Doctor Who: Shining Darkness (18 page)

‘We’re entering the Sentilli system,’ he said. ‘All crew to their stations. Repeat, all crew to their stations.’

‘Oh,’ said the Doctor, crestfallen. ‘And you were just about to explain your plan to me. Don’t you just hate it when that happens!’

THE DOCTOR WATCHED
, appalled at his own stupidity, as the assembled device rotated in space, just half a kilometre from the hull of the
Dark Light
. Now that the four segments were stacked upon each other, the Doctor could see how they formed a cylinder – obvious, really, with hindsight. But then wasn’t everything? Each segment rotated independently as the whole device turned silently until one end was pointing towards the black disc of Sentilli.

‘You’re going to open up a black hole!’ he said slowly and turned to Garaman. ‘I should have guessed.’

‘Why should you have guessed?’ asked Mesanth.

The Doctor shrugged.

‘Well, the bit you collected on Uhlala contained some rather nifty dimensional resonance coils; the one on Karris had some sort of zero-point energy converter in it, from the sketchy readings I picked up; and the one on Junk gave all the signs of being a spatial dephaser. Put ’em all together and you’ve got the galaxy’s biggest can-opener.’
He
grinned at his own cleverness. ‘Normally, I’d say that’s brilliant. But I’ve got a feeling that it’s not going to be brilliant for anyone apart from you.’

Garaman laughed dryly.

‘Can-opener. I like that. There was a point,’ he said, ‘where I thought you were going to work out what it does. But now it doesn’t matter.’

‘Oh, I think it matters a great deal,’ said the Doctor ruefully. ‘But I don’t think there’s much I can do about it, is there?’

Garaman just smiled.

‘So what’s in there? An army of organic beasties just waiting to be awoken and take on the might of your galaxy’s machine intelligences? Or is it some kind of refuge? A little Shangri-La where you and your organic supremacist friends can live without worrying about your paranoias? A Little Andromeda, if you like. A paradise free of machinekind?’

Garaman said nothing. Instead, he gestured at the screen.

At one edge, closest to the
Dark Light
, was the tiny, jewel-like shape of the can-opener, sparking blue lightning dancing around it. And at the other, away in the distance, was the jet-black disc of Sentilli, the black hole at the heart of the system, visible only because it obscured the stars behind it.

‘Activate,’ whispered Garaman and Mesanth tapped at the control panel.

The glow around the can-opener began to grow, deepening to an almost painful purple as it shifted out of
the
range of the ship’s scanners, before the device seemed to turn completely black.

‘Dephasing has begun,’ said Mesanth, and the Doctor caught the look of almost Messianic glee on Garaman’s face.

‘Watch, Doctor,’ said Garaman. ‘Even though you’ve been a pain in the backside, I have to admit that it’s quite nice to have a witness for this moment.’

The Doctor squinted as Garaman called for Mesanth to increase the scanner magnification. The image leaped, picking out the edge of the black hole from where, silently, like a sleek ocean liner emerging from fog, something huge was rising from the depths of the darkness.

It was vast, and the resemblance to an ocean liner grew as the vessel exited the black hole and headed towards them: its main body was slim and pointed, like a sharpened grain of pale green rice. Numerous antennae and struts jutted from it at right angles to it, giving it a spiny appearance. Towards the rear, the density of the spines increased greatly, making it look not unlike an enormous loo brush, thought the Doctor. As it headed towards them, tiny pinpricks of light began to spring up on its surface.

‘We call it
The Torch
,’ said Garaman in a whisper.

The Doctor humphed. ‘You do love your light-and-dark metaphors, don’t you?
Shining Darkness
,
Dark Light
,
The Torch
. What next,
The Candle in the Wind
? Still, I’m impressed. Must have taken you years to build this – especially in secret.’

‘Oh, it did. Years and years and
years
. Keeping it secret was the hardest part, employing – ironically – teams of primitive robots to build it.’

‘And then wiping their memories when they’d done their part.’

‘Exactly. If only they’d had real sentience, they might have realised that they were orchestrating their own destruction.’

‘Their own genocide would be closer to the mark,’ the Doctor corrected grimly, but Garaman just smiled tightly.

