Chantelle grabbed her moment, together with the nearest sharp stone to hand. ‘Stay back,’ she warned the Ratts, ‘or …’ She held the point of the stone to her squashy suit. ‘I’ll cut this thing open. Ruin it. Then what will you do?’

The Ratt turned to her, red eyes blazing in its scabrous face. Then with a cold hissing sound it exploded into nothingness. Only a sprawled shadow was left behind. The one beside it lifted its baton but a second hissing sound reduced it to a dark stain on the ground.

The stains looked to be twitching.

Shocked and revolted, Chantelle turned to find perhaps two-dozen armoured horse creatures with human arms and torsos jumping out from their outlandish craft. Two burlier horse-things had already advanced across the ground. They were carrying golden canopies on their backs, with a jewelled sceptre rising from each roof. The horse-things were looking at her …

‘Look out!’ The Doctor scrambled up and launched herself at Chantelle, dragging her to the ground as the canopy sceptres flashed and the air seemed to freeze about them. ‘Astingir infantry … with organic vaporisers.’

‘What do we do?’ Chantelle cried in a panic. ‘We’re sitting ducks!’

But a plague of Ratts came pouring out through openings in the pumice-stone walls of their factory fortress – fresh aggressive targets that commanded the firepower of the horse-things as they galloped across the sand, armour dazzling bright in the sunshine.

‘Get inside, now!’ the Doctor shouted as the Ratts began to vanish in mid-charge.

Glad at least that her suit had protected her from the spiteful ground, Chantelle got up and darted into the black hole in the wall. The Doctor, clutching Squidget and her precious piece of plastic, dived in after her, scratched and dishevelled.

‘Sonic,’ she panted, patting her pockets. ‘Need to close the door, where’s the sonic …? Ah!’ She held it up, but then stopped, agog, as the Astingir War Chariot was suddenly plucked up into the air like a child’s toy in a tornado of sound and sand and light, the sky flashing crazily light and dark as if night and day were falling over each other high above the planet. The horse-things reared up, galloped about, nickering.

‘Time-storm,’ the Doctor said wonderingly. She pressed the sonic and the door slid down, shutting out the chaos. ‘The powers-that-be here know they’re being invaded and they’re flexing their muscles …’

‘So what do we do?’ asked Chantelle.

The Doctor got up, put Squidget under one arm and marched off down the corridor. ‘We get ready for war,’ she said.

CHAPTER THIRTY