Old Soldiers (BBV audio story)

Old Soldiers
Main character(s):	Brak, Alice Wells
Main setting:	Brak's safehous, England, 2000 Site B9, Geneva, Switzerland, 2000
Key crew
Publisher:	BBV Productions
Writers:	Simon Gerard, Colin Hill
Director:	Bill Baggs
Producer:	Bill Baggs
Release details
Release number:	2
Release date:	February 2000
Format:	1 CD
ISBN:	none
Sontarans
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You may be looking for the Companion Chronicle of the same name.

Old Soldiers was the second audio in the Sontarans series.

Publisher's summary

For more than eighty years, the British Government has kept something hidden: no longer.

With a Weapons Crisis Committee standing in Geneva, Captain Alice Wells of UNIT is tasked with investigating the mysterious deaths of allied and UN troops. When her investigation leads her to an ultra-secure safe-house in England, she finds what it was that the government thought too dangerous to be made public… a Sontaran!

Faced with a creature that believes only in the purity of war, Wells must force the Sontaran to reveal its part in one of the darkest and most terrible episodes in human conflict.

She must also avoid getting herself killed.

Plot

An imprisoned Sontaran reflects on the grueling story of one of the battles he's lived through. His interlocutor turns out to be UNIT Captain Alice Wells, who is investigating mysterious deaths on behalf of a Weapons Crisis Committee standing in Geneva. The Sontaran, Commander Brak, proves difficult to work with, claiming not to remember his original arrival during World War I (when he first arrived on Earth), with his earliest memories being of his transfer to England in 1918.

As he elaborates on his mindset between World War I and World War II, she is surprised to hear him make a literary allusion to Gulliver's Travels, not having expected him to take any interest in human culture. This prompts a wider discussion of the relative merits of humans and Sontarans, with Brak betraying recollections of his experiences in the 1916 Battle of the Somme as he grants some amount of praise for humanity's occasional ability to wage properly organised warfare, but criticises them for making war for no purpose, and then making so bold as to regret it — both of which are thoroughly alien to the Sontaran conception of warfare. As tones rises, Brak mentions Cobalt Blue among the technologies humans have tried to get out of him; as soon as she registers this, Captain Wells's whole demeanour changes. She explains that she has been following a trail of mysterious deaths to do with weapons testing, seemingly derived from intel provided by Brak in the past — and that the words "Cobalt Blue" refer to something well above her pay grade, forcing her to order his transfer to Geneva for further questioning.

The following morning, Brak summons Wells to his cell to "discuss terms" for him to testify about Cobalt Blue at the conference. She clarifies to Brak that he is not to be put on trial: the conference is a weapons crisis meeting, not a tribunal. However, he is unmoved by these assertions, claiming that he is nevertheless in danger, and that Wells should not so blindly trust in the good faith of her superiors at UNIT. In turn, she explains to him that the conference will be held at Site B9, a highly secure, artificially monitored underground location. She is surprised when Brak mentions that he is also worried about intrusions from space, but he refuses to elaborate. He does, however, reveal that he was the first person to synthetise Cobalt Blue on Earth, making the various incidents which have occurred in the last 40 years his responsibility.

The conversation soon gets back to the topic of how he came to Earth, and he finally relates the mission he was on and the circumstances which led him to Earth and his present circumstances: he was part of a secondary Sontaran force taking a detour from their main offensive to bomb Satellite Neutrett, and, in the commotion of the bombing, his ship was blown off-course by a glob of disintegrating matter, causing him to crash on Earth. There, he entered an existential spiral: however involuntary, he had deserted an active battle and was now safe and sound rather than victorious or dead with honour. Captain Wells struggles to understand how deeply he feels the wrongness of that situation, with him dismissing her references to "cowardice" or "desertion", insisting repeatedly that "there is no human word".