The Torch
, as Garaman had called it, pulled away from Sentilli and began to slow as more and more lights came on across it.

‘Just received a signal,’ Ogmunee said suddenly, glancing at the Doctor.

‘From?’ asked Garaman – before his cherubic mouth formed into an ‘o’ of realisation. ‘Safe?’ he asked – and he too looked at the Doctor. There was something the two of them weren’t sharing with him. Ogmunee nodded and smiled.

‘Right!’ said Garaman suddenly. ‘One more thing to attend to before we get on with the business at hand.’

Ogmunee was standing by the weapons systems control panel, a cold smile on his face that suggested he knew exactly what was coming.

‘Have the weapons charged to full,’ Garaman ordered. ‘Time to put Boonie and his robot-lovers out of our misery, I think.’

‘What’re you doing?’ the Doctor demanded as Ogmunee turned back to the controls and began operating them.

‘You didn’t think I’d leave that rag-tag little band of no-hopers a chance to interfere any more, did you?’

‘They can’t hurt you,’ the Doctor said levelly, keeping
one
eye on Ogmunee. ‘Let them go.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Garaman said. ‘It’s not over till it’s over, and I’d rather not take any chances. Not so late in the game.’

The Doctor drew himself up.

‘You do realise that if you kill them, I’ll have no reason not to do everything in my power to stop you, don’t you?’

Garaman raised his eyebrows wearily.

‘You’re suggesting that if I let them live you’ll let me finish what I came here for? I hardly think that’s likely. You know, I’d quite like to have you killed now, but Mesanth and his conscience would probably have something to say about it. And I could do without him throwing a hissy fit. Besides, I’d rather see the look on your face when you find out what’s actually aboard
The Torch
. Call it professional satisfaction. Or showmanship.’

He glanced over at Ogmunee who nodded.

‘Ready,’ he growled.

‘Say goodbye to Donna, Doctor,’ Garaman smiled before nodding at Ogmunee. ‘Fire,’ he said, and Ogmunee pressed the button.

Boonie’s ship shuddered and from somewhere deep inside it, Donna heard a rumble that echoed on and on. She gripped the edge of Boonie’s chair to steady herself as the floor vibrated beneath her.

‘What was that?’

‘They’ve fired on us,’ Kellique said, disbelief written all over her face. ‘They’ve fired on us!’ She checked the displays again. ‘Damage to drive unit. Decks three and four
are
heavily breached. We’re venting atmosphere.’

The Sword of Justice
lurched again and Donna was thrown against the wall. Mother swayed on her feet, the hydraulics in her legs hissing as they compensated.

‘Can we seal off those areas?’ shouted Boonie over the sound of a warning siren. The bridge was plunged into a blood-red gloom as emergency lighting cut in.

‘Too late,’ Kellique said after a moment. ‘We’ve got coolant leakage from the drive – it’s eating its way through the hull. Estimated time until we lose hull integrity – eleven minutes, give or take.’

Boonie clasped his hands to his forehead.

‘No!’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘No!’

‘Boonie,’ said Donna, trying to remain calm. ‘Life boats, life pods, whatever you call ’em. D’you have any?’

‘What?’ He looked at her as if her words were nonsense. ‘Yes, yes.’

‘Good – get everyone into them. Crew, robots, the lot. If the ship’s going to blow, they’ll stand more chance in them, won’t they?’

Boonie just stared at her, paralysed by everything going on around him. Donna could see the despair in his eyes.

‘Oh my,’ said Weiou, his cartoon eyes wide with shock. ‘Donna’s right, you know. Bagsy me first!’

‘Shut up!’ snapped Boonie, running his fingers through his hair. Donna was reminded, momentarily, of the Doctor, and she wondered what he was doing right now…

‘Kellique – give the order!’ shouted Donna. ‘Get everyone off.’

Kellique looked to Boonie for confirmation: for a
moment
, Donna thought he was going to go to pieces, but eventually he nodded, grim-faced. Kellique grabbed a microphone and began bellowing orders at the ship’s crew, ordering them to the escape pods.

