Doctor Who: Combat Rock by Mick Lewis Read Free Book Online

but the voice was clear.
    ‘Special operations on Papul are urgently required.’ There was no greeting, but then not one of the seven men seated in the sweaty cruiser had expected one. ‘An incident has occurred involving an expedition of tourists,’ the President continued, his moustache lifting slightly as he sniffed. His was a face you could easily dislike, and if Pan had been a stupider man, he would have wondered how such an eminently untrustworthy-looking man as Sabit could ever have been elected President of Indoni. But then Pan was certainly not stupid, and well versed in the corruption of Jenggel’s biggest superpower. Election? Democracy? Not today, thank you.
    Something for which Pan was not a little grateful; it helped him fill his boots nicely.
    President Sabit’s eyes were black and very small, made to look smaller by the predatory beak of a nose that hooked down towards a lizard mouth. He was every inch the picture of an evil dictator. He was a living cliché; but a very dangerous one, and one Pan and his colleagues had learned not to underestimate. Pan exhaled smoke towards the screen while the rest of his wild bunch listened with casual interest.
    The Wild Bunch. The Dogs. The Kill Crew. The Pack.
    They went under many names.
    There was Clown: the right side of his mouth curled up into a permanent smile by the knife scar that gave him his name. The scholar of the bunch, he tended to distance himself from his colleagues by immersing himself in philosophical texts. Rimless eyeglasses gave him a distinctly demented appearance.
    There was Pretty Boy: bisexual, deadly, always wore black lace over his shining black leather; eyes underscored with just a little touch of liner. But call him effeminate and it would be the last thing you ever did. And yes, he was pretty. Dyed black hair thick and wavy, cheekbones raw but sleek, a sensuous mouth, and not a scar on him.
    There was Bass: light-brown hair slicked back with oil, cigarette tucked behind one ear, always wore dated sleeveless army shirts; quiet, polite, could take a man’s head off with one slice of his Bowie knife.
    There was Twist: psychedelia and psychosis were his thang. The least stable of the bunch, thanks to his predilection for every psychoactive drug he could get his fingers on. He was a liability, and he was the only one not to know it. His hair was falling out on top, lank and long around this warning sign of baldness. When he wasn’t babbling incoherently, he took to staring vacantly. But he could kill, so he was still useful. For now.
    That left Saw and Grave. Saw was a big monster of a man, bearded, face a mask of scars. One of his eyes had been dislocated by a Burster, and thanks to what was obviously the cruel humour of a plastic surgeon, it was now situated halfway down his cheek. Of course the surgeon had not lived long to enjoy his little joke. This Dog’s weapon of choice was a chainsaw.
    Grave was always in black.
    ‘The expedition was apparently attacked while visiting Akima village,’ Sabit continued. ‘The military will be deployed to suppress any rebel activity in the area. We have heard an account of what happened from the only tourist to survive the attack. You will doubtless hear something of its content, and you will ignore it. The man is suffering from trauma and this has coloured his memory. Mummies do not come to life, and there’s an end to it. This is obviously an elaborate Papul Resistance trick to engage local and maybe offworld support. I have instigated measures to ensure word of this does not spread: I do not want lucrative Papul tourism to suffer as a result of this affair.’
    Some of the Dogs sniggered. They had not heard anything about the attack. But Sabit being apparently concerned about
    ‘mummies coming to life’ was enough to earn him a derisive toss of a cigarette butt that bounced off his face on the screen.
    Sabit was continuing to talk on the recorded message and Pan yelled at his colleagues to