Victoria was not convinced. ‘Oh, Doctor, I don’t want to be stuck inside one of those heavy suits.’
‘Perhaps under-armour?’ Prion suggested. ‘It offers a degree of protection in its own right, but remains lightweight and flexible.’
‘Splendid.’ The Doctor was beaming, his eyebrows raised and his face wide with his smile. ‘And while you two sort yourselves out, I’ll be happy to accept Cruger’s challenge.’ He paused for a moment, frowning. ‘If I can remember the rules.’
The scrape of the bolts made Sponslor flinch. He stared at the cell door, willing it to stay shut. But it started to open. Slowly.
‘All right.’ His voice was high with nerves, loud with fear. ‘What do you want to know?’
Then his eyes widened as he saw who it was. He exhaled, a long thin mist in the cold of the room.
The figure in the doorway held up a tiny electronic device, then put a finger to its lips. ‘Shh.’ The sound was barely audible.
Sponslor hardly needed to be told. He recognised the device. He had used it himself in the Banqueting Hall. He waited patiently until the process – the recording – was complete. He looked down at the blanket huddled round him, saw the pattern in sharp focus, and realised he had stopped shivering.
The figure stepped into the cell. Despite the fact that the device had done its job, the voice was kept low and quiet. ‘I want to know if you completed your task.’
Sponslor smiled. Typical. Business first. ‘Yes, of course I did.’ He pushed himself off the bed. ‘Now get me out of here.’
‘Why?’ The sound was a sharp hiss.
‘Why? What do you mean –’
‘You said you completed your task. Why do I need you now?’
‘But –’ Sponslor shook his head in disbelief, took a step forwards. ‘You can’t just leave me here.’
The chuckle was louder than the answer. ‘Indeed I can’t.’
After five minutes with the armourer, Jamie was reluctantly forced to agree that he should wear the under-armour only. The armour, he quickly discovered, was not just simple metal plating as he had assumed. There was a mass of electronic equipment built into the suits – targeting systems for the smart weapons, in-built communications links, tracking and positioning systems. While he reckoned he could get the hang of the heads-up display and control systems within the helmet, Jamie was also pretty sure that it would take him more than the couple of hours that now remained until the mysterious ship arrived.
What he was forced to accept instead was a set of tight-fitting trousers and tunic. The material was obviously strong and he could feel the heavy padding and reinforcement built into it. But it was light and flexible, as Prion had promised. It felt like soft leather and was about as bulky.
As he pulled on the tunic, Jamie could hear Victoria in the adjacent room thanking the armourer for his help. ‘I can manage now, thank you,’ she was saying. A moment later the armourer came back to see how Jamie was coping.
From the other side of the room, the Doctor’s voice was audible as he played his game of chess.
‘Oh, that’s a cunning move. Yes, yes. But I think if I do this… it might present you with a problem… Aha! What do you think of that then?’
Cruger’s responses were rather restrained, almost entirely limited to arcane phrases that Jamie assumed were something to do with the game. ‘Knight to Queen’s Bishop four,’ he said this time.
‘Hmm. That was quick,’ the Doctor responded. ‘And not very clever.’
The armourer checked Jamie had pulled the straps on the tunic tight, then nodded and excused himself. ‘I have many other duties,’ he explained.
‘You don’t talk much, do you?’ the Doctor chided from the next room.
‘Pawn to King five,’ Cruger replied.
There was a movement from the far side of the room, and Jamie turned towards it. Victoria was standing in the doorway.
‘Jamie,’ she said, ‘I’m not really sure…’ Her voice tailed off and she looked down at the under-armour she wore.
Jamie looked too. And then looked closer. Victoria’s trousers and tunic looked even tighter than his own, hugging her body and accentuating the curves she usually wrapped in looser garments. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail so that even her face seemed tighter and more streamlined than before.
‘I’m going to ask the Doctor,’ she said before Jamie had recovered sufficiently to answer.
The Doctor looked up from the game as they entered the room. ‘Ah, there you are. All ready?’
