Doctor Who_ Battlefield Part 14

But when its event was thus predicted, it came like a hammer blow. That he would regenerate was certain, for the evidence of his inescapable future as Merlin was all around him. But before that was achieved, he knew as surely as he now lived, that he was going to die... again.

'Doctor,' shouted Ace and pointed into the shadows.

A ribbon-tail of green light slithered behind one of the consoles that surrounded the chamber like pews.

Whatever it was, whatever it resembled, it was the manifestation of his destiny. The more he resisted the future, the closer it slid.

He reached for her hand. 'Ace. I think it's time for Plan B.' 'We run?'

A venomous green head reared up over the console. Its snakemouth gaped open in a hiss of malice.

'Yes!' he shouted.

They began to run towards the portal, but the snake launched itself into the air, wriggling through the darkness like an ethereal tapeworm.

It blocked their path.

'What do we do?' shouted Ace, lifting the sword towards the attacker.

'Now is not the time to panic!'

The ghost snake was casting its head about until its white eyes set upon a target. It homed on the Doctor and struck at his face. He caught a blast of blue light on his upheld arm and went skidding across the floor.

'Now we can panic,' he gasped as Ace started to pull him up.

The snake was slowly circling in the air like a shark sizing up its victims.

'It's a form of automated defence system, isn't it?' said Ace.

'Yes.' He saw the snake turn towards them. 'When I say run, run...'

The snake bore down on him like a glowing javelin.

'Run!' he yelled, and they split up as the snake coursed through the gap.

The Doctor saw Ace, still carrying the sword and running towards an alcove in the wall. He tried to call her back, but the snake struck at him again as it pa.s.sed over his head. His hat tumbled, smoking, to the floor.

'Not that way!' he shouted at Ace.

She turned inside the alcove and called, 'It's a dead end.'

The recess suddenly filled with white light. A gla.s.s door slammed down over the entrance.

The snake had begun to circle again, as if the defence system had been curtailed during this diversion.

The Doctor reached the door in two seconds flat. Ace was beating her hands against the gla.s.s. but he could not hear her.

'Hang on. I'll soon have you out,' he mouthed at her.

Ace took no notice. She was lifting her feet awkwardly and pointing down. Water was splashing around her ankles and up the gla.s.s. There were jets hosing down the back of the alcove from above. She was trapped in the ship's airlock.

She started to beat against the gla.s.s again as he searched for the controls to the door. The grey and chilling lake water was already up to her waist and rising fast.

He could find nothing. He saw her starting to tread water as the torrent reached her shoulders.

'Let go of the sword!' he shouted.

He saw her suddenly trying to point behind him.

Looking up, he saw the ghost snake rushing in. Its blast caught him squarely on the chest, sending him hurtling across the floor to collide head on with one of the consoles.

Ace struggled and went under for the first time.

Part 3

Scenario: Bent Spear

'...and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand.' a fair sword in that hand.'

Sir Thomas Malory Le Morte D'Arthur

Chapter 1.

A cold wind was whipping up waves on Vortigern's Lake.

Bambera and Ancelyn emerged from the woods along the sh.o.r.eline between the dig and the UNIT convoy.

A figure stood on a bare outcrop that jutted into the water. His anorak was drawn tightly around him as he stared unmoving across the lake.

Soldiers came running to meet Bambera. Ancelyn kept his distance while she stood in conference with them, but he watched as more soldiers came from the huddle of ugly machines by the water. They held her in high honour, standing formally around her, while she issued orders and listened to their intelligence. It occurred to Ancelyn that in this place, Brigadier might be a n.o.bler t.i.tle for a warrior than that of Knight General in the world.

Bambera pointed at the machines and then at the crater that lay along the hank surrounded by an area of freshly flung mud. The soldiers pointed at the solitary figure on the outcrop. They all turned and stared at Ancelyn.

He bowed his head in acknowledgement. His wrists still bore red wheals from the handcuffs in which he had allowed her to imprison him.

