Chapter 8
How long do we have before the Master strikes again?” Bond asked.
“He will need to gather energy for his laser screwdriver,” the Doctor said. “And he will be unable to do much magic for a while because I drained the chest plate making it risky to do much. He’ll also be adjusting to his new body and that can sometimes take a little while. We should be able to move next.”
As he said that alarms went blared out throughout the complex, disturbing the calm,
“Unless he gets some help,” the Doctor muttered meekly.
Mycroft went to the phone on the wall and picked it up.
“This is Mycroft.”
“Mercenaries,” Sherlock said under his breath. “And stupid ones, footsoldiers no doubt.”
“What?” Harry asked.
“Think about it. He can’t attack us himself so what does he do? He sends someone else to attack us. He doesn’t have allies, and he can’t trust anyone because he’ll want to keep these M space revelations to himself so what does he do?” Sherlock said.
“He calls in mercenaries,” Bond said. “Types who won’t ask questions, who won’t be able to detect or react to the hidden agenda.”
“Ones who wouldn’t know M space,” Emma said.
“Ogrons,” the Doctor said.
As he said there was a loud explosion coming from above them.
“Air defences just shot at an alien craft entering the atmosphere suddenly, unidentified,” Mycroft said. “We need to get you out of here; we can’t afford to lose either the Doctor or Mr. Potter.”
“Such brotherly affection I’m blushing,” said Sherlock but he still moved to remove instruments from Harry.
“Ow,” Harry said. “Careful.”
“We might be better staying put,” the Doctor said. “If that’s an Ogron chaos cruiser it won’t have fired back but it will have launched pods and all of those pods are about...”
An indistinguishable number of smaller explosions appeared to be coming from all around them,
“...to impact the building,” the Doctor finished as he sprung out his sonic screwdriver. “This place is about to be crawling with Ogrons.”
“Where’s the armoury?” asked Bond to Mycroft. “I need to get to it now.”
“Follow the blue signs,” Mycroft said to Bond who began running for the armoury. “Miss Peel, dearest brother...”
Both brothers smiled at the forced sarcasm but the Doctor could not help but wonder if it guarded a genuine affection.
“... guard this room.”
Mycroft walked briskly in the opposite direction to Bond.
“Miss Peel I am sure you are capable of protecting one room,” Sherlock said moving to follow his brother.
“Sherlock,” the Doctor said. “Whatever you find. I have seen humans do worse. I likely will again.”
Emma finished loading a pistol and aimed it at the door.
“If we are involved in the fighting,” Emma said. “Just stay behind me.”
“I may be without my wand,” Harry said climbing to his feet and strapping the chest plate to his chest that allowed him to safely use magic. “And wounded. But I am still a Potter, a Gryffindor, and a wizard. I will not be idle.”
“Great,” the Doctor said. “I’ll just stand behind both of you then.”
“There are spare guns behind you,” Emma said. “But I suspect it won’t be to either of your tastes.”
“Not anymore,” the Doctor said.
//
Bond had not been the only one to head to the armoury. As he rounded a corner he saw two dead creatures, Ogrons he presumed; thick skinned, sunken eyed, dim looking creatures that were larger than a man and looked strong. He noticed that he didn’t see any of his own species lying anywhere injured but saw singe marks on the walls and a rifle, that he had heard fired as he descended a stair case, still smoking.
As he momentarily pondered this his reflexes kicked in and he opened fire as another Ogron came round the corner. He did not stop at a single bullet but continued firing; perhaps treating Ogrons like humans who would be incapacitated after a single shot was why he could not see whomever had held the rifle that lay beside him. The Ogron took the impact of the first shots and was still beginning to turn his gun on Bond when one of the bullets struck him in the head and he fell to the ground.
“Aim for the head I guess,” Bond said picking up the rifle and working his way forward.
//
Sherlock watched Mycroft sneak into secret door using a nine digit code. Sherlock followed a little behind him and entered a slightly altered code before slipping through the door.
“Really Sherlock?” Mycroft said as soon as Sherlock got through the door. “You have to investigate? You can’t just for once not know?”
“Something to hide?” Sherlock asked. “And really, a simplistic rotation code? Are there any security measures that are any less banal?”
“It keeps most out. I know that if anyone can crack that they’ll likely crack anything else and anything more complicated will make people I want to be able to get in unable to do so. As for hiding well everything I do,” Mycroft turned and descended some stairs. “Is about having something to hide. Not everything that is hidden is hidden for ill intent.”
“Not in the eyes of the secret keepers,” Sherlock said.
As explosions rocked the place Mycroft swiped his card at another door and typed in a code.
“But if you really must insist on seeing.”
As the door opened Sherlock saw what looked to him like he had imagined a lunatic asylum to be. There were men and women; some in chairs, some in beds, others were wandering one way or another, all of whom were surrounded by doctors and nurses who were attempting to soothe them.
“Dr. Jones,” Mycroft said as a woman approached him. “I need to speak with them.”
