Doctor Who_ Battlefield Part 27

'Probably,' said the Brigadier and unleashed every round he had in the gun.

Tiny impact explosions flared on the demon's armoured hide. The monster began to laugh. A laugh that sounded the death knell of all creation.

The Brigadier lowered the gun in defeat. 'I just do the best I can,' he said.

The Destroyer stopped laughing.

Light flared from the bulletholes in its chest like lasers through the smoke. The glare spread and burst out, flaring into a vast, cold green sun.

The blast. caught the Doctor and Ace as they belted down the priory path. They kept running.

The building evaporated in a surge of energy that tore skywards.

'No chance,' yelled Ace as they ran.

Amongst the discarded burning rubble, they saw the blackened body of the Brigadier.

The Doctor knelt by him in anguish. 'You stupid, stubborn, thick-headed, numbskull...! You were supposed to die in bed! I could've handled it myself. It wasn't your job!'

Ace kept quiet. It was the first time she had seen the Doctor weeping.

'Rubbish, Doctor,' said the Brigadier, opening his eyes.

'You're supposed to be dead,' complained the Doctor.

'Sorry to upset the eulogy, but you don't really think I'm so stupid as to stay inside... do you?'

'Well...' The Doctor was laughing now.

'Really Doctor, have a little faith.' He looked at his friend's embarra.s.sed companion. 'Ace?'

'Yes, Brigadier,' she smiled.

'I'm getting too old for this. From now on, he's all yours.' He clambered awkwardly to his feet. 'I'm going home to Doris as soon as possible.'

The Doctor looked startled and delighted. 'So, she finally got you,' he grinned impishly.

'Yes,' laughed the Brigadier. 'I suppose there'll be clearing up to do first. There usually is with you, Doctor.'

'Just a small nuclear missile bogged down in a nature reserve.' The air had begun to clear. The smoke dispersed into the crystal blue sky.

'What about this?' asked Ace. She lifted up the sword Excalibur.

The Doctor frowned. 'That old thing. What do you make the time, Brigadier?'

Lethbridge-Stewart consulted his precious gold watch.

'Eight minutes to six.'

'Ace?'

She looked at her plastic-strapped, underwater, tune-playing, digital display, computer game kilowatch. 'I don't know about here, Professor. On Iceworld it's twenty past seventeen. Why?'

The Doctor lifted his own horloge de main horloge de main, a unique timepiece given to him by Beaumarchais for a couple of one liners in The Marriage of Figaro The Marriage of Figaro, to his ear. 'According to this, it could finally be the hour of England's greatest need.'

Chapter 3.

Ancelyn stepped through the portal into the darkened ship, his eyes wide with wonder. 'This is the long-lost Dromond of the High King.'

It was the same sense of wonder, the Doctor decided, that explorers experienced at the discovery of every archaeological site from Telos to the Valley of the Kings.

Seals were broken, dust was disturbed and heaven knows what was unleashed.

Ace and the Brigadier exchanged glances as the young knight launched into a tour guide spiel: 'Lord Merlin grew this mighty ship in a great embryo vat for Arthur's final campaign...'

'Yes, yes, Ancelyn,' said the Doctor, 'but there are more important matters to attend to. Don't imagine that Morgaine will give up so easily.'

'Is that why we're going to wake up old uncle Arthur then?' said Ace.

'Just gather round,' complained the Doctor. 'This isn't a school outing.'

He led the way towards the bier at the far end of the hall. A single shaft of water-dappled light fell across the rec.u.mbent shape of the High King encased in dusty armour.

He was relieved that Ancelyn did not actually fall to his knees at the sight of the sleeping monarch. They each simply took up places around the obsidian slab.

The Doctor took his hat off.

Now Ancelyn, replace Excalibur and King Arthur will arise.'

Ancelyn smiled gravely and pa.s.sed the sword. 'I think the honour belongs to the Brigadier,' he said.

'No, the Doctor should do it,' Lethbridge-Stewart bl.u.s.tered.

