Doctor Who: Timelash Read Free Page A

system to go through the short night.
    Katz flicked her long blonde hair from her face, stirring the embers of a primitive camp fire. The light and warmth below the surface were welcome accoutrements to the resistance fighters who knew the dancing flames served one other purpose. To frighten away the life form that occasionally preferred a carnivorous diet. The Morlox.
    Sezon joined Katz, placing his blaster rifle carefully on the ground. Sparks from the fireside reflected along the barrel of the well-kept weapon. Katz poured him a hot drink from a home-made receptacle which he consumed with relish. Each evening they would invariably end up meeting in front of the fire, on some occasions following a burial of a departed freedom fighter. They had agreed to take each day as it came, and never planned more than twenty-four hours ahead.
    ‘Storage tanks?’ suggested Sezon, between sips.
    ‘Too risky,’ said Katz, stretching out for the first time that day.
    ‘Time we showed them what we’re made of.’
    ‘They’d certainly see that, as they collect our bodies.’
    Sezon was rattled. He was not used to being challenged, especially by a woman. Inwardly he realised that Katz was not displaying fear, but his body sought conflict, and he needed to release his own hatred and revenge against the regime of the Borad.
     
    ‘Perhaps if we take a look first? Do a bit of planning.
    Hit them when they’re least expecting it.’
    Sezon had to smile at the fresh face of the pretty Karfelon. He admired her pluck, and the fact of who she was.
    ‘Okay, but what about the Morlox? We’ll have to cut across their territorial caves twice if we don’t hit the tanks first time round.’
    ‘Let’s just be careful,’ concluded Katz, closing her eyes and adjusting her position to make herself more comfortable on the rocky floor of the chilly cavern.
    Sezon got up. A sketchy plan for the following day had been made, and it was his turn on guard while Katz slept.
    He felt the two or three days of facial growth on his gritty face as he signalled all but one of the others to also get some rest, an instruction they did not need repeating. A fairly young group of fighters, once numbering thirty-five in total, they settled themselves for another rest before perhaps their last day of battle.
    Sezon took up his weapon and moved to the mouth of the cavern. He looked into the blackness of the underground tunnel taking up his position between two rocks. There in the emptiness before him appeared an expressionless face as it always did - an old bearded man with sharp Satanic eyes. The Borad.
     
    2

The Time Vortex
    Whenever circumstances became challenging, the Doctor seemed to change his attitude and general behaviour, so Peri observed. It annoyed her intensely and often drove her very nearly to the depths of despair.
    ‘Are you going to enlighten me, Doctor?’ she bellowed, as the Time Lord flitted from control to control with seemingly little concern for anything else. Then, rather reluctantly, he coyly lifted one bushy eyebrow and allowed his assistant a split second of eye to eye contact.
    ‘It’s a blessed Kontron Tunnel,’ he mumbled, then resumed his work at the humming controls.
    ‘Then it is serious,’ snapped Peri, trying to recapture his faint interest in her presence. The Doctor stopped and raised his head. He knew by Peri’s tone that it was time to offer more information or suffer the inevitable consequences of eternal nagging, something he could little tolerate, and worked to avoid at all costs.
    ‘In a nutshell, a Kontron Tunnel is a sort of time corridor in space, and we’re heading straight for it.’
    Hoping this would satisfy his helper’s insatiable thirst for knowledge, albeit temporarily, the Doctor dashed to the scanner to observe a dazzling collection of thin yellow bands forming the shape of a cylinder.
    ‘It’s there. just waiting for us. Rats in a trap. The attraction forces are too great ...’
    All this did