Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures [018] - Iceberg by David Banks

Author:David Banks
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426203926
Publisher: Doctor Who Books
Published: 1993-11-14T23:00:00+00:00

THIS IS GROUP FIVE.

Suspect discovery. Reason unknown.

Request guidance.

IMMEDIATE.

Ruby stepped out into an ill-lit corridor, airlessly warm. She unbuttoned her jacket and let it flap open. A rhythmic pounding echoed towards her from somewhere ahead. Its vibrations shuddered through the soles of her boots. She realized she must be close to the engine rooms.

The passageway fell away into almost total darkness. She was suddenly afraid. Twenty-two, and she had still not lost her childish fear of the dark. She switched on the light of the Holocam. It was an effective torch. She forced herself forward. Her heart was pounding.

What was she doing down here anyway? What if the terrorist was still in hiding? Maybe she should have waited for that FF escort after all.

She was moving closer to the pounding noise. She turned a corner. Her improvised torchlight picked out an iron door studded with rivets. Engine room two.

She knew that two of the three original engines were still in use. To judge by the noise and vibration, engine room two was clearly one of them.

She pressed down on the large iron handle and pushed against the weight of the door. It swung open smoothly. She was greeted by darkness and the roar of machinery in relentless motion. And the heat was stifling.

Both the working engine rooms were fully automatic. No operators were needed down here. The engines were monitored and controlled from the bridge via the ship’s computer. She pointed her torch at the gloom.

Four gigantic pistons thundered up and around and down in their preordained patterns. There was something brazen in their ceaseless pumping, the baring of glistening steel membranes at each pull and push, the out and in, the roaring and the hissing. Her cheeks were hot. She was almost embarrassed to witness the overcharged calculated frenzy of it all, as if she had caught the machine in flagrante delicto. It was an awesome sight, and beautiful.

It was this passionate frenzy of machine on machine which pushed the ship through the water. She gazed at the pounding rhythm of the motion of the pistons, the sheer naked power.

She marvelled that they avoided crashing together, they were so massive and rushed so close.

She raised the Holocam and took a couple of shots. There was a strange sensation, a voyeuristic thrill deep in her stomach.

Suddenly, everything went black. The light of her Holocam had failed. The batteries had given out. She cursed herself for not having brought the spare power pack.

There was a dim light coming from the corridor, enough to find the open door and ease herself out of it. Her heart was pounding louder, it seemed, than the pistons she was leaving behind.

A distant light was shining along the corridor to her right. She had not come that way but she flapped towards it in her open jacket like a brightly coloured moth towards a flame.

Reaching the junction where the light was shining, she saw another lift. She was moving towards it in some relief when a door to one side of her opened wide and a face peered out.

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