Doctor Who: Ribos Operation (16 page)

Garron frowned. ‘Other associates, Highness?’ he echoed in
a puzzled tone.

The Graff raised his bunched gauntlets in a white-knuckled
hand ready to strike. ‘Do not play with the Graff Vynda Ka,’ he
snarled. ‘Where are they?’

‘Ah yes of course—Your Highness is no doubt referring to
the two Alliance Security Agents,’ Garron hastily went on with an
ingratiating smile. ‘They had just arrested me for landing and
trading without a licence when Your Highness saw fit to betray
his presence: very heavy-handed if you will pardon my saying
so...’

The armoured gauntlets slashed through the air: ‘You lie!
You lie!’ the Graff screamed.

But the burly con-man neatly sidestepped the vicious blow
and chattered on. ‘Why should I bother?’ he beamed smugly.
‘Their report will reach the Alliance any moment and then you
will no longer be a Prince of the Cyrrhenic Empire and a
conquering hero—you’ll be a common criminal just like us.’

For a full minute the Graff could only utter incoherent and
meaningless exclamations. Then he stamped away to a safe
distance waving his arms at his assembled Guards. ‘Execute...
Execute theml’ he shrieked through pale frothing lips.

Instantly the Levithians formed themselves into a firing
squad. During Garron’s exchange with the raging Prince, the
Doctor had managed to manoeuvre the dog whistle out of his
trouser pocket and blow an urgent summons to K9. He was just
shoving the whistle back through the join in his borrowed
armour when he saw the Graff glance suspiciously at him.
Hurriedly he took up his position and charged his laser.

But it was too late. Already the Graff Vynda Ka was striding
towards him with gauntlets raised. ‘Why are you so slow?’ the
Graff screamed frenziedly, ignoring Garron’s insolent smile as
he clung to his dazed accomplice in front of the humming laser-spears.

The entire execution squad turned to stare at their
reprimanded comrade. But before the Doctor could speak a
gargantuan Shriveneale burst out of one of the tunnels and
scuttled into the centre of the cavern, sparks crackling from its
scrabbling claws and from its lashing tail. As its deafening roars
rocked the huge subterranean vault, deep fissures opened up
and spread in all directions wath ear-splitting detonations. The
roof of the cavern began to buckle and disintegrate, hurling
showers of jagged splinters down onto the flailing beast.

Sholakh strode forward yelling the order to stand firm and
counter-attack. In the pandemonium Garron and Unstolfe were
forgotten as the Levithians discharged fusillade after fusillade at
the savage reptilian monster bearing down on them, its jaws
scything and gnashing with each lunge of its dragon’s head.
Thick clouds of acrid black smoke filled the cavern as the
creature’s hide began to melt under the relentless
bombardment, and dust and rocks flew everywhere as the
shuddering roof broke up.

The Graff Vynda Ka seemed immune from danger as he
stood among his Guards screaming orders and gesturing
defiantly with clenched gauntlets at the raging beast. Around
him the cries of the Levithians were barely audible in the uproar
as they were seized in twos and threes and mangled in the
Shrivenzale’s merciless jaws, before being tossed like rag-dolls to
lie smashed and trampled in the semi-darkness.

Eventually the Shrivenaale began to retreat, dragging itself
from under the colossal slabs of falling rock, its hide a twisted
tacky mess of molten and perforated scales and one of its huge
eyes reduced to a smouldering blackened crater. As it backed
away towards the tunnel, Sholakh rallied his gravely depleted
ranks, their arms shaken by the throbbing lasers and their
armour ripped and battered into scrap. When at last the beast
had disappeared and all that remained was the raucous echo of
its whimpering, scarcely half a dozen guards were left to cluster
faithfully round their Commander and their Prince.

Not far away, Romana was listening to the nearby battle while
the tunnel creaked around her like the ropes and timbers of a
ship in a gale, and it seemed to her as if the entire Catacombs
were undergoing some cataclysmic upheaval. The tunnel was
filling with smoke and dust and despite K9’s powerful
radiaprobe beam, she could hardly see more than a metre or two
in front of her.

‘What is happening?’ she shouted, brushing the grit out of
her watering eyes and choking on the thick fumes.

‘I detect considerable seismic activity, mistress,’ K9 replied
faintly.

Romana immediately groped her way towards the metallic
voice. ‘I know that,’ she cried impatiently. ‘But what is causing
it?’

Suddenly she found herself flying through the air. She
landed heavily on the vibrating floor of the tunnel and stared up
into K9’s softly glowing eyes. ‘Why did you stop?’ she demanded
rubbing her badly chafed shins.

