Save Yourself (short story)

Save Yourself
Doctor:	Second Doctor
Main enemy:	The War Lord
Main setting:	Karn
Key crew
Writer:	Terrance Dicks
Release details
Part of:	The Target Storybook
Release date:	24 October 2019
The Target Storybook
← Previous	Journey Out of Terror
Next →	The Clean Air Act

Save Yourself was the third short story in The Target Storybook.

Publisher's summary

to be added

Plot

Captured by the Time Lords and awaiting the outcome of his trial, the Doctor is approached by a High Chancellor from the Celestial Intervention Agency, who offers him his freedom in exchange for taking part in a covert mission. The Doctor agrees, and is dispatched to the planet Karn in his TARDIS, which has been modified with a remote control. On the desolate planet the Doctor finds a small army of mercenaries working for the renegade War Chief, who survived his apparent execution by the Time Lords, and now plans revenge by destroying the Sacred Flame of the Sisterhood of Karn. Aware of the Flame’s importance to Time Lord healing and regeneration, the Doctor struggles with the War Chief, who falls to his doom in the fires below. His mission a success, the Doctor is recalled to his home planet; but instead of his freedom the Doctor is given a memory wipe – the Time Lords have sent him on missions before this, each time wiping his memory and then sending him out again. The Doctor realises this, before his memory is wiped once again.

Characters

• Second Doctor
• Lord High Chancellor
• The War Lord

References

• The War Lord was told of the Elixir of Life on Karn by the War Chief, who told him it was needed for Time Lords to regenerate after he regenerated during their first meeting. The Doctor believes he said this to not appear weak to the War Lord.
• This story is set after The War Games.
• The Doctor notes the battered appearance of the TARDIS console, implying he has been sent on many missions by the Time Lords by this point.

Notes

• This story was the last contribution by Terrance Dicks to the world of Doctor Who fiction and was published posthumously.

Continuity

• The original native people of Karn were wiped out in a war. (AUDIO: Seven Keys to Doomsday)