As they board the plane to Geneva under heavy rain, Brak expresses familiarity with the location, to Captain Wells's surprise; he dismisses her claim that this is an example of deja vu, tersely saying that it is indeed a memory. She brings it up again on the flight, and he reveals that during the Second World War, it was a military research base, where he was temporarily transferred to help with confidential weapons development. He claims to have created the bombs which were used for the bombing of Dresden in 1945, which killed tens of thousands of civilians. Wells loses her temper when Brak, ranting against the hypocrisy of humans, implicates her RAF pilot father in the atrocities, and she strikes him. They remain silent for the rest of the flight.

However, they are talking again by the time they arrive at Site B9, where Brak again expresses his view that "every being is a potential enemy" despite Wells's insistence that they are quite safe, as all entries into the underground building are cleared with great care and rigorousness. Getting cold feet about testifying, he hurries to his well-reinforced room, but Wells follows him and insists on a conversation. The tense Brak finally makes clear that he believes that Sontarans will someday come to find him and punish him for his "desertion", either with an honourable death or, more likely, a humiliating one, depending on how harshly they judge him.

Furthermore, he explains that he deliberately introduced Cobalt Blue to Earth in the 1940s in the knowledge of how destructive it would become in human hands. The warlike practicality of Winston Churchill had broken him out of a 20-year near-catatonic state of inaction and revived his bloodthirsty spirit. Insofar as telling the Allies how to mix Cobalt Blue was a one-man military operation against humanity, giving Geneva the means to counter it would mean revealing details of a past Sontaran military operation to that operation's enemy. On those grounds he believes that testifying about Cobalt Blue would be dishonourable by Sontaran standards, and, although refraining from doing so will not save him from their justice when his executioners come, he is still reluctant to further disgrace himself in their eyes. It is then Wells's turn to lose her temper as she delivers a harsh dressing-down of Brak's petty, self-pitying, unproductive personality as moulded by the values he clings to.

Clearly getting at him, she finally drives Brak to acknowledge that human values, which at least strive towards something greater than an endless cycle of death and bloodshed, are superior to Sontaran values. Recognising her as the victor of the argument with reluctant dignity, he agrees to testify after all. However, immediately after the room, he has something of a mental breakdown, babbling items of the Sontaran code. This crisis is interrupted by the appearance of the long-awaited Sontaran envoy, who asks him to describe his mission parameters and forces him to admit his Cobalt Blue scheme was his own devising, not on orders of any superior.

Nevertheless he entertains the idea of its usefulness and asks Brak to report on its results, with Brak speaking highly of the ferocity of humans in warfare which his sharing of Cobalt Blue has magnified, and which he hopes will ultimately allow humans to become worthy enemies of the Sontarans, suitable to be engaged in proper, honourable combat. The executioner is impressed with this notion, but nevertheless deems Brak corrupted by his prolonged contact with humanity, with his insistence on being allowed to testify to give the humans better control of the Cobalt Blue being the last straw. Viewing him as contemptible for taking orders from humans, the envoy initially condemns him to remain imprisoned among them, giving up his fate to the humans just as he gave up his dignity. Brak views this as unacceptable, however, and reveals that he constructed a C12 pulse rifle for himself, with which he tries to kill the envoy, goading the latter into fatally wounding him.

Making her way to his room to take him to the conference, Captain Wells finds the dying Brak and is left to frantically call for a medic. Some time later, now understanding him to be dead, she makes a final, mournful report on Brak and whether his testimony could really have added much value to the conference, with the formal text quickly turning into something of a eulogy for the standoffish, alien, but fundamentally figure of the Commander she had come to know.

Cast

• Alice Wells - Sally Faulkner
• Brak/Sontaran envoy - John Wadmore

Mentioned only

• Baldwin
• Chamberlain
• Winston Churchill
• General Dakaal
• MacDonald
• Alice Wells's father
• Alice Wells's grandfather

Crew

• Writer - Simon Gerard and Colin Hill
• Director - Bill Baggs
• Producer - Bill Baggs

