The Forgotten Army (20 page)

Commander Strebbins's features abruptly twisted into a contemptuous sneer. 'Go ahead and shoot,' she said.

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Strebbins spread her arms out in front of her. Totally defenceless. The easiest target Oscar had ever been given.

Oscar didn't know what to do. The sight of surrender stunned him. He would need the stab of self-belief to be able to pull the trigger, and it was deserting him.

Then Strebbins took her hat off, revealing the Vykoid beneath. 'Shoot me, shoot her, take your pick,' the tiny creature shouted.

Oscar was appalled to see the tiny troll lording it over Commander Strebbins. He felt the rage building back up inside him. The Vykoid was apparently finding it so easy.

'There are hundreds of us.’ the little figure taunted. 'What difference does it make if one of us dies. We'll still take your people.'

This was the extra push he needed, and Oscar began to squeeze the trigger. Then stopped. In training, Oscar had shot dozens of silhouettes and dummies. He was well practised in raising his gun to threaten or to silence. It was a way of establishing power, not doling out justice. In his time as a police officer he'd never fired a furious bullet. The anger inside him felt wrong. He was part of law enforcement. Not the law itself.

Commander Strebbins lifted her head, and looked Oscar in the eye. 'We took your city, without a life being lost. Now I see why!' She began to laugh.

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'You're a coward. Just like the rest of your stinking, lumbering race.'

At this, Oscar tightened his grip on his gun. 'Don't say that. Stop laughing!'

But Strebbins's scorn increased. 'Look at you, all uniform and protocol and swagger. But you can't execute me. You need to see someone's back before you shoot. That's the problem with you big clumsy beasts. Too occupied with the small picture.'

Oscar met Strebbins's mocking gaze. The blood throbbed in his head, and his ears were ringing with adrenalin. He wanted to do the right thing. But what was it? What should he do? Whatever was on her head, Strebbins was a person and she'd done nothing wrong. She'd be an innocent casualty.

He lowered the gun, and shut his eyes, waiting for the Vykoids to come and take him.

Not content to stay at home when all the action was out on the streets, Polly had taken her class and broken in through the basement entrance of Trump Tower. They'd climbed up the service stairs, and smashed their way onto the roof. Now, lying on her belly on the roof, Polly could see the madness of the city below.

On every cross street, a line of police officers marched forwards, herding confused and scared New Yorkers in front of them. Riding on top of an armoured vehicle, Commander Strebbins broadcast

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to the crowds with a loudhailer, her words becoming clearer as she drew closer.

'... terrorists on the streets ... bombs in the Subway ... need to stay out in the open ... Every building is sealed until we can be sure that the threat has passed. Until then, we ask that you remain in the open. Please give law enforcement officers your full cooperation, we will keep you informed of any developments. There are terrorists on the streets of New York...'

Polly was struck dumb by the magnitude of what was happening. How had her fellow New Yorkers become so scared of the unseen that they followed the most bizarre commands without protest? Did everyone think deep down that they deserved to be scared?

From so high above, the city looked like a colony of ants was being steamed out into the open. Black dots converged on Broadway from every street in New York. People seemed only too eager to follow the commands of Strebbins and her men - too focused on the unknown horror to realise what they were being asked to do.

Polly prayed for a miracle. The people she loved were being rounded up, and she couldn't do a thing to stop it. She watched as the crowds, only too happy to accept an unnamed threat, shuffled and gossiped as they marched into the Vykoid trap.

*

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And across New York, every radio station, every television programme, every possible means of communication broadcast the same message:

'Follow the police to safety. The invisible menace will not defeat us! New York will not surrender! Broadway is the nominated muster station until further notice. I repeat, Broadway is the only street to have been cleared of terrorist devices.'

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The mammoth clambered out of the Hudson onto Liberty Island and stood dripping beside the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Sam squeezed back into the head of the mammoth. 'What now?'

'We go up, close down the Time Freeze and stop them teleporting most of Manhattan into slavery.’ the Doctor replied.

'How do we do that?'

'Oh, just wait and see.'

'No, go on, tell me,' Sam asked. 'I've just swum the Hudson in an extinct animal. I think I can handle it.'

'He probably doesn't know yet,' Amy confided. 'Best not to ask.'

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'Winston Churchill.’ the Doctor said, to Amy's surprise.

'Winston always said he didn't want there to be a statue of him, because the pigeons would, you know, cover it in their mess. When he died, they built one anyway, and they did something extraordinary. They electrified it, so no bird would come near it.'

'Yeah? So what? We've got a city to save, don't start going all Simon Schama on me.'

'Look at this statue.' The Doctor tilted the mammoth's head back so they were staring right to the top of the Statue of Liberty. 'There's not a bird in sight. I don't think they cut the power. I think they've been using it.'

As soon as the Doctor had pointed it out, it seemed horribly obvious. Flocks of seagulls circled around the bay and turned away in the sky above Liberty Island as if they'd been shocked.

'What's it made of, Sam?' the Doctor asked.

'Steel and copper.'

"That.’ said the Doctor, 'is 240 tonnes of battery. Wow, when that thing discharges, New York is going to fry.'

'What do we do?' Amy asked.

'Same as before. Only, we don't touch anything.' The Doctor smiled. 'Right, 345 steps to the top. Come on - I'll race you.'

"That sounds like a pretty lame way to make an entrance, especially to the headquarters of an alien 226

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army.’ Amy commented, raising the mammoth's head again to scope out the statue. 'You know, I've got quite good on this thing...'

The Doctor broke into a huge grin. 'Go for it, Pond!'

