Axos Rising was the second story in the audio anthology Planet Doom, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Barnaby Kay and featured Eric Roberts as the Master, Chase Masterson as Vienna Salvatori and Teri Ann Bobb-Baxter as Passion.
Publisher's summary
The Master and Vienna are joined at the hip as they head into the alien labyrinth. But deadlier things than ancient booby-traps await them. Deep in the subterranean darkness, they discover the terrifying entity that has been waiting for millennia to be set free. Vienna is horrified...but the Master knows an opportunity when he sees one.
Plot
Although the rest of Raptor Team 2 have chosen to follow the Master, Chaoxiang refuses to do so until the Master uses his mental powers to force him to his knees and order Raptor 7 to kill him. The Master opens the entrance to the ziggurat and the floor gives way, leading the team to jump and fall fifty feet into water. They swim along a passage, but Raptor 7 has to return for the fearful Chaoxiang as the Master wants the cold fusion reactor he carries and brings him back drowned. She and Raptor 6 manage to revive him despite the Master's lack of concern. Meanwhile, Phillips tells General Kramer of the military that Chaoxiang is leading the team and repeatedly tries to get in contact with them.
Raptor 5 is blown up and Raptor 8 crushed when a wire is tripped and Vienna realises that the traps are meant to keep something inside rather than to keep people from entering. The team find a large tentacle and encounter what appears to be Raptor 4, but he declares that they will be part of the nutrition cycle and absorbs Raptor 7. The Master reveals that the planet is a prison for Axos built by the Time Lords, hence why Phillips needed him on the mission. The smart bracelets almost kill him and Vienna when they get too far away from another following the activation of another trap, but they manage to get close enough before the shock can be fatal. Chaoxiang falls whilst crossing a pit and Vienna manages to save the reactor.
The Master and Vienna pass through the gateway keeping Axos inside and find that it has also been draining time from the creature to stunt its growth and prevent its escape. As a result of the gateway, time passes differently for them and Vienna worries about the amount of time Passion will be waiting for her. An Axonite explains to the Master that it is a different strain to the one that he encountered in the 20th century and accepts his offer of taking him out into space in return for the cold fusion reactor to re-energise Axos and allow it to create a ship and leave. It drains the energy from the bracelets and replicates Vienna, whom the Master gives as an offering, to serve as his companion. After watching Raptor 6 die, Vienna attacks Axos to escape.
Passion searches for Vienna, having received a video message from her which was interrupted by her kidnap. She meets a member of the Citizen Rising hacker group and gets access to surveillance chief Alvara, an acquaintance of Vienna, who clears up the video and recognises the man who sedated Vienna as Chaoxiang. Passion visits Chaoxiang's laboratory and learns of his recent association with Phillips from his lab technician, allowing Alvara to connect Vienna's kidnap with General Kramer and the military. Taking a communicator with her, Passion finds Phillips a year after the kidnapping and offers to help him capture Axos in return for him taking her to the planet aboard the Cerberus.
The Master disables the energy barrier and starts to hypnotise the Axon Vienna to break away from the rest of Axos, but Vienna interrupts them and fights her duplicate. The Axon is about to throw Vienna from a height when Passion arrives with Phillips and shoots her.
to be completed
Cast
Worldbuilding
- Chaoxiang has a cold fusion reactor.
- Passion is offered a chicken.
- The Citizen Rising is a hacker resistance group.
- Alvara is surveillance chief of the Citizen Rising.
- Chaoxiang has a number of convictions linked to banned radioactive substances.
- This strain of Axos was imprisoned by the Time Lords.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- The Master sings "This Little Light of Mine". He previously sang this in Passion [+]Loading...["Passion (audio story)"].
External links
- Official Axos Rising page at bigfinish.com