney headaches.' He half expected the Doctor to be very blase and shrug it all off as just another storm.

'It probably would,' the Doctor agreed, looking out at the unreality of it all with the expression of a small child on his first visit to Santa's grotto. 'Magnificent, isn't it?'

That was one way of putting it. 'Where is this anyway? I thought we were supposed to be in Philadelphia.' Fitz had the distinct impression that the jumbled universe above was looking down at him, reminding him how small he really was.

'We are,' said the Doctor, 'but this ship has been dephased. Right now we're out of phase with Earth's reality ourselves.'

'You said the TARDIS couldn't do that,' Sam pointed out.

'I said the TARDIS couldn't give a full reach over the entirety of the Sidhe domain. This ship has been dephased by very primitive technology, so it's just on the borderline of reality. That's why there's so much interference out there. Well within the TARDIS's limitations, though.'

Maybe, thought Fitz. But not within the crew's limitations. Some of them were frozen in screams, others radiating streams of pain as visible energy. It looked as if their bodies were on fire. Some of them were contorted grotesquely, a few even literally beside themselves, somehow duplicated in time.

'Jesus Christ! This is...'

'Loss of dimensional cohesion, you see. We're all right walking around when the ship is fixed at one phase, but during transition, anyone not protected by a stabiliser and a dimensional osmosis dampener has got severe problems.'

'Then they're all dead?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Far worse. Remember what I said about the senses and being hanged, drawn and quartered?'

Fitz shuddered. 'Can't we do anything for them? I mean, anything's better than this, surely?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'In this state we can't do anything that would affect them. Look.' By way of demonstration, he waved a hand clean through the nearest crewman, who showed no sign of even having noticed.

The Doctor locked the TARDIS door, then unlocked it again, with a strange flick of the wrist. 'Come on, you two, I'll need some help to carry things.'

'Why did you lock it first, then?' Fitz followed him in, Sam bringing up the rear, but instead of the usual converted-monastery console room, he found himself in a relatively small and cramped white room. Indented circles were set in rows in the walls, and a smaller metallic hexagonal console was set on the floor.

'Because,' the Doctor said, 'entering this this console room through the front doors is easier than walking through three miles of corridor to get here.' console room through the front doors is easier than walking through three miles of corridor to get here.'

Instead of the interlocking console and ceiling rotors that Fitz was familiar with, this console simply had a cylindrical column, filled with plasticky-looking tubes. Industrial type dials and switches were set on to the white and steel panels. The Doctor had already got his sonic screwdriver to work, and was pulling off one of the console panels.

He laid it carefully to one side, then disa.s.sembled another panel further round, and started digging out odd-looking pieces of scientific junk from the heart of the console. He worked rather like a pagan priest casting horoscopes from sheep's entrails, Fitz thought.

'There we go!' the Doctor exclaimed finally, holding aloft a complex piece of crystalline electronics. 'A spare RDS.'

'Lucky you had a spare,' Sam said, rather sarcastically.

'Actually, all TARDIS consoles have them.' He gathered up the two console panels, and some of the other technological viscera, and dumped them in Fitz's arms. They were heavier than they looked, and Fitz gasped at the weight. The Doctor, meanwhile, pocketed the stabiliser, and lifted a selection of the tubelike instruments out from the time rotor. Carrying them, and the remaining bits and pieces that had fallen from the ill-balanced pile Fitz held, the Doctor left. 'Come on!' he shouted. 'No time to waste!'

The spa.r.s.e wood led back to the steep cutting that bordered the road where Lewis's tanks were halted. Both Garcia and Bearclaw hared out across the open ground. The cold was really stinging Garcia's lungs, and he wondered how Bearclaw kept up the pace. Would he ever have such a level of fitness himself?

Abruptly, the ground ahead of them exploded into steam and shrapnel, and they flung themselves backwards. Looking up, Garcia could see the rounded turret of one of Lewis's Shermans, and Lewis and a couple of his loyal troopers trying to get a clear shot at them.

Garcia grimaced, and hurried Bearclaw to a point directly under the troops, out of their line of fire. Propping himself against the rock that supported the promontory on which the tank stood, Garcia at least had the chance to catch his breath. 'Flares?' he suggested after a moment.

Bearclaw shook his head. 'I've got a couple of smoke grenades.'

'For all we know,' Garcia said doubtfully, frowning, 'that just might make the Germans think the Shermans are out of action.'

'You got a better idea?'

