By Jacqui McGee (audio story)

Vulpreen Commander Krillen is coordinating a hostile operation across planet Earth. But are the Vulpreen planning an immediate attack, or do they have something more sinister in mind?

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Kate, Osgood, Jimmy and Jacqui flee from the Vulpreen, who release hunter drones on Commander Krillen's orders. Kate sends their coordinates to Naomi and Jimmy steals a Vulpreen gun which he uses against a drone. Jacqui leads them to a fjord and distracts the Vulpreen whilst Osgood manages to create an air tunnel using the oxygen-recycling technology from her and Jimmy's air tanks and a drone's vacuum propulsion, allowing her, Kate and Jimmy to breathe underwater and escape. When the tunnel breaks, the current carries them away.

Jacqui is captured by Krillen and, with the others having seemingly disappeared, she is taken to the arch. He asks Lord Varliss for four flying blades to help find Kate and for the arches to be realigned to get Jacqui out of her friends' reach. Jacqui resists but is taken to China where the Vulpreen are fighting Chinese soldiers. Confined to a compression cube a second outside of time, she uses the transmitter that Kate gave her for the UNIT Cloud to record a message.

Having seen the arch land from the Forbidden City, tour guide Yang Li comes across the bodies of the soldiers and runs from Krillen and his men into the Temple of Heaven's Hall of Prayer. She shows them the hidden passageway to the Forbidden City and is locked away in the compression cube with Jacqui, being kept alive for information on Beijing. Jacqui has found that time runs more quickly on one side of the room than the other and learns which city she is in from Li.

Naomi has lost contact with Kate but knows from GPS tracking that she has managed to get to the mainland. Josh sends her information on arches in Beijing and Alberta, the same province that the Eleven is currently being held in, to show Kate when she finds her. Kate contacts her and sends coded coordinates of the arch to Josh so that his operatives can search for Jacqui. Naomi spots the flying blades heading for Kate, Osgood and Jimmy's Jeep and rescues them with the helicopter's winch.

Osgood and Naomi head to Alberta and Kate is contacted by Krillen, who offers to exchange her for Jacqui at Tromsø in six hours. Jacqui blinks in Morse code to tell Kate about her recordings in the UNIT Cloud, letting her know that she is in China, and helps Li escape the cube by utilising the time differential when a Vulpreen comes to collect them. Li jumps through the arch and arrives in Canada where she is sighted by Krillen and flees. Later, Osgood and Naomi follow her footprints and find her and give her a survival suit to warm her up.

Krillen prepares to take Jacqui through the arch, but Kate and Jimmy stop him and demand that he hand her over. An alarm sounds when Naomi is caught in a temporal snare in Alberta and Jacqui threatens to use a temporal grenade that she took from a Vulpreen to destroy the arch. She tells Kate and Jimmy to leave and detonates the grenade, ageing herself and Krillen and preventing the Vulpreen from using the arch to get to Osgood and Naomi. Jacqui dies in Kate's arms.

Osgood saves Naomi from the snare with a chrono-gauge and, as UNIT Canada soldiers approach, the arch glows brightly as does the one in Beijing. Golden creatures emerge from the arches and Kate recognises them as Axons.

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Uncredited[[edit] | [edit source]]

Vulpreen Deputy - Daniel Easton (BFX: By Jacqui McGee)

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Kate activates Protocol 370.
The Vulpreen use hunter drones.
Osgood uses her inhaler.
Naomi stops in Trondheim to refuel.
The Forbidden City was the imperial palace and winter residence of the Emperor of China for more than five centuries and was the epicentre of political life from the Ming Dynasty through to the Qing Dynasty.
Osgood always wanted to see the fjords.
Osgood mentions the Animoi.
Jimmy loves whitewater rafting.
Varliss is just beyond Jupiter's orbit.
The Vulpreen use time grenades and temporal snares.
Yang Li talks to her mother over the telephone.
The arch landed near the Temple of Heaven.
The Eleven gave the Vulpreen compression cubes, a Time Lord invention.
China no longer has emperors.
An arch has landed near Fort McKay in Canada.
The Eleven is currently on a secure island in the middle of Lake Claire in Alberta.
Kate credits her mother with teaching her evasive manoeuvres.
Jacqui blinks in Morse code.
China agrees to cooperate with UNIT to an unprecedented degree in return for military assistance against the Vulpreen. Kate tells Josh not to tell NATO.
When Jimmy says that James Bond would never be seen in a tuk-tuk, Kate asks if he is never seen Octopussy.
UNIT Canada keep an eye on the arch in Alberta.
Osgood uses a chrono-gauge to analyse the snare.

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

Naomi mentions that Osgood and Jimmy were on the Starseeker. (AUDIO: The Vulpreen Encounter)
Osgood mentions the Animoi, who crashed into the Atlantic a few years ago. (AUDIO: Tempest)
Kate gave Jacqui a UNIT Cloud transmitter. (AUDIO: The Vulpreen Encounter)
Jacqui has been held prisoner by the Vulpreen before. (AUDIO: The Curator's Gambit, The Man From Gallifrey)
Jacqui once said that she was not sure that she would be able to sacrifice her own life. (AUDIO: Death on the Mile)

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

Official By Jacqui McGee page at bigfinish.com