Conspiracy in Space (audio story)

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Conspiracy in Space was the first story in The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume Eight. It was written by Alan Barnes and featured Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Grant.

Publisher's summary

When the TARDIS is diverted to Draconia, the Doctor and Jo fall foul of the hawkish Lady Zinn. War with Earth seems imminent. The Draconian military are on high alert and rumours of a super-weapon are rife.

Execution, assassination, intrigue and a mysterious faction known only as ‘The Eyes’ are all part of a deadly mission the Doctor and Jo have no choice but to accept. But as they fight to survive, the peace of the entire galaxy hangs in the balance.

Plot

Part one

A wedding ceremony is held on Draconia, where the young Emperor is to be married. As the ceremonials on third day are set to resume, young Lieutenant Ruji of the Draconian Secret Service is confronted by Lady Zinn, the dowager of the Jade Chordata. Zinn seeks audience with the Grand Widow, the Emperor's mother, insisting that the ceremony cease. Zinn cites an old agreement in which the Jade Choredata and the Imperium were to be joined through marriage, and a promise that Zinn's daughter, Princess Nurona, would become a Jade Empress. The Grand Widow does not uphold the agreement as it was made in haste by the Emperor's great-great-great-great grandmother and the promise to Nurona was not given by the Grand Widow herself. The Emperor has chosen a bride out of love rather than through an arrangement. Her entreaty spurned, the resentful Zinn departs the wedding. The ceremony is then disrupted by yet another space raid drill. The clans evacuate the lobby to seek shelter in the bunkers.

On 1970s Earth, the Doctor throws a tantrum after receiving an armed forces pension leaflet from Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, utterly furious at the implication that he is considered simply another employee of UNIT. Jo calms him down, just as they hear a musical signal coming from the TARDIS. The venture inside and it dematerialises automatically heading for the Third Sector of Time. They suspect they are being sent on a mission by the Time Lords.

In the Draconian communications array, Lieutenant Ruji detects seeks to sound the all-clear for the air alert where he discovered it was not a drill; an Earth spacecraft is inbound for the Great Steppe and Ruji attempts to contact the vessel. General Chusa of Space Command arrives, angry to find the Secret Service impeding on matters under his authority but Ruji insists he is here on the Grand Widow's instruction. Ruji also believes the Earth vessel is a civilian craft, not a military one, and received the General's permission to personally meet its occupants.

The Doctor and Jo arrive in a garden, with the Doctor recognising the trees as native to Draconia. Apprehended by Lady Zinn and her bodyguards, the Doctor greets her with the noble greeting but Zinn does not recognise him and is unaware he legitimately possessed a place among the nobility. She moved to execute him for violating the law of intolerable insult, forcing Jo to intercede. Jo she is a noble herself. Protocol prevents Zinn from being able to execute a female and the two are spared, for now.

Maintaining contact with General Chusa, Ruji investigates the Earth ship. Several hull breaches have left the crew dead but one woman remains alive in suspended animation. Ruji realises this must be the first ever Earth female to land on Draconia. Chusa orders that the chamber be returned to Space Command.

Thrown into captivity, the Doctor and Jo are separated. Having to keep up her pretence as "Princess Josephine of TARDIS", Jo is treated as an honoured prisoner. Although the Draconians do not necessarily believe her claim, they are unwilling to risk causing a diplomatic incident. While the Doctor has to rescind his true claim to the nobility so he can pass himself off as Jo's bodyguard. They are allowed a prisoner meeting, where the Doctor informs Jo he has discovered it is 2520, the year the Earth-Draconian War will take place, and two decades before the pair visited Draconia previously in 2540. Unfortunately for them, this means they cannot appeal their sentence to the Emperor as he did not recognise the two of them in the future, so meeting him could disrupt the timeline. They also consider who has really summoned them to Draconia, with Jo suspecting the Master in a bid for revenge. The Doctor was able to land them a few hours before they were initially due to arrive to buy them more time to investigate, although Jo points out that also raises the possibility that they could have summoned themselves.