Victoria cleared her throat. ‘Doctor…’
‘Ah, Victoria.’ He smiled. ‘You look very, er, protected.’ He turned quickly to Jamie. ‘Doesn’t she, Jamie? Wouldn’t you say?’
‘Protected,’ Jamie repeated. ‘Oh, yes. Very protected.’ He nodded emphatically. ‘You’ve got to stay safe, Victoria.’
‘Well, I’m not sure –’ she started.
‘Now then,’ the Doctor cut in, ‘let’s just finish this little game and then we can go and find out from Trayx what’s happening and how we can help.’ He turned back to the board. ‘Now where were we? Oh yes.’ He raised his voice. ‘I’m afraid I have to leave you now, so it will have to be, let me see… Yes.’ The Doctor reached out for a bishop, and moved it clear across the board. He set it down, stood back and surveyed his work. ‘That should do it. Mate in two. Must dash.’
As the Doctor turned from the board, he somehow managed to link an arm each through Jamie’s and Victoria’s and lead them to the corridor. ‘Come along then,’ he said. ‘No time to lose.’
As he left the work party laying mines along the access corridors, Darkling passed Haden and several of Kesar’s troops arriving to help. It was a shock as well as a relief to see them in full battle armour and armed.
‘Where are you off to?’ Haden asked him as they passed. She kept her voice low, not wanting to attract attention from the others.
‘Guardroom. I get to keep an eye on Sponslor – not that he’s going anywhere. I think Logall’s still mad at me.’
‘Chance for a rest, at least.’
Darkling snorted. ‘I imagine he’ll keep an eye on me while I’m keeping an eye on the cell.’
They were being jostled in the corridor now. Men with heavy blocks of explosive were struggling past them, and Haden let herself be pushed along in their path.
Darkling took over from Gotall, and settled down in front of the screen. ‘What’s he up to?’
Gotall shrugged, pulling on his tunic. ‘Nothing much. He just sits there. He looks at the blanket, looks at the door, looks away.’ He paused in the doorway. ‘He called out a while back, said he’d talk. Then silent again. Flipped if you ask me.’
‘Great.’ Darkling turned back to the screen. Had that been a noise from the cell, or just hiss from the microphone? He adjusted the volume. There was nothing. He leaned back in the chair, hands laced together behind his head. Then the noise came again, a short hiss of sound, lasting just a moment before it was gone. Typical, Darkling thought: an intermittent audio fault.
Sanjak’s finger traced the point of light that represented Rogue One, the metal of his glove scraping against the glass of the screen. The ship was inching closer to Santespri, inexorably following the line of projected flight.
He pulled up the communications menu on the helmet’s heads-up display with a focused alpha wave, and blinked at the call option. ‘Rogue One has entered the exclusion zone, sir.’
Trayx’s voice was close in his ear, echoing slightly within the helmet. ‘Thank you. Go to phase-two alert. Let me know when they come within range of our countermeasures.’
*
Darkling swung his feet off the console and sat up straight as he heard the door opening behind him. ‘No change, sir,’ he said without looking round. ‘All quiet.’
‘Really?’
The voice was not one that Darkling was expecting, and he turned abruptly to see who was there. It was the strange Doctor and his friends
. The Doctor was still dressed in the same eccentric attire as when he had first appeared. His two companions were in under-armour, which seemed to Darkling like a sensible move. The three of them seemed to be acting as if they owned the place, Darkling had heard. Mind you, for all he knew, maybe they did. So he was cautious when he answered. ‘Yes, sir. He hasn’t moved.’
The Doctor was frowning, heavy lines across his face as he joined Darkling at the console. ‘Has he said anything?’
‘No, sir. Well, not on my watch.’
‘How very strange.’ He observed the screen for a short while.
‘He’s just sitting there,’ the boy said. He sounded bored. ‘He won’t tell us anything.’
‘No, look, Jamie.’ The Doctor pointed to the screen as he spoke, following Sponslor’s slight movements with his finger, exaggerating them. ‘He looks up at the door, then down at the blanket, then across the room. Then at the door again, back to the blanket, across the room.’
‘He’s flipped,’ Darkling said.
