Chapter Eight

She followed him through, trying to close the door behind her.

'There's no time,' the Doctor cried, grabbing her wrist.

There was a sound like a heavy metal band testing their amps, ready for an open air concert. Even though she had been clutching her head, it left Benny's ears bleeding and unable to hear the screaming of the guards outside.

She stumbled after the Doctor, trying to remember how long it took a sonic cannon to power up between shots. She could hear it cycling up into audible frequencies.

The second blast smashing into the front of the building, shattering not just the glass but the stone and metal supports. They were aiming low, firing diagonally down right at the base of the building, she guessed, the place a lumberjack would aim his axe if the UNIT Building was a tree.

'Don't look back,' the Doctor screamed at her, pulling her through the office. She barely heard him, and was dizzy now. Had her inner ear been damaged by the blast?

The office had already been evacuated, so quickly that top secret information was still displayed on computer monitors. Outside, the entire facade of the building was sliding and crashing to the ground onto the bodies of those poor men on the pavement outside. It bought them a little time: the Martians would wait for the dust to settle before -

The third blast removed the armoured doorway along with the wall on which it was mounted. The desk, the plant pots and everything in the four storeys above the reception exploded or crashed down onto something that had exploded. The sonic cannon was cutting through the building like a loaf - hacking off slice after slice. It was as savage as it was methodical. Clouds of dust raced past her, as though they too were trying to escape.

As they passed through the door on the back wall, the next blast caught the office, obliterated everything within it. There was a terrible wrenching sound as tonnes upon tonnes of cracked and brittle masonry plummeted through the ceiling. Benny's back was pelted by tiny pieces of rubble.

The next blast would catch up with them. That was Benny's first thought. The second was that the room they were in now was a landing, with a broad stairway and a lift shaft. The Doctor was brandishing the sonic screwdriver. The thick lift doors slid open.