London Orbital (audio story)
London Orbital was the first story in the audio anthology Sullivan and Cross - AWOL, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by John Dorney and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor, Christopher Naylor as Harry Sullivan and Eleanor Crooks as Naomi Cross.
Publisher's summary
Long ago, a massacre in a suburban house led to the young Harry Sullivan joining UNIT. But the murders were never solved. Years later, Harry and Naomi Cross investigate an oddity in the London Underground and uncover a whole different side to the capital.
Creatures of myth are running amok across the city in a conflict going back decades. And somewhere in the shadows lurks a new incarnation of their old friend...the Doctor. And he's here to stop a war.
Plot
Part one
Having felt useless at sea during the recent plague, Harry has an interview with Dr May for a job at a hospital and learns that the plague was cured by a man from UNIT. He meets a bloodsoaked couple with strange ears who ask for help and disappear, after which a man with a sword comes looking for them and departs when the alarm rings. Harry heads to the address that the couple mentioned, 17 Foxworth Drive.
In the 2010s, Harry and Naomi are working for UNIT after the Fourth Doctor returned them to Earth more than thirty years after their own time. Harry decides to investigate the matter of elf-like creatures encountered by Harper and a woman behind a vanishing wall in Clerkenwell tube station, believing them to be connected to the massacre at 17 Foxworth Drive. Back in the day, Harry had reported the bodies he had found there to the authorities, but the house had completely vanished by the time they arrived and the house numbers reshuffled. He looked into it and came into contact with the Brigadier, who hired him as UNIT's medical officer.
Harry and Naomi go to Clerkenwell and speak with Harper and the woman, who describe the sense of dread they felt as they approached the wall and show them the patterned tiles they found on the other side. They see the swordsman chasing the foreman over a monitor and Naomi calls the police whilst Harry goes to help, but the foreman is shot in the arm with an arrow. The swordsman recognises Harry and prepares to throw him in the path of a train before the Seventh Doctor uses the Sigil of Tormis to bind him and force him to release Harry. The swordsman gets on the moving train as it passes.
The Doctor realises who he has just saved and is surprised to see how young Harry and Naomi look. Having read the UNIT files, the two of them know who he is and tell him what has happened.
Part two
The Doctor, Harry and Naomi step through the wall, which the Doctor explains is an Álfar enchantment vulnerable to iron and wood which can be removed if the pattern drawn on the tiles is erased. The Álfar live in a realm connected to Earth and have their own science which is indistinguishable from magic, a concept that Naomi struggles with. She and Harry tell the Doctor about how he left them in the wrong century and he promises to make returning them his priority once this situation is dealt with.
The trio find an abandoned Dökkálfar settlement and are followed by the police. The Doctor escapes on a boat on the canal whilst Harry and Naomi are arrested for wasting police time, the security footage having shown Harry fighting with thin air on the platform. They are taken by Sarya to an impossible garden in a skyscraper and brought before Agrandir, the Elf-King of London, who tells them that his people are the Ljósálfar and that he lost his son, Balmaris, to the Dökkálfar. Harry recognises a portrait of Balmaris as the man he saw at the hospital in the 20th century.
Knowing that the Doctor wants to prevent a war, Naomi advises Agrandir not to fight the Dökkálfar, but he commands her and Harry not to interfere. As Sarya prepares to drive the two of them to UNIT HQ, she is killed by the swordsman, invisible to the other humans, and Harry and Naomi are surrounded by Dökkálfar.
Part three
to be added
Part four
to be added
Cast
- The Doctor – Sylvester McCoy
- Harry Sullivan – Christopher Naylor
- Naomi Cross - Eleanor Crooks
- Keryth – Hywel Morgan
- Agrandir – Youssef Kerkour
- Elidir / Byrne – Saffron Coomber
- Balmaris - Joshua Riley
- Sarya / Margolis - Mandy Weston
- Harper / Lathrael / Receptionist 2 - Sam Stafford
- Mimriel / May / Receptionist 1 - Candida Gubbins
References
- 17 Foxworth Drive was attacked.
- A man in Bromley mistakes a cat for a demon.
- Naomi says that she should call Kate Stewart.
- Naomi mentions Mr Spock.
- Naomi cannot get the hang of smart TV.
- Harry and Naomi speak to the foreman.
- Harry says that he was "top at sprinting".
- Naomi calls the swordsman Robin Hood.
- Tormis is a god antagonistic to the Álfar. His sigil is the pentagram.
- The Fourth Doctor dropped Harry and Naomi off shortly after dealing with the Dominators. Many lives were lost.
- Harry and Naomi know that the Doctor left Sarah Jane Smith in Aberdeen.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
- Harry mentions the Silurian plague, which was cured by the Third Doctor. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians)
- Harry and Naomi have been dealing with matters of life and death recently. (AUDIO: Fire and Ice, etc.)
- Naomi mentions the Robot Yeti in the London Underground. (TV: The Web of Fear)
- The Doctor is happy that at least he managed to get Sarah Jane Smith back where she wanted, unaware that he left her in Aberdeen. (TV: The Hand of Fear, School Reunion)
External links
- Official London Orbital page at bigfinish.com
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