‘Whew!’ said Weiou. ‘That’s a relief – so what are we waiting for?’

‘We’re not waiting for anything,’ Boonie said. ‘We’re staying here –
I
’m staying here.’

‘You heard what she said,’ Donna shouted, grabbing his arm as yet another explosion, somewhere deep in the bowels of
The Sword of Justice
, threw them around. She stumbled against Boonie’s chair, catching her hip, painfully. ‘The ship’s going to blow. What use is staying here? It’s not like in a film you know. You won’t be standing proud on the prow as the ship sinks with everyone thinking how noble you were.’ She grabbed his wrists and pulled him round until he was looking at her. ‘You’re going to
die
.’

Boonie licked his lips feverishly, pulling away from Donna.

‘Not alone, I’m not,’ he said. He raced over to Kellique. ‘Do we have any sort of drive power?’

‘Only attitude thrusters, why?’

Boonie considered for a moment, rubbing his forehead.

‘It’s enough,’ he said. ‘Get them online. If we’re going down, we’re taking them with us.’

‘We’re what?’ shouted Donna above the wail of the sirens.

‘That ship,’ Boonie said, jabbing his finger towards the screen on which they could see the spiky behemoth that
had
emerged from Sentilli. ‘That’s their big weapon. It’s what they’ve been working towards all these years. And I’m damned if they’re going to get their hands on it.’ He fixed his eyes on Donna as he gave the order to Kellique. ‘Ram it,’ he said. ‘This ship’s the only weapon
we
have left, and we’re going to use it!’

‘Stop it!’ roared the Doctor, rushing towards Ogmunee.

At a single gesture from Garaman, the blonde humaniform robot stepped in and wrapped its arms around the Doctor, hugging him in a vice-like grip to its chest. The Doctor was powerless. If he’d had his sonic screwdriver, there might have been a chance that he could have deactivated it, scrambled its circuits. Something. But he didn’t, and his arms were pinned to his sides.

Suddenly, the door slid open and Mesanth came trotting in.

‘What’s happening?’ he demanded to know of Garaman. ‘You’re firing the weapons – why?’

‘Our little nemesis, Boonie,’ he said – and the Doctor could see the annoyance on his face at Mesanth’s arrival. ‘Time to put an end to him.’

‘You can’t,’ Mesanth said, his face a picture of confusion. ‘There are organics aboard that ship.’

‘Barely,’ Garaman growled. ‘Besides, you didn’t really think that our whole plan could be achieved without any loss of life – organic life – did you?’

Mesanth waved his hands helplessly.

‘No, but… You said there would be no unnecessary deaths. You said there’d be no need to destroy their ship.’
Mesanth
sounded close to tears.

‘Well then, just think of this as the first in a series of sad, but ultimately necessary, casualties.’

‘Tell him, Mesanth,’ grunted the Doctor, struggling to breathe in the grip of the robot. ‘Tell him to let them go – they can’t do any harm now. You’ve probably already crippled their ship. They might even be dead. Call off the attack. You claim to care about life, about organics. Prove it. Make him stop.’

Mesanth opened his mouth and looked at Garaman.

‘After all this time,’ Garaman said, almost reluctantly. ‘After all this planning… You want to let a bit of sentimentality ruin everything.’

‘But… but what if the Doctor’s right? They can’t do anything to interfere now.’

‘You want to take that chance, Mesanth? Really?’

‘Garaman,’ Ogmunee cut in carefully.

‘What?’

‘The ship – Boonie’s ship. It’s moving.’

Garaman turned sharply to the main screen and Ogmunee brought up an image of it.

‘They’re trying to escape,’ Garaman murmured, a cruel smile playing across his cherubic lips.

‘No,’ Ogmunee said, frowning. ‘No, they’re not. They’re going the wrong way. They’re heading
inwards
.’

The Doctor realised what was going on before anyone else did.

‘Oh dear!’ he said, tugging against the robot. ‘Seems they’re not so helpless after all!’

‘What are they doing?’ said Garaman, slowly
approaching
the screen as
The Sword of Justice
picked up speed. Tiny flickers of light from the attitude thrusters showed that the ship didn’t have much motive power – but it had enough.