“Right now?” she asked. “They aren’t at their best when there are explosions rocking the building. I’m not at my best and I haven’t...”
“I am aware of the emotional stress these men and women have gone through,” Mycroft said. “You have explained it to me many times.”
“Well I’m sure you can appreciate that right now it isn’t....”
“I am sure that you can appreciate that perhaps if the sky is falling in I don’t have time, now gather them together,” Mycroft spoke without raising his voice but his authority and determination were clear none the less. “Now please.”
Dr. Jones moved away and begun to ring a bell, the first in a series of bells that sat upon tables.
“What is this place?” asked Sherlock.
“Our library of other times and places,” Mycroft said. “Set up by a combination of UNIT and Torchwood in a timeline now alien to us. It was set up as a space out of time, using technology scavenged from a Dalek spaceship that in our timeline never crashed to Earth. It allows people within a certain space to remain immune to major changes within the timeline that constantly occur. It allows us to see what has been, what might have been and as the threats in the universe remain the same; it allows us to prepare for them.”
In a central area chairs were already laid out and the patients, or whoever they were, were being sat down by patient and sympathetic medical staff.
“But it does rather take a toll on sanity it seems,” Mycroft said. “It is a volunteer program entirely, and these people know the risks. Many simply think they won’t lose their minds, but invariably they all do. Most of the time they are happy and docile, with their families, even if their families still exist, thinking that they died in the most noble and heroic ways. Which, in many ways, is the truth.”
Dr. Jones finished ringing a final bell and set it down on a table and the room was as calm as Sherlock had seen it. He watched in morbid fascination as the men and women, some with bandages on them (from where they had injured themselves Sherlock could see) stood and put their hands together in a sort of prayer.
“For a little while we serve this land, for a little while we lend a hand,” they said together.
“Routine and ritual calms them,” Mycroft whispered to Sherlock. “And we can get something from them for a time.”
They sat in unison.
“Let me explain the situation.”
//
Bond, by now, had made it to just outside the armoury where several Ogrons had set up a defensive position. Bond had just round out bullets in the rifle and he had no more clips in his pistol, Ogron bodies lay behind him like breadcrumbs. He had tried to use the Ogrons’ weapons but they had failed to fire in his hands
An Ogron smashed its way out of a door right by him and Bond smashed the rifle butt into the Ogron’s head. The Ogron staggered backwards momentarily from a blow that would have killed a human instantly. Bond hooked his leg behind the Ogron and barrelled forward putting the Ogron on its back. Bond decided to take his chances with Ogron weaponry and grabbed hold of the Ogron’s hand, putting his entire weight onto the Ogron’s arm and forcing the weapon towards the Ogron. He pressed down on the trigger using the Ogron’s own weapon which caused it to fire into the Ogron. The Ogron disappeared and Bond slammed into the ground.
“Well at least I don’t need to aim for the head,” Bond said.
He looked up and saw an Ogron standing above him aiming his pistol down at him
“Oh...gron then, one more,” Bond said charging forward at the Ogron’s legs and being thrown down the corridor by the
Ogron’s powerful muscles.
Bond knew there were at least two Ogrons behind him and one ahead of him from where he lay. He leapt to his feet and feigned an injury in his leg, screaming in agony, before throwing himself at a wall as beams from the Ogrons weapons went passed where he had stood. Two ogrons killed each other in crossfire and he was left, grounded, with one final Ogron aiming its gun at him. Bond kicked off his shoe and flicked it in the air and the beam from the Ogron’s shot disintegrated it but no further.
“See,” Bond said at the confused Ogron. “A bullet would just have gone through it.”
Bond slid along the floor before rolling to his feet, grabbing a spend ammo case from the floor and jamming it into the
Ogron’s eye.
“I think there’s something,” Bond said grabbing the gun in the Ogron’s hand as he had done before and firing. “In your eye.”
Bond headed into the armoury.
//
Up in the sickbay Emma Peel was holding back Ogrons who were approaching from each direction.
“They seem to all be coming here,” Emma said firing Ogron pistols in both directions.
“Try to conserve your fire,” the Doctor said using his sonic screwdriver on another Ogron pistol. “These are isomorphic controls. It is not easy to trick any of them into accepting your DNA and they aren’t designed to just keep firing willy nilly.”
Emma fired down one corridor with both pistols.
“Doctor, if I don’t fire as often as I do then the Ogrons will be at this room in no time,” Emma said. “I can’t shoot nothing!”
As Emma said this she leapt from her cover firing multiple times in both directions before both of her pistols made pathetic winding down sounds.
“Well you’re about to,” the Doctor muttered hitting the Ogron gun. “Come on come on.”
Emma dove into cover as an Ogron fired its pistol down the corridor.
“It’s coming,” Emma said grabbing a stool.
“Get out of the way,” Harry said grabbing his broomstick. “Wait for the Doctor to have your pistol ready.”
“What are you going to do?” Emma asked. “Sweep them away?”
“Something like that yes,” Harry said.
