Doctor Who_ Drift Part 17

Krystal patted Leela on the arm. Stick it in your pocket for now.'

She wondered for a moment if she'd done the right thing. It felt like tainting the innocent - peddling guns to the savages.

But there was no question, not really. No way could she let Leela go up against the armed and dangerous with only a knife.

Besides, she had an intuitive confidence in Leela.

Leela was the proverbial stranger in a strange land. But she was no alien to danger.

Bob Marotta worked his way along the line, fixing each man in place with a pat on the back and a few encouraging words.

He didn't think any of them were convinced. They knew when their Sarge didn't like the smell of something.

Parking the snowmobiles and spreading out on foot, it had been a hard slog just getting here, and now they faced a waiting game in which no one would get any rest. Breathing was hard labour, even for Marotta. as he squatted down beside the last man along the row. It was Landers, laying p.r.o.ne and tugging a dead branch across in front of him.

'I'll be fifty yards out on your right, so don't go shooting that way.'

Landers settled his rifle on the improvised support. 'Ain't that a thin kind of spread, Sarge? We can't see twenty in this.'

Marotta sympathised. Time was short and they were committed to Kristal's scheme. Garvey's way out on our left. We'll just have to hope Kristal's picking up clear reception today.

Just try hard to see twenty five, okay? That way no one's going to slip through.' He punched Landers' arm. 'And keep your itchy trigger finger off that grenade launcher. We want Lieutenant Hmieleski back in as few pieces as possible.'

'Amen to that.' Landers sighted along the barrel of the M4 - into a lot of nothing.

Marotta was up and on his way to his own position, the burden of the machine gun his consolation. 'Hey, Sarge,'

Landers called after him.

'Yeah, Landers?'

'Do we wait till we see the whites of their eyes?'

Marotta shook his head and strode out on the right flank. If that was the best Landers could do to make him laugh, he didn't want to hang around.

Joanna Hmieleski all but resented having to fight for Mitch Lagoy's life as well as her own. She didn't expect to choose her patients, but she could sure do without them taking her hostage. Captive or no, she didn't care to lose patients either.

So at the end of the day, she knew she had to kick up a stink for another rest break, if only to take another look at the guy before she got to watch him drop dead.

The woman. Jacks, relented fairly easily and Hmieleski only stopped to question why while she waited for her hands to be untied.

'Toss me the shotgun,' Jacks instructed her subordinate.

Lagoy obliged weakly before sagging against a fallen trunk.

The howling wind was everywhere, but Joanna could still hear the man's laboured breathing. She set to work, trying not to think about the woman with the two guns somewhere behind her.

Peeling back a flap of the guy's coat, she whispered. 'How many did you see? Following?'

Hmieleski watched blood ooze through sodden dressings.

Lagoy made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. 'It's - not your people. Not ours either.'

'Has to be one or the other.'

Joanna didn't feel the smile she gave. She could redress the wounds, kill some more of the pain, but this man was well on his way to the afterlife. The best she could do was hide the fact. If that really was the best thing.

'I don't know who they are. They're after us. Hunting.

They'll get me first,' Lagoy wheezed, nearly smiling. 'Maybe it's just - coyotes.' He gave a sick laugh.

Hmieleski bit her lip. He was losing his grip, finally. She stood and faced Jacks, who was a few yards off, one of the weapons shouldered. 'We have to get your friend to a hospital. ASAP D'you understand? My outfit has surgical equipment.'

'What shall I do?' the woman scoffed, somehow harder than ever. 'Call them in?'

'There's got to be a shack, with a radio - or a vehicle - somewhere nearby.'

'You read my mind.' Jacks swung the AK in a quick gesture. 'Let's get going.'

Hmieleski stared. And held down a shiver.

She took a pace forward. 'You're not leaving him.'

'He's slowing us down. Badly.'

'Then run, G.o.dd.a.m.n you, and leave me here with him!'

Jacks stood planted, a coa.r.s.e effigy of a human being.

Joanna had no idea how the woman's mind worked, didn't want to know. She noticed the muzzle of the AK, tipped slightly downwards and she thought, if I'm going to do this it had if I'm going to do this it had better be now. better be now.

The thought wasn't even complete before she'd dived across the s.p.a.ce between them and thrown herself into a brave tackle around the woman's waist. Incredibly, she brought the solid figure crashing down on her back. But Jacks pushed up and rolled them over.

Joanna spun with it instead of resisting and tumbled clear.

She flew back at her opponent and cracked her across the mouth with her elbow. Jacks fell back in the snow and Joanna lunged over to pin her in place. She threw a follow-up punch and the woman couldn't quite pull her face aside in time.

Swearing and snarling at the jab, Jacks forced her arms up and fended off a third blow - and suddenly her gloved hands were closing around Joanna's throat. Two thumbs pressed hard and kept on pressing, squeezing Joanna's throat to what felt like a straw's width.

Choked and feeling her eyes bulge, Joanna was in a daze by the time Jacks hurled her backwards. She was on all fours, shaking her head clear, when Jacks kicked her in the ribs to send her sprawling. Just so she would be looking up when Jacks aimed the AK at her face.

Grateful to be on the move again, Leela knew what Kristal had meant: that if they had rested any longer, not only would they have lost the trail, but fatigue would have taken hold.

Not that there was a trail, in the forest evaporating before her eyes.

She moved up behind Kristal, thinking about the weight of the gun she had been given, and marvelling at how the Native American woman could follow invisible tracks. Especially as this white cold dampened all sound and mercilessly killed every scent.