‘In order to reconcile our respective velocities, mistress,’ K9
replied smartly.

Romana scrambled painfully to her feet. ‘I am perfectly
capable of keeping up with you,’ she retorted. ‘Negative,
mistress...’ K9 began to argue.

‘Don’t contradict me, just tell me what is ‘ Romana was cut
short by a deafening whiplash. The tunnel suddenly started to
twist and buckle, throwing them violently around.

Covering her head with her arms, Romana crouched against
the metal casing of K9 as sharp splinters and small boulders
began to fly around them. Gradually larger and larger sections
of the tunnel collapsed with a grinding roar, and it seemed that
it would be only a matter of seconds before they were buried
beneath a torrent of shattered rock...

As soon as Sholakh had given the order to ceasefire he rushed
over to the Graff Vynda Ka who was still standing like a statue,
oblivious of any danger, his fanatical gaze fixed on the tunnel
into which the Shrivenzale had retreated.

‘Back, Highness! Back!’ he cried, grabbing his master’s arm
and pointing to the groaning roof above them.

‘Victory, Sholakh. A glorious victory,’ the Graff murmured,
turning to his Commander with mad, glazed eyes. ‘And this is
but the beginning...’

‘The roof, Highness,’ Sholakh yelled, desperately dragging
the Levithian Prince towards the safety of one of the tunnel
mouths where the Seeker was kneeling, her arms and head
thrown back and her face a macabre grinning mask.

Just as Sholakh pushed his master into the protection of the
tunnel entrance, the roof of the cavern collapsed with a roar and
he was pinned helplessly under a huge slab of rock. In the
choking darkness, pierced only by one or two pencils of light
from torches dropped by the half-buried Guards, screams rang
out and then died away. Then a threatening silence filled the
shattered cavern.

Desperately the Graff Vynda Ka struggled to free Sholakh,
but he could not budge the massive slab. Sholakh twisted his
body from side to side in agony, desperately trying to speak.

‘No... no, Highness... Leave me... Leave me...’ he moaned.

‘Never. Sholakh, never,’ the Graff murmured, redoubling
his futile efforts. ‘You have never deserted me, Sholakh. I shall
never desert you.’

Sholakh spat the welling blood out of his mouth. ‘Highness...
the Jethryk... the Jethryk...’ he croaked, his eyes rolling and his
hands shaking in violent spasms.

‘Ah yes, the Jethryk...’ the Graff breathed hoarsely,
feverishly yanking at the clips securing one of the pouches to
Sholakhs belt. The Levithian Commander shuddered in pain as
his master roughly worked the pouch out from under his
crushed legs.

No sooner had the Graff freed it than he spun round at a
sudden movement behind him. One of his crack Levithian
Guards stood there at attention.

‘Here... help me,’ he ordered. The Guard marched forward.

‘It is too late,’ the Seeker croaked from the shadows.
Sholakh is dead.’

With a gasp the Graff dropped the heavy pouch and turned
back to his faithful Commander: Sholakh’s eyes stared
unseeingly up at him.

While the Graff knelt there with his head bowed in silent
grief, the Guard quietly picked up the pouch and opening it,
checked that the nugget of Jethryk was indeed intact. Then with
deftly rapid movements he closed the pouch and waited.

With a sigh the Graff roused himself from his brief vigil.
Gently he prised open Sholakh’s hand and removed the purse
containing the one million gold opeks from his death grasp.
Slowly he rose to his feet.

‘We shall avenge you, Sholakh,’ he cried dramatically,
raising his hand in farewell. ‘We shall bombard this filthy planet
until nothing remains to show that it ever existed...’

With that the Graff Vynda Ka motioned the Guard to
accompany him. He gave the grinning Seeker a sharp kick:
‘Lead us back to the Hall of the Dead,’ he shouted, sending her
scrambling into the tunnel ahead of them.

Watching the Graff’s every move through the narrow eye
slits of his helmet, the Doctor marched stiffly beside the
Levithian Prince, clutching the pouch containing the Jethryk
tightly under his arm. Whenever he had the chance, he took out
the dog whistle and blew a hurried blast unnoticed by the Graff.
At last the Segment was in his possession, or so he hoped. But
what had happened to Romana and K9?

On the far side of the enormous cavern beyond the massive
rock-fall from the roof, two dust-covered figures lay huddled.
After a long time one of them stirred and uttering exaggerated
groans began to tug at the limp arm of his companion.

