Free Doctor Who: Drift by Simon A. Forward Page A

staring straight back at her but something else blocked his view. Their guru had lost it. All that hair on his face, he was starting to look like some Neanderthal raw recruit.
    „Emilie? Where were you? I was - we opened the gateway, Emilie, it‟s wide open! But they cheated us. They betrayed us! They didn‟t want us to join them - they wanted to cross over! And now they‟re here, they‟re here, they‟re here, they‟re here.‟ The great man laughed like a frightened kid, then trembled uncontrollably. „And what they are - oh God, what they are!‟
     
    Mitch wanted to say something, snap him out of it. But Jacks was in command, just about.
    She shook him hard to beat the tremors. „Crayford! How can we have opened the gateway? I‟ve got the key here!‟ She tugged at the left strap of her backpack. „We found it. It‟s the real thing, Crayford. Genuine United States Air Force ET hi-tech - and it‟s ours! Everything you dreamed of, everything you saw, it‟s right here in this pack! You can‟t have opened any gateway. This is the key right here, has to be!‟
    „Then close it. Use it to close the gateway, Emilie.‟
    For the first time Crayford was actually looking at and seeing Emilie. And that, for Mitch, was scarier than when he‟d been out of it.
    „We can stop them. We can stop them sending any more.
    The Army can‟t stop them. No, the Army - the Army,‟ he yanked at Emilie‟s coat, trying to bring her down to his level,
    „the Army is too busy hunting me. They brought a Psi with them, Emilie. She touched my mind. They‟ll find me. They‟ll find all of us and they‟ll finish us before we can stop them.‟
    Jacks swallowed on a bad taste. Suddenly she shoved Crayford off and smacked him hard, a man‟s punch. Mitch blinked. Crayford squirmed in the snow, squirting blood from his nose.
    „What did you just do?‟
    „If he wants to run so bad,‟ determined Jacks, hypnotised by the sidewinder rhythms of the fallen man, „he can carry on. The Army must have hit us and this one cracked like an egg. We‟re going to pay them back. You and me, Mitch.‟
    Mitch Lagoy was the one with the bad taste now.
    Commanders‟ speeches were supposed to be inspirational.
    „You just knocked Crayford Boyle on his ass! And now you want to take on the Army?‟
    Jacks didn‟t like that: she turned on him, and her wild glare drove him back a pace. „That,‟ she wasn‟t satisfied until her face was right into his, „isn‟t Crayford Boyle any more. I don‟t know what that is, but it‟s all finished. We are finished.
    Our dream, our mission. It‟s over, Mitch. ‟ She never called him Mitch.
     
    She left him then, spinning around and ripping herself free of the pack. She chucked it onto the writhing pile at her feet.
    „We won‟t be needing this any more. Total waste. Time we were leaving, Lagoy.‟ When the bitch finally looked his way, she was evil on fire.
    „We should tidy up before we go.‟
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Five
     
     
    Clad in her overwhites, Leela was looking forward to being at one with the landscape. This first stage of the hunt was not about stealth though. It was about speed. For Leela, it was also about hanging on in fear for her life.
    She rode with her arms anchored around Kristal‟s waist.
    The vehicle ploughed along, churning up the snows like mushy paper, the sky and trees zipping by in flashes. Her limbs were taut, and the engine sent powerful vibrations through her calf and thigh muscles. Despite the goggles, Leela felt the full blast of wind in her lace whenever she peered over Kristal‟s shoulder, and yet she felt a frequent need to keep looking. The fierce noise and the occasional bump did nothing to ease her fears.
    „How much further?‟ she tried to shout in Kristal‟s ear, but her driver did not hear her.
    Ahead and behind, other members of Kristal‟s squad rode more of these dumpy little monsters. The Captain had allowed seven of the snowmobiles for the hunt, so