Chapter Fifteen

There was something rising into the air from inside the Tower.

'It's Xznaal,' he called out. 'Snipers - '

The Brigadier didn't finish the sentence. The sky pulsed.

'Take cov-'

The blast of energy slammed into the building behind him. Every pane of glass in the block shattered, the supporting walls burst open. The Brigadier grabbed Bambera and tugged her down, then pulled his hands over his head. They were thrown forwards, masonry and glass crashing around them.

Lethbridge-Stewart's earpiece crackled. 'T minus two minutes.' He could hear the words, so he was alive.

He pulled himself up, coughing and laughing. 'That was a close one. Is everyone OK?'

As the brick dust began to settle, he could make out Bambera on her hands and knees, shaking debris from her hair. Standing behind her were half a dozen soldiers, with machine guns.

They weren't his men. They were Provisional Government troops.

The hatchway dilated closed, and Xznaal stepped from the lift platform into the main hold. He had spent a week in the Tower, with its crude human attempts to replicate the temperature and humidity of Mars. The genuine Martian atmosphere tasted odd: too dry, not rich enough. It was dark here, dull Martian lighting simulating the conditions of his native world, and also the paucity of its energy reserves. All around were silos and cylinders full of raw materials brought from refineries and mines the length and breadth of this land. With the wealth of the Earth he could have rebuilt the Argyre. The diseases that racked the bodies and minds of his people would have been cured, there would have been food and fuel for all. He pictured Mars how it might have been: dry fountains running with water again, the zoos and parks teeming with life.

The ceiling above him clattered. The hold of the Martian ship was vast, large enough to contain the plunder from an entire military campaign. The pressurised vessel took up the entire roofspace. The Red Death was inside, impatient to start its work, possessed of an overwhelming urge to be released. Xznaal listened to the glorious sound, imagining the moment when he would pull the lever that freed the gas, the action that would destroy all human life. First he would destroy the Doctor.