The Grand Widow contacts Ruji to inform him that Zinn had taken two Earth prisoners, including one Earth female. Ruji considers this too great of a coincidence in light of his recent discovery. The Grand Widow advises that they may be useful to his investigations and secretly tasks Ruji with extracting them from Zinn's captivity. Meanwhile, Zinn prepares for the execution of both the Doctor and Jo, having confirmed with the Bureau of Foreign Affairs that there is no noble of Jo's name and title. Ruji intervenes as the pair are made to kneel on the Death Quadrangle for beheading, claiming they are his agents that he was due to meet with. Zinn is forced to release her prisoners into Ruji's custody.

Ruji and his "agents" are transported away in a Draconian travel pod. He tells them of his investigation of the Earth ship, and he believed it was transporting an Earth scientist who intended to defect. He did not survive the journey but his daughter has informed them of his intentions. She claims her father intended to warn Draconia of a new superweapon being developed by Earth called a magnetoid, news of which would force the Emperor and the military to launch a pre-emptive strike against Earth. The Doctor states that such a weapon would require huge quantities of a rare resource, pink cobalt, to function, but according to Ruji's intelligence, Earth has discovered a planetoid containing it in abundance. The Doctor warns that such a weapon, designed to attract large bodies in space towards it, could allow hundreds of asteroids to be launched at Draconia if the weapon was shot in the direction the planet. Ruji plans to take the Doctor and Jo back to Space Command to meet with the scientist's daughter but they realise they are being pursued by other travel pods and move to ram them.

Part two

The rouge, unmanned pods sandwich Ruji's pod from either side and begin dragging it towards the surface to crash. The Doctor and Ruji avoid disaster by telling the oboard computer to stop. The other pods strike the surface. Packed with explosives, they ignite in a fireball. In light of the assassination attempt, Ruji requests Space Command provide a medium-range stealth transport, so that the meeting with the Earth woman can be conducted away from Draconia. While they prepare to launch, the Grand Widow contacts Lady Zinn. Feigning ignorance about her part in having the prisoners set free, the Grand Widow informs Zinn that they and Ruji survived an assassination attempt. Zinn is hardly able to contain her frustration before the call is ended.

Setting his stealth transport to travel to the edge of Draconian space, Ruji then asked the Doctor and Jo to swear the oath of alligience to join the Draconian Secret Service. Their induction as official agents will mean that Ruji will not have lied to Zinn, a superior, which will spare him from shame and dishonour. After taking the oath, they finally meet the scientist's daughter, Emerald Lindstrom. The Doctor notes her name sounds Draconian, which Emerald claims came from her father's long admiration for Draconian history, culture and science. She explains that Professor Lindstrom was working on the magnetoid as a device intended to clear more dangerous regions of space, allowing the Earth Empire greater trade access with its colonies. However, the company funding the project was a front for a secret military organisation seeking to use it as a weapon. Upon discovering this, Lindstrom went on the run, only to be hunted down by "the Eyes", agents working for the company. When the Eyes threatened to kill Emerald, Lindstrom surrendered his secret formulae for catalysing pink cobalt, but he included deliberate errors in it to slow the company down. Even without the professor, they are close to discovering the true formulae through trial and error. Ruji declares that their mission is to discover the company's source of pink cobalt and destroy it, otherwise it will mean war between Earth and Draconia.

Arriving at the White Rock asteroid belt in unclaimed space, the Doctor and Emerald powerchute down to one of the cities intending to meet with the Eyes. Utilising his pseudonym, Doctor John Smith, the Doctor has prepared a cover story that he is a colleague of Professor Lindstrom on his own mission. Ruji and Jo pilot the ship into a blackout field to hide from the criminal gangs inhabiting the region. However, he is contacted by General Chusa who, unbeknownst to them, has been ordered to recall Ruji to Draconia by Lady Zinn. Chusa claims Ruji's space mission is unauthorised as the proper wartime protocol has not been followed. When Jo protests that Draconia is not currently at war, Chusa replies that, as of very recently, they are. He issues new orders for Ruji to lead the vanguard of the attack on Earth by attacking nearby Sirius IV. Ruji refuses, knowingly dishonouring his general. Chusa then reveals that there is no war, with Ruji instead having just failed a loyalty test. He relieved Ruji of his command back to Draconia, where he is to be tried by Lady Zinn and her "zealots" on the Un-Draconian Activities Committee. Zinn even acquires evidence against him in the form of proscribed Earth literature.