Kristal had explained that their prey's pa.s.sage marked the land in other ways. Ways she could divine with senses immune to the weather. 'I know these lands.' she'd told Leela.

'They remember a pa.s.sing creature some small time after its prints are erased.'

Leela stopped beside her and waited while Kristal scanned the storm.

'Are your homelands like this?'

Kristal met her questioning gaze fondly.

'Not really, no. My people's lands were mostly coastal lowlands and river inlets. We used to fish and hunt along the sh.o.r.es and rivers. I guess you could say we were among the more fortunate tribes, the government gave as lands within our natural territories.'

'The government gave you your own lands?'

'Well, they let us live there,' Kristal cast her eyes to the wind. 'What was left of us. So where I was born was close to my homeland, but It never felt like a homeland. In giving us the land, they had taken away our home. I suppose that's why I find it so easy to be at home anywhere. At home with the land, anyway, even if not the people.'

The concept was at least as puzzling as Kristal's shamanic powers. 'I do not understand.'

'The government set aside reservations for the Native Americans. They allowed us to live our traditional lives there, segregated from their civilised communities.'

'Like the Tesh,' Leela nodded sagely now. and angrily. 'They erected a great barrier to keep the Sevateem out and contain them within the jungle.'

Kristal showed her surprise. 'The government erected barriers too. They still exist. But our differences are the greatest barrier of all.'

'Then why do you work for the government?'

'Because as I grew up I became convinced that if you're to stand any chance of changing something, you have to be a part of it.'

Suddenly, Kristal threw out a hand to steady herself.

Balanced, she clasped the hand to her head, and then drew it slowly down over her face - until a pained mask was revealed.

'What is it? What has happened?'

'I'm not sure. A loss of life I think. Someone in my squad.'

Kristal bowed her head and took three slow breaths, her eyes closed.

Leela drew the gun from her pocket. Satisfied with the feel of it in her hand, she went around on Kristal's right and helped her up.

'Then we must go to their aid.' she said.

'Landers, with me.' Sergeant Garvey, pasty faced and dewy-eyed, marched past and held up his radio. 'I can't get through to Marotta. Something's happened to him. I know it.'

Landers rolled over and was up on his feet in a second. 'Sir, you don't know that, sir.' When arguing with a superior.

Landers always figured stick with the formalities and they won't notice. He swallowed, swinging his rifle up and ready.

'Sir, you think they took him hostage too?' Landers set off at a trot after Garvey. 'Cause I don't think they've had time to get here, is all. What with their wounded guy and all.'

Garvey's jaw was working, but the man was chewing nothing but air and saliva. He chucked back his hood and rounded on Landers with a half-formed fist. 'I don't know what to think, soldier, but I'm thinking back to that house from h.e.l.l. Okay?'

'Know what I think, sir?- 'No, and I don't care to know.'

Landers sniffed. What he was thinking was that Marotta was alive and well with a busted radio. What he was also thinking was that if he wasn't, then they had themselves a bada.s.s Predator- Predator- type situation. If anything had taken Rob Marotta down then the last thing they ought to be doing was going out there after it. type situation. If anything had taken Rob Marotta down then the last thing they ought to be doing was going out there after it.

Garvey went creeping ahead into a fog of fibregla.s.s. SMG gripped too tight for his own health. 'Marotta! Hey. Marotta.

where you at. d.a.m.n you?'

The wind blew fear around with the snow. Landers shut up and raced after his Sergeant.

Mitch sat there like a corpse waiting for burial. He speculated on whether Jacks would shoot him as well or just leave him here bleeding into the snow. Funny, he'd always imagined himself being gunned down in a warm bank somewhere down South.

But the Army woman wasn't quite ready to die. 'Go on! Do it!' she was shouting her lungs dry. It prodded him to concentrate. 'You'll be free of your buddy here, you won't have a hostage You'll be out on your own again, and I'll tell you what else: Mitch tells me they're right on our tail, so you fire that thing and that'll help narrow down their search fine!'

Jacks, the blessed Emilie, was silent. Mitch knew then she'd made up her mind not to kill either of them. He wasn't too surprised either when he saw her grabbing hold of Hmieleski and shoving her on her way. So that was how it was going to be.

'Wait. Wait up,' Mitch croaked. 'Army girl. Lieutenant.' Lieutenant.'

He had this blurred impression of Hmieleski then, turning to look back at him. She seemed impossibly far away, but he did his utmost to focus on her. 'You must know the truth, right? State secrets, aliens, all of it. Were we even close?'

In his mind, at least, he saw the woman open her mouth to speak - before Jacks shoved her on with the muzzle of the AK. He didn't even know if she'd heard him or not. Maybe he'd have his answer soon enough.

He watched his next moments tick by on a clock without a face.

There was that movement again. Out in the white. Not part of the storm. Not quite.

It was closer this time. But just as difficult to make out. It was coming for him.

And beyond it, he thought maybe he could see a pair of fuzzy silhouettes. People. But they were white too, so they weren't necessarily real.

Either way, they weren't going to reach him before he died.

One way or another.

Chapter Thirteen.

The Doctor was peering into a microcosm. And much like the universe at large all too frequently, it was cause for the gravest concern.

'If I were you,' he warned, his eye trained exclusively over the lens, 'I would drop what you're doing and back away from that body right now.'

'Doctor, I'm in the middle-'

The Doctor leaped up from his stool and spun ferociously.