Doctor Who: Engines of War Read Online Free PDF Page A

Degradation and squeezed the trigger, but as she’d expected, nothing happened. The power had completely drained.
    Cinder was quickly running out of options. She could stay out here and attempt to fight off a Degradation with a gun that would prove about as useful as a wooden club, try to make a run for it and expose herself to being shot in the back, or dive into a small blue box with an old man who had just fallen out of the sky.
    ‘Out of the frying pan, into the fire,’ she muttered. As the Degradation came clambering over the remains of a wall, dislodging a flurry of loose bricks, she backed up, took a run-up and leapt into the open hatch of the escape pod. She brought her knees up to her chest as she jumped, preparing to fall into a crouch as she landed inside the shallow box.
    ‘Incoming!’ she screamed, to give the man chance to take cover before she landed on him.
    She crashed down on her backside, slamming painfully into what felt like metal floor plates, and rolled to her left, putting a hand out to stop herself. With her other she still gripped the Dalek weapon close to her chest.
    The momentum carried her over onto her side, and she ended up with her face pressed against cool metal, which seemed to thrum gently with the vibration of an idling engine.
    Something didn’t feel right.
    She’d screwed her eyes shut during her fall. She opened them, expecting to see the old man pressed up against her in the confined space, taking cover from the Degradation outside. Instead, the sight of a large, circular room greeted her.
    She sat up, clutching the gun to her chest.
    The room was utterly incongruous with what she’d expected. The walls were aglow with a series of odd, round impressions – sunken lights, perhaps – and rough stone pillars arched overhead to support the roof.
    A raised dais housed what looked like a control panel, of sorts – although the controls in question appeared to be patched up and cobbled together from scavenged components that had been made to fit. Nests of cables drooped from the ceiling.
    The whole place had a higgledy-piggledy sort of feel to it, like it was constantly being made over by an inveterate tinkerer, or mended by someone who was never able to get the right parts. It was the control room of a ship. She supposed she could have knocked herself out during her leap into the escape pod and had only just come round, hours later, in a different place. But try as she might to convince herself, she didn’t believe that for a moment.
    The man whose head and shoulders she had seen sticking up out of the box was now standing by the control panel, attempting to adjust the picture on a small computer screen. He had his back to her, but it was definitely the same man – he was wearing the same brown jacket and his hair was the same silvery grey.
    She glanced behind her. Bizarrely, she was sitting with her back to the hatch. She studied it for a moment, assessing the size and shape of the opening. She supposed, on reflection, it was technically more of a door, but it looked about right. It was definitely the hatch she had jumped through.
    ‘It’s… it’s…’ she stammered.
    The man stopped what he was doing and looked over at her. ‘Bigger on the inside. Yes, I know. Let’s get that bit over and done with quickly, shall we?’ he said.
    ‘It’s the right way up,’ finished Cinder. ‘The box was on its side, and now I’m the right way up.’
    ‘Oh. Right. Hmmm. I wasn’t expecting that one,’ he said. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. That’ll be the relative dimensional stabilisers. Stops you from, well… falling over.’ He looked down at her and raised an ironic eyebrow. ‘The inside can be orientated differently to the outside.’ He waved his hand, as if explaining away a miracle as nothing but sleight of hand.
    ‘And it’s bigger,’ said Cinder.
    The man laughed. ‘And there we are. That’s the one I was expecting.’
    ‘Which means…’ Cinder’s expression