‘Oh, do you think so?’ The Doctor continued to study the screen. ‘You know,’ he said after a pause, ‘I don’t think he’s flipped at all. Can you get more sound on this?’
‘There’s just background hiss. He’s not saying anything.’ Darkling pointed to a wave form creeping across an adjacent screen. It was almost a flat line, except for the occasional flurry of activity that bubbled out from it. ‘Just a fault on the microphone. Regular, intermittent. Hiss.’
‘Turn it up.’
Darkling shrugged, and adjusted the volume. Silence, apart from the occasional hiss of interference.
‘What is it, Doctor?’ the girl asked.
The Doctor half turned, holding up both hands for silence, his face still fixed on the screen. ‘Shh,’ he hissed.
Then he froze. For a long moment he did not move. Sponslor looked at the door, and the hiss of static came again.
‘That’s no fault,’ said the Doctor, suddenly all movement. He tapped the screen showing the wave form, then leaned close to the monitor so that his nose almost touched it. ‘It’s someone saying “Shh”.’ He stood upright again. ‘Now why would they do that?’
‘Why, Doctor? What is it?’
‘Well, Victoria, it means that we are hearing someone saying “shh” to someone else regularly every few seconds.’ He pointed to the wave form on the screen again. ‘You see where the line peaks in exactly the same way each time.’
‘So what does that mean?’ Jamie asked.
‘It means that the sound, and the pictures too, by the look of it, are following a loop. A recorded loop of about ten seconds. Like when you were in the Banqueting Hall, Victoria, and you seemed to disappear.’
‘And that means we don’t know what’s really happening in that room.’
The Doctor nodded grimly. ‘That’s right. Unless I can work out the feed they’ve used to fool the camera and bypass it somehow.’ He tapped the ends of his fingers together as he examined the controls.
‘Oh Doctor, hurry.’ The girl seemed more nervous than ever now.
‘All right, Victoria, all right. I’m just trying to work it out.’
Darkling coughed. ‘If it’s not a stupid question,’ he said, ‘why don’t you just go down there and look?’
The Doctor and Jamie exchanged glances, then left the room at a run. Victoria and Darkling watched the screen, waiting quietly for a report. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, the image rolled and flickered. The Doctor seemed to appear suddenly in the cell, his face close to the camera so that it all but filled the screen. Over his shoulder they could see Jamie bending over something on the floor.
‘Hello, can you hear me?’ The Doctor’s voice was loud and grave. ‘I think you had better get Trayx down here,’ he said. ‘There’s been another murder.’
CHAPTER NINE
FINE NETS AND STRATAGEMS
TRAYX WAS ANNOYED but philosophical. ‘He won’t tell us anything now, but the fact that he’s been killed is useful information in its own right.’
They were in the Banqueting Hall, which Trayx had made his centre of operations. The table was now covered with screens and control consoles. Cables snaked under the table and across the floor to concealed power and video outlets. The Observation Room was too near the main docking bays as well as being too small for comfort. It was from here that Trayx would command the defence of Santespri.
Prion was with Trayx, directing the setting up of the systems. ‘We now know that we cannot trust everyone within the fortress,’ he pointed out. ‘Whether Sponslor killed Remas or not, there is still at least one traitor within these walls who is prepared to kill.’
‘So what’s your plan?’ Jamie asked. ‘Do we just sit here and wait for the ship to arrive?’
‘Yes and no,’ Trayx said. ‘We’ll set up the defences, assuming that the ship will dock. But at the same time, it will soon be within range of our countermeasures.’
‘And what countermeasures are these, exactly?’ the Doctor asked.
‘Ah, I was forgetting the strange gaps in your knowledge. The indications so far are that we are up against a force of VETACs. Perhaps a whole legion.’
‘And these VETACs are soldiers?’ Jamie asked.
‘Indeed they are. The ultimate soldiers.’ Trayx allowed Prion to explain.
‘The Virtual Electro-Targeted Attack Computer is the most sophisticated armament in known space. The legionnaires are drone troops which have limited strategic and tactical reasoning capabilities. They are dependent on the instructions of a command unit relayed over a virtual network. The commander is usually backed up by a lieutenant with broadly similar capabilities to ensure a level of redundancy.’