Worldbuilding

• Brak witnessed the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
• Items of Sontaran technology which humans have tried to learn about from Brak include "lava flight" as well as Cobalt Blue.
• One of the latest weapons incidents in Prague involved a device which contained nothing but Cobalt Blue, putty, and string.
• Brak explicitly tells Alice Wells that the name "Cobalt Blue" is a misnomer, as it has no relationship to actual cobalt.
• Brak claims that there is no word for "courage" in the Sontaran language, as the notion is self-evident and a lack of it unspeakable.
• Winston Churchill visited Brak.
• Alice Wells's father and grandfather were both soldiers. The latter lost an arm to a German soldier in a Belgian trench, while the former was an RAF pilot. Her grandfather is dead, but not her father, though he is now retired.
• Wells claims that UNIT has "done more for the rights of alien visitors than anyone… Well, almost anyone".
• According to Brak, the Allies, soon "the West", went from being seen as heroes to being seen as "the Devil" almost overnight due to the atrocities of Dresden, a pattern later repeated in Iraq and Yugoslavia — but "each time [they] were accused [they] look[ed] at [them]selves and saw only the faces of angels".
• Brak notes that he was referred to by the British authorities as a troll, a being from "Norse mythology".
• High-ranking people who visited Brak starting around 1918 included all Prime Ministers, who were taken to his safehouse upon being elected and allowed to talk to him. His visitors included "Churchill, Baldwin, MacDonald, Chamberlain… Lords of the Admiralty, Archbishops…".
• The items of the Sontaran code memorised by Brak include:

As a Sontaran warrior, I will ignore laws and constitutions in battle. I will claim spoils only for the greater good of the Empire. No life-form shall be spared unless for the greater good of the Empire. No treaty or truce will be entered into unless for the greater good of the Empire. No planet, star, or territory will be aided unless for the greater good of the Empire. No species shall be granted immunity from attack unless for the greater good of the Empire. It is an act of treason to divulge information to any species under any circumstances.Sontaran code

• Brak mockingly refers to the intruder in his room as a "phantom" until he reveals himself.
• In a flight of audacity, Brak claims that the Sontaran Empire should celebrate his return with "a fanfare of sonic cannons".
• Brak is believed to have "lived longer than any Sontaran in history", which is considered "a disgrace in itself".
• LM27 is a substance only known to be produced as a residue of fusion-based weaponry fueled by Cobalt Blue.

Notes

• A new cover accompanied the 2021 download release of the story on the BBV website.

Continuity

• Brak had knowledge of Earth when he first arrived because "others" had been there before him, "to make contact, develop military potential" — long before the "axe and the sword" were replaced with "guns and gases". The Sontaran Linx landed on medieval Earth in the Sontarans' first appearance in TV: The Time Warrior ^[+]Loading...["The Time Warrior (TV story)"].
• Brak refers to having been compared a troll by Winston Churchill and other Englishmen. The comparison was first made in PROSE: Doctor Who and the Time Warrior ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Time Warrior (novelisation)"] and would be repeated in a number of other stories, including PROSE: The Eight Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Eight Doctors (novel)"] and, eventually, on television in TV: The Poison Sky ^[+]Loading...["The Poison Sky (TV story)"], where the Tenth Doctor criticises UNIT Colonel Mace for drawing the parallel within earshot of an actual Sontaran.
• The plot point of a disgraced Sontaran hoping for the "mercy" of a summary execution recurred in TV: War of the Sontarans ^[+]Loading...["War of the Sontarans (TV story)"].
• Sonic cannons were seen in various sources as weapons used by the Ice Warriors, Shreekers, Vardans, and Daleks, with their earliest known appearance having been in, although no other source links them with the Sontarans.
• The Forge, a human group who harvested human technology for their own use, were shown using pulse rifles in a variety of later stories starting with PROSE: Twilight's End ^[+]Loading...["Twilight's End (short story)"].
• HOMEVID: Fog ^[+]Loading...["Fog (home video)"] served as a sequel to this story, suggesting that the report on his death was premature, and Brak had actually survived on life-support into the 2020s. Though his name was not spoken, with Giles referring to him by the code name of "Field Marshal Bios" in his video diary, he did mention his "old friend" Alice Wells, definitely identifying the prisoner as Brak.

External links

• Official Old Soldiers page at bbvproductions.co.uk