The helmsman takes command of the ship on Chusa's orders to return Ruji to Draconia but Jo hatches a plan to escape by utilising a skeleton key and cutting wires hidden in her boot soles. They powerchute out of the airlock before the ship reaches space command and meet up with the Grand Widow. She talks of Draconian legends which tell of the Doctor aiding Draconia many centuries ago during the Withering. He departed Draconia with a recall daidem, which the Grand Widow has since activated, due to the boiling crisis brewing between Earth and Draconia in which he may act as a mediator. It was the Grand Widow who summoned the TARDIS to Draconia. She advises Jo and Ruji "steal" the Imperial pleasure yacht while it is lightly guarded and before Chusa tracks them down. After they depart, however, Zinn appears, having witnessed the meeting. She stabs the Grand Widow, killing her. She the assassination on the Earth spies to bring about war against Earth.

On the White Rock, having made touch down, the Doctor and Emerald seek to rendezvous at at the As Time Goes By Bar. Their communications are listened to by the Eyes, who make plans to intercept and kill them.

Part three

The Doctor and Emerald claim a booth inside the bar. Aware that the Eyes are close by, they reiterate their cover story. Emerald is surprised to find out, however, that the Doctor seeks a genuine meeting with the Eyes. He explains that pink cobalt is fool's gold, misunderstood by even the skilled Professor Lindstrom. Before continuing, he confronts a Venusian eavesdropping their conversation from next booth, fleeing the bar with it holds them at blasterpoint. At the door, they encounter two mining robots who identify Emerald. With the help of the doorman, the Doctor realises these robots are the Eyes, and that "Eyes" instead refers to the letter "I", the first letter of the company that owns the robots. Emerald identifies it as Intrastellar Minerals and finally reveals that she is the controller of the robots. She takes the Doctor captive because he knows something about pink cobalt, but murders the doorman to remove any witnesses.

As Ruji and Jo escape in the Grand Widow's yacht, but not before hearing of the Grand Widow's death from Chusa and Zinn, who accuse the escapees of committing the deed. Chusa is confident the yacht is returning to find the Doctor on the White Rock. Zinn informs him that Emerald will already have killed the Doctor - she is part of the conspiracy. Chusa is not party to all of this, however, and is troubled by Ruji's visible surprise upon his hearing of the Grand Widow's death, as well as the clear fact that she was killed by a noblewoman's katana. Zinn then threatens him with the same katana now that he has grown too suspicious, demanding his obedience while reminding him he is expendable. Chusa reminds her that his part in their alliance extended only so far as replacing the Emperor's clan, not fomenting war. Zinn merely blames him for incompetence, reminding him that if he had successfully crashed Ruji's travel pod, this situation could have been avoided. She outlines the new plan: hunt down Ruji and Jo on charged of assassination; assassinate the Emperor's bride; plant forged evidence of her secret love affair with Ruji; petition the clans to uphold the arranged marriage of Princess Nurona to the Emperor; and finally arrange a "tragic hunting accident". Zinn also confirms that their agreement still stands: she may still consider Chusa a suitable husband, granting him the highly honourable title of consort to the mother of the Empress. They also consider their collusion with Emerald and Intrastellar Minerals to be no longer necessary.