Jamie nodded, as if this all made perfect sense to him.
‘I still don’t understand,’ Victoria admitted.
‘I think they’re robots,’ the Doctor explained. ‘Robot troops.’
Victoria frowned. ‘And how many of these robots are there in a legion?’
‘A full legion of the Haddron Republic comprises a single VETAC command unit and as many troops as that unit can channel instructions to.’ Prion seemed to think this answered the question.
‘So how many is that?’
‘Originally a VETAC commander could manipulate two hundred and fifty-six units. But that was soon enhanced to allow for five hundred and twelve.’
‘Five hundred?’ Victoria looked at the Doctor in horror.
Prion continued unperturbed. ‘A modern legion would consist of one thousand and twenty-four units. Plus the commander and lieutenant.’
Jamie threw his hands up in disbelief. ‘Now how on earth do we fight that?’
The Doctor seemed less worried, though his expression was grave. ‘You mentioned some sort of countermeasures. Would I be right in thinking you have a software weapon of some sort?’
Trayx looked at Prion before he answered, but his ADC made no comment – his expression remained static. ‘The arsenal does include two toxin projectiles. Soon, when the ship is within range, we will launch one of them into its immediate vicinity.’ Trayx sighed, as if he were reluctant to take the offensive in this way. ‘I’m sorry, Prion,’ he said quietly. ‘But there are few options left open to us.’
‘It seems a strategically sound decision,’ Prion said. ‘There are, as you say, few options.’ He turned to the Doctor. ‘The projectile includes a subspace communications system. This will broadcast the toxin as a binary encoded pulse on a frequency the ship can detect and receive.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘So if the ship receives the signal, it receives the virus – this toxin. The systems become infected.’
‘Once in the VETAC command circuit, the toxin will replicate itself and infect the whole network. It will destroy the VETAC units’ microcode and corrupt their software systems.’
Jamie was smirking now, looking round at the steady stream of soldiers busying themselves around the room. ‘Och well, if that’s the case, what’s all the f
uss and bother about?’
‘There is no guarantee that the ship will receive the signal.’ Trayx shook his head. ‘We can’t assume anything. The VETAC commander may not know we have countermeasures, but he will probably have taken precautions against them.’
‘But you are going to try?’ Victoria prompted.
‘Oh yes. We shall try. Logall is bringing the projectiles here now so that I can enter the command codes to activate the toxin. This is not something that is lightly done, you must realise. Only in extreme circumstances do we need to inflict contagion on our own VETAC forces.’
Prion’s voice was quiet, and for the first time Jamie thought he could detect a hint of emotion – of anxiety – in it. ‘If you will excuse me,’ he said, ‘I think it best that I check on the perimeter defences.’
‘Indeed,’ Trayx agreed. ‘Report back to me later.’
‘Wait,’ Victoria called as Prion turned to leave. ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘Victoria?’ Jamie was aghast.
‘Well it’s better than waiting around here. Perhaps there’s somewhere that I can help.’ She stared at Jamie, as if daring him to disagree. ‘Why don’t you come too?’ she asked.
They followed Prion through the flickering corridors, occasionally stepping carefully round mines and explosives, which he pointed out to them. They had not gone very far when Victoria said quietly to Jamie, ‘Why do you dislike him so much?’
‘I don’t,’ he protested, slightly too vehemently.
‘Oh?’
Jamie shrugged. ‘I just find him creepy. He’s always so helpful and polite. He’s – I don’t know, he’s too ready to please.’
‘You don’t like people being polite?’ Victoria asked. There was more than a hint of accusation in her tone.
Jamie looked ahead to see if Prion had heard. He seemed not to have done, continuing along the corridor apparently unconcerned.
‘He’s always ready with the answer,’ Jamie said. He was trying to work out quite what it was that unsettled him about Prion. ‘He knows it all. He’s never wrong, is he? How come he knows so much about what’s going on? I just don’t trust him.’
Doctor Who: Dreams of Empire: 50th Anniversary Edition Page 15