Crashing through the ticket barriers, the monument that had welcomed so many immigrants since that first twelve million now admitted its first mammoth. Amy twisted and turned the animal on the steps. She was focused intently on her task, determined to get to the top as fast as possible.

Taking a corner too slowly, the mammoth grazed the inside of the Statue, and its fur started to smoke.

'Careful there!' the Doctor yelled.

'Thanks, Doctor,' Amy said sarcastically. 'Really helpful advice.'

At the top of the Statue, General Erik was watching their progress with disbelief. He didn't know what they were trying to achieve. Watching the crowds being squeezed onto Broadway, he dismissed the Doctor as no more than a distraction. A buzzing fly in his ear, which would soon be swatted.

With an enormous roar, the mammoth burst into the Crown Room of the Statue of Liberty, and was immediately hit with thousands of darts from the Vykoid guns.

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Inside, the Doctor frantically started to hit levers.

'Doctor, it's shutting down!' Amy cried.

'I noticed...'

Out of the right eye, she could see an intrepid Vykoid scaling the mammoth's front leg. It stopped at the knee and hit a tiny button behind the kneecap.

Unexpectedly, the entire lower half of the mammoth fell to the floor and, with a heavy bump, the Doctor, Amy and Sam landed in the middle of the room, surrounded by an elite squad of Vykoid soldiers.

The Doctor was spread-eagled under the belly of the beast. He managed to pull himself out from under it, only to trip on the wet and singed mammoth fur.

'So much for an entrance,' he murmured.

General Erik strode forward. As he raised his baton, the soldiers lowered their guns.

The Doctor seemed intrigued rather than intimidated.

'Ooh, you're still moving slowly. So we're not affected by the Time Freeze in here.'

'This is a Level Five planet. How do you know about the Time Freeze?' demanded General Erik.

The Doctor grinned. 'Oh, I know lots of things, me. Not hard to work out, really. One minute you're waddling about like miniature trolls, the next you're all Wily Coyote and thinking you're the masters of the universe.'

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'Correction, Doctor. The Vykoids are the race with the most refined technology of any attacking race. Now we have proven ourselves, our name shall spread throughout the galaxy and bring fear to the hearts of our enemies.'

'Nice speech! Must sound great in the War Rooms on Vykoid. Brilliant minds, but you guys miss the point sometimes. Like the reach of that secondhand teleport beam is only, what, thirty metres? You'd need to be very lucky to get what you want with that...'

'Or very clever.'

'True, that's also true. But I've noticed you keep waving that baton around like it's the answer to everything, and I think I know why.'

The Doctor grabbed at General Erik's hand and came away with the tiny baton. It was barely a centimetre long and covered with alien symbols.

'Reactions are a bit slow there, Erik. You've been relying on this Time Freeze thing for too long, you've got slack.'

'What is it, Doctor?' Amy asked.

'It's a remote control. Oh you are such a bloke, Erik, you just have to keep it where no one else can change the channel. Honestly, look at you here, hanging out with all your boys, polishing each other's armour all day long, waiting for the day you get to dominate another city. Still, no one gets to do much if I can do this.

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The Doctor took a needle out of his pocket and jabbed at three points on the baton. The vortex of green light changed to orange, and a huge wave rolled out across Manhattan.

'Now that's better. Isn't that clever? Unless your little people jockeys have got a bit faster, the police won't be moving quite as niftily any more. That's the problem with relying on modern technology, you see. Me, I just have a good old sonic— Oh.'

General Erik was grinning. He looked like an expert poker player who had picked too ignorant an opponent, and was disappointed by his lack of effort. 'Move, and I'll shoot her,' he said.

Sam Horwitz was holding a gun to Amy's head and was forcing her down onto the floor.

'No, Sam!' The Doctor was horrified.

As he held her tight, Amy could see that a tiny Vykoid had dug a control chair through Sam's messy hair and was gleefully controlling him. Sam had become a puppet of the Vykoid Army.

Amy kicked and struggled, her elbows digging into Sam as she tried to fight him off. But Sam overpowered Amy and pinned her to the floor.

General Erik strolled over and regarded Amy at her eye level.

'Oi, troll-face!' Amy yelled at him. Tell him to let go of me.'

General Erik ignored her. 'Fascinating... You're so important to him, and you don't know why.'

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'You better let go of me, or he's going to do something terrible to you...'

If General Erik was at all moved by Amy's big, fierce eyes, he didn't show it. Instead, he called his lieutenant forward and instructed him to kill Amy Pond.

On top of Trump Tower, Joe turned to Polly and asked: 'Will my dad be OK?'

Polly didn't know what to say.

Millie pulled at her hand. 'Shouldn't the Doctor be doing something now?'

Again, Polly was stumped. Far below, she could see that people were beginning to panic. The police were shoving the crowds along, truncheons drawn as they ordered everyone to cram onto Broadway. Polly could imagine how terrified they must feel down there. Squad cars were lining up on each cross street, lights flashing and sirens blaring. They had shut the city down, and no one knew why.

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Inside the Statue of Liberty, the Doctor and Amy had their hands tied and were taken from the Crown Room. As Sam dragged them out, Amy could see General Erik take his position at the window, ready to start transporting the people of New York to the asteroid mines.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Amy started on the Doctor.

'Why did you surrender?'

"They were going to kill you!'

'But you gave him back that remote control thing. There are millions of people out there!'

'Did I mention, he was going to shoot you?'

'I thought you'd do something clever.'

'Yeah, me saving you, that was the clever bit.

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Honestly, Amy, is being brave not good enough for you? I thought you'd be showering me in kisses.'