At his prompting, Emerald explains her intentions to generate a succession crisis on Draconia by forcing the Emperor into an unwinnable war. While the Doctor initially believes that Emerald's whole cover story has been a fabrication, including Professor Lindstrom himself, but Emerald corrects him; her father and his research were real. He died before the magnetoid project could be completed but Emerald considered that the threat of such a weapon alone could scare the Draconians into war. She pretended to defect to bring her story to Draconia and accelerate their mobilisation. Intrastellar Minerals calculated that Earth space will be mined dry of resources within 50 years, so Emerald hopes war would allow the company access to Draconian space and the abundant untapped resources therein. Yet Emerald has altered her own plan too - she knows the Doctor knows how to catalyse pink cobalt. If she can extract the secret, she will be able to actually complete the magnetoid, granting Intrastellar Minerals the power of an empire in itself.

Pursuing the fugitives to the White Rock, Zinn and Chusa fire torpedoes at the pleasure yacht, but Zinn aborts them when she notices the yacht change from its expected course. She concludes that they are following the signal of the Doctor, meaning that he is still alive. She orders the helmsman to follow the yacht. Unaware of all of this, given Ruji's inexperience of captaining a ship, they use the radar to track the Doctor to a mining platform. Down on the platform, Emerald subjects the Doctor to a mind probe which, unlike the ones on Earth, does not have safety features installed. As she does this, Zinn tries to contact her and find out why she had not killed the Doctor, but it becomes clear that Emerald has changed her own plan too, given that she has deliberately cut the communications channel completely.

The Doctor awakes to find Jo at his side. She helps him escape the mind probe room while it is unguarded, although the Doctor is somewhat suspicious of how she made it there herself and how she knew Emerald was a villain. On their way out, Jo asks the Doctor about the secret of pink cobalt, reciting that it is fool's gold. The Doctor explains that, in the 50th century, Heisenberger discovered pink cobalt was actually the dormant state of a silicon-based lifeform that is activated when introduced to another biomaterial. Jo guessed that this is blue cobalt. The Doctor's suspicions grow because he does not remember telling Jo about any of this previously, and when she pulls out a Venusian blaster to fend off the robots, it clicks with him that this is all a vision. Jo finally asks what proportion of pink to blue cobalt is necessary for activation. The Doctor defies her by quoting literature in answer.

Emerald deactivates the mind probe, returning the Doctor to reality. Although she does not know the correct ratio, she resolves to inject her father's blue cobalt supplies into the pink cobalt to test the reaction. The Doctor claims his information was just a bluff but Emerald intends to go forward with it anyway. She surmises that the Doctor is a time traveller, with knowledge of the 50th century, as well as a presence in IMC records from almost 50 years prior. She wonders what other secrets she might be able to extract from his mind. As she departs to work on the magnetoid, she sets the mind probe to full power, leaving the Doctor to scream in agony.

Part four

The Doctor is woken again by Jo. This time he questions what she knows of the science relating to pink cobalt extraction but she responds cluelessly, indicating that this time it is the real Jo. He resisted the mind probe using K'anpo Rimpoche's teachings. They reunite with Ruji. They explain to the Doctor that the Grand Widow was the one who summoned them to Draconia, and Jo gives him the Draconian recall diadem as proof. The Doctor instructs him to inform Draconia about Emerald's actions and advises them to launch a neutronic attack on the pink cobalt planetoid. The Doctor, meanwhile, sets of after Emerald to prevent her blue cobalt detonation, trusting Jo and Ruji to extract him from space upon his success.

After the Doctor heads off, Ruji and Jo are captured on the arrival of Zinn and Chusa before they can message Draconia. They try to warn their captors about Emerald's intentions, only for Emerald to begin the process, resulting in quick success with the planetoid's eruption. She has created the magnetoid. Jo fears the Doctor dead. Seeing no further use for her, Zinn instructs that she be thrown into space but Ruji defends her, offering to confess to the murder of the Grand Widow if Zinn spares Jo. Zinn states that the Grand Widow need not have died; if she had only agreed to abort the Emperor's wedding, Zinn would not have had to follow through with her alliance with Emerald. However, she has become so ambitious that she is unwilling to let any Draconian of any rank stand in the way of what she wants. And with Emerald's latest success, Zinn intends to take the magnetoid from her.