Garcia didn't bother to reply. They both knew what his answer would be.

Lewis fired again as he registered a flicker of movement at another part of the ledge below. More traitors. They were down there somewhere.

There was a ma.s.sive explosion to his right, and then another to his left. Lewis ducked under the Sherman, even though part of his mind knew that if those had been fragmentation grenades he would already be hit.

He never saw the Tigers that were rumbling through the trees, but he turned just in time to see the smoke marking the positions of those tanks flanking him. They hadn't yet got into position to enter the Sidhe realm, and now they never would.

The last Sherman split apart with a thunderclap, a wall of fire billowing outwards and engulfing the few men around it.

Garcia and Bearclaw hurled themselves back down the cutting as soon as they had tossed the smokers up on to the road. They lost their footing in seconds, and tumbled headlong back down the slope.

A good job, as it turned out, as the nearby Tigers' guns boomed, and sh.e.l.ls slammed into the Shermans. Explosions hurled chunks of shrapnel out from the stalled tanks and off the edge of the road.

Bearclaw yelled out, only half in fear, but half in exhilaration. The feeling of sliding through the air was thoroughly enjoyable, and he could almost forget the imminent impact with the ground.

The bone-crushing impact he had expected never occurred. Instead, he slapped into a wet heap of snow, where the slope became more gentle, and tumbled uncontrollably downhill. He managed to catch brief glimpses of Garcia sliding and tumbling a few feet away.

Garcia and Bearclaw flung themselves flat as the phasing Shermans were torn apart in a series of blazing fireb.a.l.l.s on the plateau above. They were certainly earning their 'Ronson' nickname today. Chunks of burning shrapnel hissed into the snow all around.

Bearclaw could hear little else over his own ragged breathing. A plume of smoke was billowing from the plateau, and steam was rising into the air from what looked like a thousand little craters all over the slope. He concentrated on settling his breathing, as the Tigers fired a last few shots up at the road.

The Tigers paused, then rumbled around on their axes and resumed their previous course towards the crossroads.

Bearclaw didn't really care so much now. Duty was done. None of the tanks could enter the other world.

The whole exterior of the USS Eldridge Eldridge was festooned with thick insulated degaussing cables. At junctions, dials and meters were set up, with wirerecorders preserving the measurements for posterity. Not that anyone would ever get a chance to see them, Fitz reflected. was festooned with thick insulated degaussing cables. At junctions, dials and meters were set up, with wirerecorders preserving the measurements for posterity. Not that anyone would ever get a chance to see them, Fitz reflected.

A faint green glow, like the phosph.o.r.escence of rotting meat, bled out of the cables, along with a straining hum that pulsed steadily.

The Doctor, Sam, and Fitz followed the cables inside, and below decks to the engine room. There, large electrical switchboards crowded the already-cramped area. The noise was deafening, with both the hangover-like pounding of the engines, and the magnified pulsing of the cables.

'How long have we got before the ship reverts to normal s.p.a.ce, or disappears off to somewhere else entirely?' Fitz asked.

'I've no idea.' The Doctor put down his cargo of TARDIS components, and bent to examine a central set of dials and recording apparatus. 'Time is out of synch here.'

Quickly, he started connecting the TARDIS components to a large addition at the centre of the engine room. Though built of the sort of resistors and transformers that Fitz recognised, it glowed with that same eerie green air. It didn't take long for the Doctor to make his adjustments.

'What exactly will this do?' Sam asked.

'Allow us to remotely position the ship in the Rift and switch off the phase inversion field from the TARDIS. Much more sensible than doing it manually in here. That would would be somewhat suicidal.' He peered at a junction for the second set of cables, which accompanied the main ones around the ship. 'Interesting, there seem to be two sets of coils here. One setting up the phase inversion field, and the other rendering the hull geomantically neutral...' be somewhat suicidal.' He peered at a junction for the second set of cables, which accompanied the main ones around the ship. 'Interesting, there seem to be two sets of coils here. One setting up the phase inversion field, and the other rendering the hull geomantically neutral...'

'Geo-what neutral?' Fitz asked.

'The Sidhe are vulnerable to ferric metal, remember? One of these coils is demagnetising the hull, trying to keep the ship non-ferrous. In this context that can only be so that it's possible for Sidhe to board her.'

'What, so it was done before it ended up here?' Fitz said.

The Doctor nodded. 'Must've been.'

'Then it's safe to a.s.sume we can expect company before too long?'

'Yes.'