Doctor Who: Engines of War Read Free Page A

plain, white lozenges with an outer shell of living metal that could morph into shields, or any number of predetermined gun emplacements. The TARDISes scattered, shooting off in a hundred different directions as the Daleks attempted to reverse their course, coming about to face the enemy who had so easily outflanked them.
    Time torpedoes launched in a wave, a score of them finding their mark and freezing their targets, trapping them in a temporal holding pattern, a locked second from which the saucers could not escape. The Dalek ships bloomed into silent balls of flame as the Time Lords followed up with a volley of explosive rounds.
    The Daleks weren’t backing down, however, and as the Doctor’s TARDIS burst through the surface of another saucer, sending it spinning toward one of the planets below, they managed to set loose their own first volley, detonating TARDISes with every strike.
    The Doctor watched as the dying time ships blossomed, their interior dimensions folding out into reality, unfurling like violent flowers to swell to their true size before burning up in the vacuum. His fingers danced across the controls and the TARDIS danced away, just as the Dalek ships spat a second volley.
    ‘Phase!’ he bellowed over the communications rig, and the Time Lords did as he commanded, their TARDISes blinking suddenly out of existence. They appeared again a moment later, having leapt two seconds into the future to avoid the crackling beams of the Dalek weapons, which faded away harmlessly into space.
    Their return volley was far more effective, detonating countless Dalek saucers.
    ‘Retreat! Retreat!’ The chorus of Dalek voices, now diminished but still audible in the background, had changed. They were attempting to regroup, pulling back toward the Eye and using the wreckage of their fallen brethren as cover.
    ‘We’ve got them on the run, Doctor!’ called a satisfied female voice over the comm-link.
    ‘Stay with them!’ he replied. ‘Press the advantage.’
    The Time Lords, now outnumbering the Dalek vessels two-to-one, did precisely that, surging forward, some going high, others going low, trapping the retreating Daleks between them.
    The time torpedoes did their work, stuttering the Dalek retreat, and within seconds, space above the Tantalus Eye was filled with the wreckage of the remaining Dalek fleet.
    ‘Well done, Doctor,’ said the woman on the comm-link. She sounded jubilant. This was Captain Preda, Commander of the Fifth Time Lord Battle Fleet. ‘We led them on a merry dance indeed.’
    ‘Don’t count your victories too soon, Preda,’ replied the Doctor, his tone grim. ‘I’m not sure it’s over yet. There could be more of them, lurking in the shadow of those planets.’
    ‘Then let’s take a look,’ said Preda. The comm-link buzzed off, and the Battle TARDISes, assembling themselves into a spearhead formation, slid closer toward the Tantalus Eye.
    Warily, the Doctor fell in behind them, keeping an eye on his monitors.
    The ambush came without warning. There was no alarm, no indication that anything was awry, that they’d triggered some sort of trap. One second there was nothing, the next an armada of Dalek stealth ships had blinked out of the Vortex.
    The Doctor had seen these ships only a handful of times before – sleek, ovoid vessels of the purest black, devoid of the usual winking lights that typically marked a Dalek saucer, and twice as dangerous. They were a recent and unwelcome development. They were said to sit in the Time Vortex like spiders at the heart of a web, detecting the vibrations of passing TARDISes. Only then would they make themselves known, shimmering into existence to catch the Time Lords unaware.
    It was elegant and deadly and – the Doctor realised – Preda and her fleet had just been caught in their web.
    The Time Lords had no time to react. Not a single one was able to dematerialise before the Dalek weapons cracked them open like tin cans, spilling their insides