‘Come on, Garron. Come on,’ Unstoffe urged, stumbling in
the jagged debris scattered around them. The bulky prostrate
figure opened its eyes. ‘Am I dead yet?’ Garron enquired
plaintively.

Unstoffe managed to drag his portly associate upright.
Garron gave an agonised moan and hopped about dramatically.

‘Lousy shots... they got me in the foot,’ he whimpered.

Unstoffe clutched his own injured shoulder. ‘I’m the one
who got shot at,’ he retorted. ‘You just got trodden on by a
falling pebble when the roof fell in.’

Garron stood still and stared around. ‘Oh, is that all?’ he
exclaimed sarcastically. ‘So now we’re buried alive, eh?’

Unstoffe nodded despairingly.

Garron pulled the Locatormutor Core out of his belt. ‘I
think I’d rather be dead, my boy.’ he muttered gloomily. ‘Do
you think we could commit suicide with this gadget?’

Unstoffe suddenly motioned him to be quiet. They listened.
Faint knocking sounds were coming from a huge mound of
rocks where one of the tunnel mouths had been blocked by the
roof-fall. Unstoffe seized a small boulder and, gritting his teeth
against the pain in his shoulder, began to beat on the jagged
stones, stopping every few seconds to listen for any sign of a
respcnse.

Trapped in the blocked tunnel, Roma. was struggling to
elect a way through the mass of fallen rock, but she was unable
to budge even the smallest of the jagged lumps of flint. Her
lungs bursting with the effort and her hands stinging with
painful gashes from the sharp stones, she soon gave up the
hopeless task. She slumped wearily against the buckled tunnel
wall and wiped the thick dust out of her eyes and mouth.

‘It’s no good K9. There’s no way we can get through,’ she
murmured in despair.

Just then there was a faint but unmistakable knocking
sound. Romana held her breath. K9 swivelled his antennae in
the direction of the regular tapping and then trundled quickly
up to the rock-fall.

‘Protect your audio-receptors, mistress,’ he advised her.

Romana backed away and put her hands up over her ears as
requested. The bright light emitted by K9’s radiaprobe suddenly
dimmed to a faint glow, and a piercing high-pitched whine
ripped through the gloom. Romana felt a sickening, rapid
throbbing begin to pulse relentlessly through her body and the
sensation became so violent that she feared she would be shaken
to pieces. She opened her month to cry out but the vibrating air
stifled her like an invisible gag.

With a soundless scream she crashed to the ground in a
dead faint as K9’s powerful ultrasonic beam split the mass of
rock asunder and quickly reduced it to a huge heap of shingle.

Garron and Unstoffe looked on in amazement as the
gigantic mound of rock by the cavern wall gradually
disintegrated into small fragments. They were even more
astonished when a few moments later, Romana appeared
through the settling dust and crunched down the shingly slope
towards them.

‘Ah, there you are, my dear,’ Garron beamed, ‘I can’t tell
you how delighted I am to see you again. I’ve been searching
everywhere for you and...’ Garron paused and followed
Romana’s icy stare down to the Locatormutor Core he was still
holding. ‘I wanted to give you this,’ he went on with oily
politeness. ‘You dropped it.’

Romana smiled coldly. ‘You know, you could be extremely
useful in the slips,’ she retorted, easing the Core out of Garron’s
clammy grasp. She switched it on and held it out in front of her,
turning slowly in a circle until she found the position which
produced the most continuous signals.

The direction indicated lay over the mound of pulverised
rock and back into the tunnel where Romana had been trapped
and where K9 was patiently waiting for her.

‘The First Segment...’ Romana breathed, starting back over
the shifting mound towards the tunnel. Garron waddled forward
clearing his throat noisily. ‘Let me carry that for you. You look
rather pale and faint, my dear,’ he proposed. Unstoffe cast his
eyes upward in despair at Garron’s lack of subtlety and nudged
his associate sharply.

Romana totally ignored them and disappeared over the top
of the mound of pulverised rock into the tunnel beyond. leaving
the two indignant swindlers to scramble awkwardly and
anxiously after her.

In the innermost depths of the Hall of the Dead, sursounded by
the bones of their ancestors, the Shrieves had set up a huge
ancient cannon no that its gaping muzzle pointed directly at the
entrance to the Catacomb labyrinth. The Captain of the
Shrievalty barked orders continuously as he supervised the
loading of the primitive but enormous weapon with boulders
and heavy iron projectiles. When the sweating nervous Shrieves
had rammed the shot tightly into position, he personally primed
the touch hole with powder and then made final adjustments to
the aim and range, sighting carefully along the thick ornate
barrel.