Doctor Who: BBC Past Doctor Adventures [051] - Palace of the Red Sun by Christopher Bulis

Author:Christopher Bulis
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563538493
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 2002-03-02T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

The Stop Press arrowed through the hole in the shield.

Inside the control cabin Dynes braced himself as warning lights flickered in wild patterns across the instrument board.

The hull shivered and he felt a sharp wrenching sensation as a wave of unnameable nervous stimulation passed though him. This was worse than the emergence from hyperspace.

Probably some trace shield energy that still extended across the opening. The controls were going crazy now. What combination of frequencies had the Esselvanians used? The cabin lights cut then came back on again just as his temples throbbed and his vision blurred. He felt as though he were being stretched like a rubber band. What was happening?

Unable to hold back he yelled aloud in fear and pain and anger. He’d edit this part from the recording… was the DAVE still working with all this interference? Hell, maybe he’d lost a great scene. How far had he gone? It seemed like an eternity.

Surely he should be through the shield – unless it reached right down to the surface. But there was no going back now…

Then it was over.

The discontinuity was a shrinking hole behind him that blurred and vanished as the ship plunged into a layer of cloud. Instrument readings returned to normal. Groggily, Dynes punched buttons, engaging the preset evasive manoeuvring programme.

The Stop Press rolled to one side and began a switchback spiralling descent. Displaced air keened and howled around the hull. Dynes intended to make landfall at maximum speed.

The Esselvanians must realise they were under attack by now and probably knew that their shield was failing. If their defence batteries were on automatic standby, then they could already be tracking him. In the assault on their capital a year earlier Judd had lost several craft to lethally effective anti-aircraft fire. Dynes did not intend to test whether similar systems were installed here. The external monitors, compensating for the wild gyrations of the ship, displayed only twilit gloom below. Dynes cut in the enhancers and the scene flared into brilliant clarity. He saw a dark tangle of forest rolling away to the sharply curving horizon, backlit by the diffuse sky glow of the invisible sun.

As the ship dropped he scanned frantically for the spaceport that logically would lie close beneath the shield discontinuity, all the while nerving himself for the alarm that would tell him a missile was approaching or a ranging beam had him locked in its sights.

He scanned and probed, he strained his eyes… then frowned perplexedly. There was no port. No tracking system was targeting his ship. The sky was empty both of missiles or interceptors scrambled to shoot him down. Apart from a few birds skimming the tree tops below there was no sign of life.

Barely a kilometre up Dynes disengaged the evasive descent programme and swung the Stop Press round in a wide arc under manual control. Surely there must be some sign of habitation.

The imaging scanner beeped to get his attention as it highlighted a cluster of regular forms half buried in the forest.

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