Dr Who New Adventures 51 Godengine, by Craig Hinton (v1.0) (pdf)

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began an inventory.
Falaxyr stood in front of the holographic cylinder, waiting
impatiently for his allies to respond. Despite the usefulness of
the alliance, the Grand Marshal hated to be kept waiting;
military success depended upon precision timing, and he
found it hard to believe that the new masters of Earth had
managed to carve out an empire when they couldn’t even reply
to an urgent communiqué promptly.
The cylinder suddenly began to sparkle.
‘Incoming transmission from Earth, Your Excellency,’ said
the technician redundantly. And then, without needing to be
told, he stepped away from the control panel and left the
communications suite.
The image resolved, and Falaxyr stared at the holographic
form of his ally.
‘Report,’ it intoned.
Falaxyr repressed a sigh of irritation. Even when he made
the first move, the invaders always took the credit. If the
stakes weren’t so high, he would have dissolved the alliance
months ago. Unfortunately, Falaxyr needed them – for the
time being, that was.
‘My technical staff report that the Ssor-arr duss Ssethissi
approaches completion, Commander.’ No such report existed;
the device was little closer to becoming operational than it had
been when Falaxyr had first contacted the invaders a year ago.
But the Grand Marshal knew the importance of keeping his
allies interested; and besides, the presence of the human
scientists made true completion of the Ssor-arr duss Ssethissi
a very real possibility. He decided to take a calculated risk.
‘At the current rate of progress, Commander, the Ssor-arr
duss Ssethissi will be operational in less than a year.’
The Commander stared back impassively from the cylinder.
‘Progress reports are of no value, Grand Marshal. Your
excuses and delays are irrelevant. Our only concern is the
GodEngine. Unless you fulfil your obligations, it will be
necessary for us to oversee the project directly.’
The cylinder emptied, leaving only the threat behind.
Falaxyr shook his head. These invaders lacked the passion for
war; they were soulless machine creatures whose conquest of
the galaxy was due to nothing more than a set of logical
imperatives. The GodEngine – a cold, unfeeling translation of
Ssor-arr duss Ssethissi – was nothing more than a single
equation in the positronic net of their battle computer. There
had been no threat from the Commander, only a statement of
fact. Unless Falaxyr could present them with a demonstration
of the GodEngine, they would annex Mars without hesitation.
His mood growing fouler by the second, Falaxyr left the
communications suite, his purple robes sweeping behind him.
Until recently, he had left the day-to-day management of the
technicians to his adjutant, Draan, deciding that such matters
were beneath a Grand Marshal of the Eight-Point Table. But
the remarkable lack of progress had finally prompted Falaxyr
to take action.
According to Hoorg, the lead scientist on the project, the
GodEngine should have been operational six months ago.
Unfortunately, he lacked the knowledge of subspace
engineering necessary to locate the exact reason why this was
not actually true, and Falaxyr couldn’t really blame him. Mars
had only started pursuing subspace technology in earnest when
they realized that their lack of it put them at a strategic
disadvantage compared with the humans. As thousands of
troops poured onto the surface of Mars through subspace
Transit tunnels from Earth, the Eight-Point Table had
sequestered the cream of the Martian intelligentsia and set
them to work at the North Pole, where ancient alien
technology offered a possible solution.
Unfortunately, the war had ended in defeat before the Ssor-
arr duss Ssethissi could be completed – indeed, before it could
really be started – and the majority of the scientific elite had
subsequently been reassigned to the exodus project. When
Falaxyr had gone into hiding, he had only been able to take a
handful of scientists with him.
Over the last seventy years, the collection of scientists –
overseen by Falaxyr and bullied by Draan – had obeyed the
Eight-Point Table’s last direct order. Despite the conquest of
Mars, despite the exodus to Nova Martia, the GodEngine was
still to be completed. Because, once operational, it would
finally give the Martians the bargaining power they had lost
when humankind had raped their world.
The opportunity had finally presented itself in the form of
the invaders. They were willing to pay highly for the use of
the GodEngine, and that payment would justify the seven
decades of isolation.
Unfortunately, they wanted a fully functional GodEngine,
not the temperamental and unreliable device that was all that
Falaxyr had to show for seventy years’ work. It was clear that
Falaxyr needed external help; and the presence of the invaders
on Earth and their subspace blockade made this somewhat
problematical.
And then, some months ago, Hoorg had detected subspace
emissions from the moon of distant Pluto. Falaxyr consulted
his intelligence reports and was pleasantly surprised to
discover that Charon housed a research base, the last bastion
of subspace technology in a solar system which had all but
abandoned the idea. From the readings, Hoorg suggested that
the base was attempting to bore a stunnel through the
invaders’ jamming field. And then Hoorg had made another
suggestion. Under other circumstances, Falaxyr would have
had him disciplined for not following the normal chain of
command, but the suggestion was a remarkable one.
The jamming field was extremely effective, but posed no
hindrance whatsoever to the unparalleled might of the
GodEngine. And although the device wasn’t fully operational,
it would still act as a powerful subspace attractor. And so
Falaxyr had given his orders.
When the scientists had made their final – and finally
successful – attempt to breach the blockade (and Falaxyr had
ensured that they did by informing the invaders of the
continued presence of humans on Charon; the invaders’
response had been immediate and totally predictable) the
GodEngine had been more than capable of seizing the stunnel
and dragging the end-point to Mars. It hadn’t taken long for
the survivors of Charon to make their presence known to
Falaxyr, and their obvious interest in the GodEngine was a
direct vindication of his plan. His thin lips formed a cruel
smile.
As the Grand Marshal entered the GodEngine Chamber, his
mood was far more positive than it had been earlier. Despite
the incompetence of his own scientific staff, it looked like the
two Earth women would deliver the GodEngine to him.
Which, considering the reason why the Daleks wanted the
GodEngine, was the ultimate irony.
Chapter 7
Aklaar held up his .clamps to stop the party, although that
wasn’t really necessary: they were approaching a solid rock
face which McGuire suspected was another bloody irritating
trap. The idea that they could only reach the North Pole with
the Greenies’ help was gnawing at him, although not as much
as he would have thought. ‘What’s the problem now?’ he
groaned. The corridor had no other obvious means of passage,
although ‘obvious’ was not a word he associated with
Martians – they were too damned secretive for their own good.
The Abbot gestured to the face, a barrier of blurred and
molten rock that was obviously artificial. It wasn’t completely [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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