Ancelyn was persistent. 'No my lord, you were the victor.'

'Give me that,' said Ace. She took the sword from the knight and planted it back in the stone.

'Ace, have you no sense of ceremony?' complained the Doctor.

'No,' she said.

Immediately the lights came up.

The ribbed arches of the great ship, covered in veins like scrollwork, lifted out of darkness for the first time in centuries. Coloured screens like tapestries. Panels slipped open on a vast window of murky green water. Everything lay under a grey snow of dust. There was a sound of deep movement in the walls.

'Listen,' cried Ancelyn. 'She is alive.'

The King did not stir.

They waited.

'This is very odd,' said the Doctor eventually.

'You put him here,' said Ace.

'I "will" put him there.'

He reached out and touched the helmet. A trickle of dust slipped out from behind the visor. There was rust on his fingers. 'What is it, Professor?'

The Doctor pulled the helmet away from the body.

Apart from dust, it was empty.

'Good Lord,' said the Brigadier.

'Where is the King?' asked Ancelyn.

Ace caught at a brown piece of parchment that tumbled with the dust from the helmet. It had a thin spidery script in what looked like ancient felt tip.

'This is for you, Professor,' she said.

He looked uncomfortable. 'What does it say?'

The parchment was so brittle it started to crumble in her hands. 'Dear Doctor, King died in final battle, everything else propaganda.'

'Who signed it?'

'Mine sincerely, the Doctor.'

Bother, thought the Doctor. 'I'm sorry, Ancelyn. The present rarely lives up to expectations.'

They stood silently for a moment, the Doctor moved by the death of a friend he had yet to encounter. 'And who's going to tell Morgaine?' he said.

Ancelyn looked startled. 'I have left my lady Winifred unguarded.'

He bowed to them and ran from the hall.

The Doctor looked at his other old warrior friend. 'I could have given myself a bit more warning. You two can see to this ship.'

'Explosives, Ace?' asked the Brigadier.

'Now you're talking,' she said.

The Doctor turned to go. 'We'll give Arthur a warrior's burial.'

Brigadier Bambera sat in the temporary comfort of her Command Vehicle. She tugged at the fresh field dressing on her arm. Others of her unit had been less lucky. Eight dead, seventeen injured. It was what Ancelyn called 'a good fight'.

She tapped her pen irritably on her desk, but the right words to start her report eluded her. There was a rig on the way to move the missile at last. And they were having trouble keeping the press away.

But what preyed on her mind most was wondering how long Ancelyn would stay. She put down her pen and yelled to Zbrigniev for more coffee.

There was no answer.

She got out of her chair and walked to the door. It was too quiet outside. She came down the steps and rounded the side of the trailer.

Zbrigniev was lying face down in the mud. There was blood on his jacket.

Before Bambera could react, a sword was pushed against her throat.

'The battle's not done yet,' whispered Mordred in her ear.

A figure. tall and cloaked in gold with long flame-coloured hair, stepped into Bambera's vision. 'I am Morgaine the Deathless,' she said. 'I have need of your engine of war.'

Morgaine mounted the Command Vehicle steps and her son followed with their prisoner.

Inside, the knowledge of Francoise Eloise was enough for the Queen to reason which bank of the ugly controls she required.

She manipulated the primitive instruments, searching with her mind into the machine's logical junctions and magical procedures. Easy as a child adept's sleight of hand.

Within one minute, a screen printed out its display.

Sagamore Missile Prelaunch Sequence Complete. - Enter Fail-safe Release Code.

This was the first wall. Francoise Eloise knew no more.

Morgaine turned with a gracious smile to the warrior maid.

'This engine needs particular instruction to make it live.'

Bambera, held tight in Mordred's grip, glared contemptuously. 'It's a nuclear missile. The blast will kill you as well.'

'Oh, we shall be long gone ere that happens. Now tell me, what is the secret incantation?'

'I don't know what you're talking about,' said Bambera.