Enemy Lines (audio story)
- You may be looking for Gallifrey Eight.
Enemy Lines was a single release comprising the eighth season of Gallifrey and featured the return of Lalla Ward as Romana II and Louise Jameson as Leela.
Publisher's summary
In the distant future, President Romanadvoratrelundar will do anything it takes to save her world, even if it means sacrificing her allies and friends...
In the distant past, President President Romanadvoratrelundar will also do anything it takes to save her world, even if it means sacrificing her own life in the process...
Unfortunately for Romana, there is no easy option.
With the threat of impending war, and negotiations still ongoing, the Temporal Powers are growing restless. Every day, they find their future slipping away from them. Every decision they make proves critical. And no one can escape the fact that sacrifices have to be made...
Time is running out... and it's running straight to Gallifrey.
Plot
Part one
In a TARDIS running out of oxygen, Narvin and Ace wonder where Romana has gone, having disappeared after they heard the sound of another TARDIS materialising. A projection of Colonel Trave appears; she informs them that their TARDIS is surrounded and that they have been found guilty of high treason by the High Council. They are executed by the use of time torpedoes.
In the past, Romana's second incarnation materialises aboard the Moros, a Monan Host spacecraft which she plans to repair to show Ambassador Malkino that the Time Lords had no part in its sabotage following an incident on Terra Phallax. She sends her TARDIS back to Narvin so that, should the core of the Moros fail, the resulting singularity will not travel through the Time Vortex, and begins a recording in case she does not survive. After finding only armed droids aboard, she communicates with the computer and learns that it killed the 536 crewmembers with severe trauma as it believes that the ship runs more efficiently without them.
Romana believes that Moros has been deliberately infected with a virus. The computer wants the core to fail, but Romana goes to stabilise it, avoiding lasers on the way and hearing what sounds like the sound of a staser. She reaches the engine room and is confronted by several droids who block her way, but Leela appears and destroys them with a staser. Leela reveals that she had stowed away in the TARDIS and sneaked out whilst Romana was speaking with Narvin.
Continuing on, Romana tells Leela that she plans to regenerate in order to use the energy to stabilise the core. Leela loses her staser thanks to the gravity generators and tells Romana that, even if they do both die on this mission, she has no regrets and is glad to have met her and thankful to the Fourth Doctor for coming to Mordee. They climb to the core, where Romana tricks Leela into entering a teleportation unit and sends her away before the droids arrive. The computer tells her that he was not infected but given enlightenment. Before he can have Romana shot, she is rescued by a TARDIS.
Braxiatel greets Romana and tells her that he has come from a war-torn future, sent by her next incarnation. In his time, the High Council have found her, Narvin and Ace guilty of starting a war with Omega and have executed the latter two. Romana, however, was saved by Braxiatel's intervention and has tasked Braxiatel with ensuring that the Adherents of Ohm are stopped before they can begin to enact their plans. Romana agrees to help once they have recovered Leela; they do so and head back to Gallifrey.
Part two
Narvin informs Romana that more than fifty Time Lords have been arrested, including two members of the High Council, and that the Hand of Omega has been moved to a secure location. He is suspicious of Braxiatel, whom he had thought lost in the Axis, and says that the destruction of the Moros has indeed created a singularity, one which will almost certainly reach Gallifrey. The transduction barrier has, according to the Academy, stopped working at full efficiency because of a temporal storm or rift activity and will thus be unlikely to protect the planet. Romana tells Narvin to get in touch with his contacts at the embassies and to find out what the Monans' relationship is like with the other Temporal Powers.
Livia approaches Plutus and learns from him of the arrest of the Adherents, which she believes will work strongly in Romana's favour. Plutus tells her, however, that the singularity is worse than was thought and that the Monans seem to be prepared to leave Gallifrey.
Romana summons Braxiatel and asks about the war they have averted, one which involved tensions between the Temporal Powers and agreements being reneged upon. She worries that the averted timeline is reasserting itself and that not enough has been done to change it. Braxiatel agrees that this could be the case and that they should adjust circumstances by, for example, sending Ace away and Romana resigning. She agrees to think about it.
Narvin meets with the Warpwright ambassador Kalbez, who has heard of the Adherents' arrest and that the Monan delegation might soon be leaving. He has also heard a rumour that the Monans themselves had sabotaged the Moros. They are interrupted by a public address by Romana in which she accepts responsibility for the Moros incident and declares that she is resigning and appointing herself as Coordinator of the CIA. She names her successor, subject to the approval of the High Council, as Livia. Narvin is angered by the broadcast and leaves Kalbez to speak with Romana.
Romana tells Narvin that he will continue at the CIA as Deputy Coordinator, denying that she had had designs on his job for some time and explaining that it would have been unconstitutional to appoint herself as his deputy. She chose Livia, with whom she shares an infamous rivalry, as her successor to avoid the consequences of appointing an ally. Narvin tells her of the rumour that the Monans sabotaged their own ship, a conspiracy which he believes make sense as it has forced Gallifrey to accept responsibility. He suggests that Romana opens up an unofficial channel of communication with the Warpwrights and to send somebody to Outpost Delta; she agrees and chooses to send Ace, despite her having only just finished training.