Bambera yelled his name and started to walk towards the lone figure. The knight followed his lady.

'Doctor Warmsly?' called Bambera as they reached the water's edge.

He did not move, but they heard him say, 'You've probably never thought about it, but it takes one year to uncover one centimetre on a site this big...'

His voice had a dry quaver that was only just under control. He took a step towards the water.

'What are you doing?' said Bambera.

He would not turn and look at them. 'I came to get away from the wreck that girl made of my work.'

She touched his shoulder. 'Are you OK?'

'I just need some peace and quiet.'

Since childhood Warmsly had heard the distant horns of Arthur's world calling. He loved Tennyson and T.H.White, and he knew Malory by heart. The site by the lake was his discovery and it had been his slow painstaking love to uncover the history of his dig. No help, no grants from the cold, commercial world. The history and the romance of Arthur were separate realities and he loved them both. One for the head and one for the heart. But he knew in which world he truly belonged.

'Why do you dig holes in the ground?' said the yellow-haired man who dressed like a pageant knight.

'To uncover the past,' said Peter gloomily.

'Do you not have songs for that?'

'Songs?'

'You know,' said Bambera, 'an oral history.'

Peter rounded on them accusingly. 'Oh yes, we have songs, stories, poems. The trouble is they get it wrong, don't they. They distort history. I'm looking for the truth.'

'Such as?' said Bambera.

'King Arthur,' he replied.

Ancelyn lifted his head and stared into the cold wind.

'The High King.'

Peter shook his head. 'This site is one of the places where they say the final battle between Arthur and Mordred was ought. And this lake is where Bedivere threw Excalibur.' He ignored Ancelyn's eager gaze and turned hack to the empty water. 'It's all rubbish, of course!'

It was a few seconds before the Doctor could drag himself back into consciousness.

Not dead yet.

He struggled to his feet and tried to reach the alcove.

Ace was still there, kicking in the churning water. Fighting to keep her head above the rising surface.

Overhead, high in the chamber, the snake circled.

Waiting to swoop again.

Still he could find no way of reaching her. 'Why isn't there a central control?' he shouted in desperation.

Instantly, a small cavity squelched open in a wall across the chamber. He reached eagerly for the hole, but caught sight of a green glow brightening on the wall.

He ducked and the ghost snake barrelled over his head.

The swirling water had filled the alcove, but he saw the kick of Ace's legs and the glint of the sword.

At the cavity's heart, there was a pallid nodule the size of a fist. The ship's organic core. Blue-sh.e.l.led digits like the legs of a lobster agitated against its pulsing surface. The Doctor grasped the nodule and wrenched it from its place.

It dripped white gel as it continued pulsing rhythmically in his hand. Ganglia strands trailed back into the ruptured cavity.

He ignored the snake as it wriggled slowly nearer.

Holding the nodule in both hands, he concentrated his thoughts and squeezed.

The cavity gave a shrill squeal and the digits scrabbled at nothing. In an explosion of giant bubbles, the water in the alcove vanished upwards, sucked away by pressure as a hatch opened in its roof.

Ace vanished with it.

The Doctor stood back, unsure whether to be relieved or worried.

The snake hovered a foot from his head, its tail moving behind it in slithy undulation.

He tried to avoid its malignant eyes. Tried to convince himself that he would never design a device that was a killer. It couldn't hurt him. It was simply used to frighten off superst.i.tious peasants.

No, no. Stop. He was starting to think of himself as Merlin He must not fall into that trap.

He was held by the snake's predatory stare. 'Go away, little tapeworm,' he said casually.

The snake slipped nearer.

Hardly daring to move, the Doctor fingered the wet surface of the control core. But his hands could not reproduce the precision instrumentation needed to manipulate the organic device.

The snake's jaws opened, revealing fangs like curved needles. The emanation hissed and flicked its barbed tongue.

'No, you won't hurt me,' said the Doctor. 'You can't.

Not unless someone else has tampered with you...'