Re-establishing contact with Emerald, Zinn spits venom over her betrayal and threatens to destroy the mining platform, bluffing, as she had no more neutronic missiles. Emerald counters the threat by pointing out that destroying the platform would destroy the only means of controlling the magnetoid. Emerald offers to reopen negotiations with Zinn in person, reminding her that, with the magnetoid, she has the power to grant Zinn control over the Earth, not just Draconia.

Meeting up, Zinn lays out the terms of her original deal with Emerald which they first discussed on the White Rock: Emerald should give the magnetoid to Zinn in return for mining rights within Draconian space. But the magnetoid then was only theoretical, and now that Emerald has made it a reality, she feels she had the bargaining power to alter the deal. Zinn gives assurance that she does not intent to use the magnetoid to destroy Earth, merely to use the threat of its power to gain concessions, but Emerald finds her ambitions empty and typical of a politician. She departs the negotiations, having sent her robots to mine through the hull of Zinn's ship. This provokes Zinn to attacking but Emerald sets the landing platform the Draconians are standing on the plunge towards the magnetoid's surface. Emerald declares that she will use the magnetoid to destroy Draconia, as well as many other planets, in a much more efficient method of mining their resources.

On the falling platform, Zinn orders her bodyguards to jump to their deaths. They obey. She orders the same of Chusa, but he chooses in his final moments to regain some honour by slaying Zinn in retaliation for the murder of the Grand Widow. Unsheathing their blades, they strike at each other. They are both mortally wounded and die together.

Jo and Ruji flee to escape Zinn's flagship as Emerald's robots swarm the vessel. Ruji sends Jo back to the yacht while he draws the robots away from the bulkhead. He seals himself inside the flight deck and uncouples the flagship from the yacht, ejecting the robots out of the airlock and into space. He transmits an audio recording of Lady Zinn admitting to the murder of the Grand Widow to Draconia, assuring Jo that she will no longer be implicated in the crime. He also intends to destroy Emerald's mining platform, but because the flagship had no missiles on board, he decided he has to ram it with the ship instead.

As Emerald's robots monitor the flight path of the Draconian ships, the Doctor reveals himself to be alive and well on the platform. He entered into the blue cobalt's duralinium capsule once it was empty and sent the capsule back to the platform before the detonation. Emerald remains unconcerned about the flagship heading in their direction, as she can move the platform out of its path. The calculations have already been made and she is ready to launch the magnetoid at Draconia. However, upon activation, the platform falls under the pull of the magnetoid. Their like magnetic poles is supposed to keep them apart, but the Doctor informs her that he reversed the polarity of the platform by tampering with the controls before he revealed himself. The platform and magnetoid poles are now unlike and they are being drawn to one another. The robots and Emerald's space suit, all made of duralinium, also fall under the pull of the magnetoid. Emerald's creation drags her off and down towards it, killing her.

The Doctor himself remains on the platform, but managed to escape when Jo reminds him about the recall diadem, he uses it to summon the TARDIS. He escapes the destruction of the platform just in time and lands on the yacht to pick up Jo, before it too is destroyed by the magnetoid. Jo requests that they make the jump to Ruji on the flagship and say goodbye. Although the Doctor accepts her request, the TARDIS begins to dematerialise without his input. He suspects the work of the Time Lords. While they did not send the Doctor on this mission, he believes that they are now trying to preserve the timeline by sending them home, avoiding the possibility of them meeting the Draconian Emperor two decades too early. Regretfully, he tells Jo his hands are tied.

Later, Ruji writes a letter to the Emperor. In light of Ruji's transmitted message confirming Lady Zinn's guilt in the murder of his mother, the Emperor has banned all females from his court and had sentenced Princess Nurona to death. Ruji urged him to reconsider both these courses, although he does not think the Emperor will do so. He also writes of how war between Earth and Draconia is seemingly inevitable, and that consequently he is resigning his commission from the Draconian Secret Service because he has no desire to take up arms against the people of Earth. Although he knows the Emperor may send agents to hunt him down, Ruji also announces that he will not be returning to Draconia. He will instead be making his own way in space in search of both love and honour.

