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Disinfectant and charred wood.
Ace was facing him before she knew she had turned.
Her hands were striking out at his chest, pushing him
away.
I said shut up! she screamed. You betrayed the Doctor,
you betrayed me. I trusted you I even liked you and all
the time...
Ace turned her back on him, she couldn t look at him
any more. Her shoulder hurt. On the table in front of her
was a stack of metal boxes. Danger, High Explosives was
stencilled along their sides, in yellow letters. She reached
out for the top box.
Sergeant Smith. It was Gilmore.
Mike mumbled something in reply.
Attention! Gilmore shouted at parade ground volume.
Ace s hand faltered on its way to the box. She turned to
look back.
Mike stood rigidly to attention, Group Captain Gilmore
was beside him, face impassive. Behind the group captain
stood an armed corporal.
Sergeant Smith, said Gilmore, I am placing you under
close arrest under suspicion of offences contrary to the
Official Secrets Act. The corporal moved forward. You
will surrender your weapon.
Mike handed over his submachine-gun.
Dismissed.
Mike s salute was crisp and formal, but Gilmore ignored
it. Mike turned and followed the corporal out. Ace could
see pain on the group captain s face and then she too
looked away.
Imperial scout Dalek seven shot down the street at thirty
kilometres an hour. Its overpowered motor lifted its fairing
two centimetres above the primitive road surface. Sensor
signals fanned out from the bulb housings on its torso. The
creature inside rushed headlong through a world of
enhanced sensory impression.
Three metres behind and left, scout eight ran back-up
position.
They were eight minutes out from the landing zone,
clearing the central route for the warriors of section two.
The street terminated in a T-junction. Blue light flashed at
the Dalek s base as scout seven increased power to the
motor and skipped the curb, crabbing sideways as the
engine strained to compensate for the ninety degree turn to
the right. There was a noisy electronic protest as the
engineering controls red-lined.
Scout eight took the corner more sedately, pirouetting
to cover the left-hand street with its gunstick. Scout seven
wound down the power and scanned the area ahead. The
street was clear of life or power emissions. Ahead it ran
under a bridge, creating a long lightless tunnel.
Scout seven raised the shuttle commander on the VHF
link. Scout seven reporting area 25 09 clear.
Shifting its vision to infra-red, scout seven moved
forward.
In the darkness the renegade warriors were waiting. They
were veteral campaigners, their battle computers old with
experience. Every stratagem, every tactic learned on a
thousand worlds was captured in prisms of crystal.
Now they waited, powered down, with baffles deployed
to mask their emission signature. Remote sensors deployed
in the street beyond the tunnel pinpointed the position of
the approaching imperial scouts and fed data to the
warrior s fire control units.
Their orders were to hold off the imperial Daleks, even
at the cost of their own destruction. They would do this
thing and sacrifice themselves without question.
They were Daleks.
The attack came as a blizzard of electromagnetic static.
Electronic countermeasures pods twinned with the remote
sensors attacked scout seven through its sensor pods. The
wave of static crashed over the sensitive instruments
causing feedback to lash up the data bus and into the Dalek
proper. Scout seven went blind in a microsecond. At the
same time, machine code instructions hidden inside the
random noise laid siege to the processors that regulated the
Dalek s life support. The internal systems fought back,
defence subroutines attempted to locate the intruder
program and eliminate it. They failed. The program was
in. Front that moment on scout seven began to die. Rogue
commands from the intruder program voided food and
waste tanks into the life chamber. The creature inside
drowned.
The blaster bolt that blew away its top half was little
more than a coup de grace.
The imperial Dalek shuttle commander checked the
updates on the fighting. Advance scouts had encountered
renegade warriors in prepared positions. Battle projections
indicated that both the northern and southern routes
would be costly to force. The central route was equally well
defended, but was the shortest to the renegade base.
The shuttle commander reached a decision. Sections
one and three would attack along the north and south
flanks as planned. Section two was to clear the preliminary
positions on the centre, while section four moved into
position for a final assault. The Abomination would be
held in reserve.
The shuttle commander issued its orders over the
command net. Section four formed into an attack phalanx
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