Romana meets with Leela and apologises for teleporting her away from the Moros, but Leela feels that she was punished and is hurt given that she might have been stranded forever on another planet. Romana asks her to keep an eye on things in the Capitol, particularly on Braxiatel as she is not sure that he is telling the truth about being sent from the future.
Ace is in the cells, where Adjutant Coordinator Tauras has been incarcerated. Narvin informs her that she is being sent to Outpost Delta on the Chasm, which marks the border with the Monans', with General Gaal to establish communication with Phaidon intelligence.
Romana completes a document which makes the Presidency as good as Livia's. Livia is suspicious of her motives, but Romana says that she only wants a stable future for Gallifrey, and asks for a full report of what happened on Moros. She leaves for the Panopticon to be scrutinised by the High Council. Braxiatel tells Romana that the science officers have confirmed a weakness in the transduction barrier, as well as artron fluctuation in the Eye of Harmony which might, at some point, stop TARDISes from working. He believes that this might be because of paradoxes caused by the changes to the timeline.
Leela approaches Narvin, who asks her about what Braxiatel said when he and Romana collected her. So long as Romana is associating with Braxiatel, Narvin says that Ace will report only to him and Leela whilst she is on Outpost Delta.
Braxiatel is summoned by Livia and meets her advisor and Acting-Castellan, Plutus. He explains that he will be remaining on Gallifrey so long as his services are required and is recruited by her as liaison to the CIA. His job will be to report to Livia anything that Romana tries to keep from her.
Narvin sees Ace off, telling her that she should report only to him or Leela and only to contact Romana in an emergency. She leaves in a TARDIS, equipped with a sonic screwdriver.
Narvin goes to the Matrix databank and makes a recording for the CIA as a security measure, having become aware of communications made from the Panopticon to the Monans. He is being followed by a woman in a grey cloak and senses danger in her presence, leading him to retreat deep within the databank. Once he finishes the recording, the woman tells him that she is the ending of a tale and the righter of wrongs. Narvin gasps and collapses.
Part three
to be added
Part four
to be added
Part five
to be added
Part six
to be added
Cast
- Romana - Lalla Ward
- Leela - Louise Jameson
- Ace - Sophie Aldred
- Narvin - Seán Carlsen
- Braxiatel - Miles Richardson
- Livia - Celia Imrie
- Plutus - Tom Allen
- Gaal - George Watkins
- Trave - Hannah Genesius
- The Watchmaker - Eve Karpf
- Kalbez - Nigel Fairs
- Moros - Sean Biggerstaff
Uncredited cast
References
- In the aborted timeline, Colonel Trave belonged to the Fifth Battalion.
- The Time Lords intervened on Terra Phallax when the Monan Host mined illegally. The intervention was seen as aggressive, which was not helped by Leela's diplomacy; she threatened Ambassador Malkino with violence.
- The crew of the Moros included Captain Barsgar and Second Officer Ural.
- Chronules are a Monan unit of energy.
- Romana has not seen Braxiatel for centuries.
- Livia had an uncle on the High Council centuries ago.
- Phaidon is in a binary star system.
- President Zeldar rules Phaidon.
- Clause 5 Subsection 9 of the Presidential Code allows a resigning President to appoint themselves to a position of lower rank. It is unconstitutional, however, for a President to appoint themselves as another's deputy.
- Adjutant Coordinator Tauras has been arrested.
- The Chasm is a fold in the fabric of spacetime. It marks the border between Gallifreyan and Monan space and is the location of Outpost Delta.
- Ace has a a sonic screwdriver.
- The Sycorax once tried to invade Mandorla in another timeline.
- Both Leela and Romana dream of their respective negated timelines.
Notes
- This story was recorded on 6 October and 12 and 13 November 2015 at The Moat Studios.
- This story was the first to depict a female incarnation of a Time Lord regenerating into a male one.
Continuity
- Leela remembers learning the word "anomaly." (AUDIO: Square One)
- The Time Lords once went to war with the Vondrax. (PROSE: Trace Memory)
- In one timeline, Leela is left on Legion. (AUDIO: Vesuvius Falling)
- Ace lists the phrases time storm, milkshake, Time Lord, (TV: Dragonfire) Daleks, (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) Cheetah people (TV: Survival) and Spacefleet (PROSE: Deceit) when giving Gaal a potted history of her exploits.
- Livia and Kalbez mention the Archetryx Convention. (AUDIO: The Apocaypse Element)
- Livia mentions Space Station Zenobia. (TV: The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp, Terror of the Vervoids, The Ultimate Foe, AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard, The Brink of Death)
External links
- Official Enemy Lines page at bigfinish.com
Footnotes
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
