Of Chaos Time The (audio story)
Of Chaos Time The was the second story in the audio anthology, Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories, which comprised the one hundred and eighty-eighth release in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Mark Ravenhill and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown.
Publisher's summary
Cast adrift in his own chronology, the Doctor must avert the consequences of a catastrophic experiment in using time as a weapon of war.
Plot
The Doctor finds himself running away from security droids with a woman and no memory of where he is or why Peri is absent. He attempts to stop the launch of a bomb, but the controls self-destruct and he and the woman have to climb into the bomb chamber to stop it manually. The woman falls from the ladder and the Doctor finds himself in a compound with Peri thanks to a time jump, investigating an isolated patient, Trobe, ageing at an incredible rate before reverting to a baby thanks to an accelerated chronology coupled with a time loop. The Doctor suspects that time experiments might have caused the condition, as well as the time jumps he has experienced, but Professor Maylon denies that any have taken place.
Another time jump sends the Doctor back to a time shortly after arriving at the compound in the TARDIS in search of the source of time distortions. The woman killed by the security droids, Professor Standing, intends to have the Doctor and Peri shot as spies, but the Doctor uses his future knowledge to tell Maylon that Trobe is suffering from a chronological infection and, after another time jump, the Doctor finds himself running to the TARDIS with him and Peri. He learns that the bomb he was working to stop is a chronon bomb on a satellite station which the trio are trying to reach, but Maylon is shot by Standing before they can get to the TARDIS. A time jump sends the Doctor back in time to Trobe's room where Trobe attacks him during his questioning about the chronon bomb.
Back in the bomb launch chamber, the Doctor causes a time leak to ensure that he suffers from time sickness despite Warma trying to stop him from doing so. Trobe, in the isolation room, tells the Doctor about how he helped Warma develop the chronon bomb in secret to end a war and tried to call it off, leading Warma to lock him away. The conversation is interrupted by Standing, who has shot Maylon in the leg because of him disagreeing with the use of the chronon bomb, and the Doctor time jumps onto the satellite station where Warma meets him for the first time. Standing arrives, having followed the Doctor through a wormhole to execute him, and the Doctor manages to convince her that the chronon bomb is too dangerous to be used. Warma activates the weapon and orders his droids to kill the Doctor and Standing.
After Maylon is shot and killed, the Doctor decides to harness Trobe's temporal energy, which was what attracted the TARDIS, to create the wormhole to the satellite station to stop the chronon bomb. He warns Standing that she will be killed if she follows him through the wormhole, but she does so regardless and the Doctor finds himself back in the launch chamber following her death. He stops the launch and returns to Peri through the wormhole, cured of his time sickness by the temporal energy released by the bomb whilst Warma was trapped in a time loop. The time loop that Trobe is stuck in is stopped as well and he dies of old age, for which he thanks the Doctor.
Cast
- The Doctor - Colin Baker
- Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
- Professor Maylon - Paul Panting
- Professor Standing - Anjella Mackintosh
- Trobe / Warma - Phil Mulryne
- Young Trobe - Toby Fountain
Worldbuilding
- The Doctor's timeline was disrupted due to a chronon bomb.
- Chronological infection is a type of time distortion which makes its victims live out their entire lives in seconds, as a time loop.
Notes
to be added
Continuity
to be added