Cast

Uncredited

  • Doorman - Barnaby Edwards (BFX: Conspiracy in Space)

References

Draconian culture

Literature

History

Music

Locations

  • The TARDIS lands on Draconia at destination coordinates 0001' 0011' 03".

Languages

  • When on White Rock, the Doctor is out of range of the TARDIS translator circuits; while he can still understand certain languages through his own experience, he cannot speak them in turn.

Notes

  • Set after Frontier in Space from the Doctor and Jo's perspective, this story serves as a prequel to Frontier[1]. Nicholas Briggs suggested to Alan Barnes that the story could be a prequel but this was not necessitated by the brief. Barnes had seen Frontier in Space many times, and was first introduced to the Draconians by the Target novelisation, Doctor Who and the Space War. (BFX: Conspiracy in Space) The diplomatic farewell of the 26th century from the novelisation is quoted a number of times in this story.
  • Another title considered for this story during production was On His Draconian Majesty's Secret Service[2].
  • Barnes was tasked not only with writing a prequel to Frontier in Space featuring the Draconians but also basing the story on Operation Crossbow, the World War II initiative by the Allies to counter Nazi Germany's V-rockets. (BFX: Conspiracy in Space) The Doctor even mentions Crossbow by name in the story, though he does not elaborate on the details of what the operation contained.
  • Barnes did not have a very long time to write the script, so he arranged with Briggs that he would write and send 1,000 words of the script every day for Briggs to check over. They had previously done the same thing in similar circumstances when wirting The Girl Who Never Was almost 13 years prior. Briggs enjoyed the method, feeling like he was reading serialised installments each day. (BFX: Conspiracy in Space)
  • On the first day of recording, Katy Manning forgot her glasses and her credit card for the train journey in, so Tim Treloar was also late arriving as had to buy her a new pair of glasses, while Manning phoned a friend to help order her ticket online. On the second day, Manning's train did not stop at her intended station and she had to wait an hour at the next station for a return train. Briggs joked that she was experiencing her own "Jo Grant catastrophe". (BFX: Conspiracy in Space)
  • Tim Treloar enjoyed references to history and music present in the script. He also picked up on the influence of Star Wars and Casablanca as well as other film references included. (BFX: Conspiracy in Space)
  • Imogen Church had no idea what the Draconians were when she was cast as Lady Zinn, leading her to search them up on YouTube to do her own research. She compared them to the Klingons from Star Trek, (BFX: Conspiracy in Space) as did Barnes. (VOR 151)
  • Recording was still conducted in lockdown conditions, with the cast recording from various locations across the country, but they were still able to do so live and interact with each other accordingly. Treloar and Manning were both together in the studio, although separated by glass during recording. (BFX: Conspiracy in Space)
  • Barnaby Edwards expressed his hope that his "ancestors on Draconia" would appear in a later story. (BFX: Conspiracy in Space)
  • The title was deliberately evocative of both Colony in Space and Frontier in Space, both written by Malcolm Hulke. (VOR 151) Conspiracy in Space contains direct references to both stories.
  • A video trailer released for The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume Eight contains images of Ruji and Chusa.

Continuity

External links

v • e
The Third Doctor Adventures
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Volume 7
Volume 8
Volume 9
Volume 10
The Return
of Jo Jones
Volume 12
Volume 13
Volume 14
v • e
Draconian stories
For the purposes of this list, a "Draconian story" is one in which one living, authentic Draconian plays a part within the confines of the story, outside of flashbacks to previous stories and cliffhangers that lead into the following story.
Television
Broadcast
Home video
Audio
Prose
Comics
Complete list of appearances
  1. ↑ https://www.bigfinish.com/podcasts/v/2021-10-17-third-doctor-volume-8
  2. ↑ https://twitter.com/senrab_nala/status/1450840147998674964
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