The Phantom Wreck (audio story)
The Phantom Wreck was the sixth and final story in The Worlds of Big Finish, a crossover of multiple Big Finish Productions ranges. It starred Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield.
Plot
On Sisyphus IX, Benny recovers a complete human skeleton from near a crashed spaceship before it can be destroyed in a sandstorm and takes it back to Captain Quinn's ship, the Corineus. She finds that the skeleton is wearing swimming trunks with the name "Chuckle Aid", a British and Sector 25 charity event at which comedian Jack Odwards went missing whilst swimming in 2014, and theorises that the ship was brought to the planet by a wormhole. Over garbled radio, Smith informs Quinn that the expedition are not the only ones on Sisyphus before cutting out, but the team are unable to investigate until the sandstorm dies down.
Selina finds an episode of Jenni Marcel's The World's Strangest Mysteries on Kronos Vad's A History of Earth, a book which supposedly predicted the future of Earth and was accurate in all of its claims but a 21st century invasion by the Gomagog. As the Gomagog were predicted to invade using wormholes, Selina suggests that the crashed ship is one of theirs and shares this with Benny, who decides to investigate part of the ship impervious to the team's scans when they go after the missing team members. She heads out with Selina and Phillips once the storm dies down, warned by Quinn that she has only six hours, and Phillips disappears shortly after they enter the ship.
Benny and Selina are trapped inside by an explosion and enter the unidentified part of the ship where they find Quinn and the Gomagog recovering the Japheth weapon. He reveals that he came to rescue the Gomagog so that he would survive their destruction of Earth whilst those he felt had wronged him, such as those who killed his wife and daughter, would perish. After forcing Benny and Selina over the edge of the ship, he returns to the Corineus, unaware that Benny has survived the fall and is waiting for him with a gun. She points out that the Gomagog will be travelling back in time to destroy Earth and create a temporal paradox thanks to him, so he decides to use Japheth whilst she uses a wormhole device to get to safety.
Quinn activates the weapon and Benny escapes through a wormhole before Sisyphus is destroyed and the Gomagog wiped out. She arrives on Mars where she meets Vienna and, after relaying her story, learns that she has A History of Earth. To make sure that nobody ever finds it, they take the book to Romulus Chang to keep in the Archive's Department of Eschatology. Chang is intrigued by the book and the fact that Benny and Vienna claim to have no idea where it is from, saying that he likes a good mystery.
Cast
- Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
- Captain Quinn - Terry Molloy
- Selina - Rosanna Miles
- Phillips - Rhys Jennings
- O'Neill - John Dorney
- Jenni Marcel - Katharine Mangold
- Romulus Chang - Barnaby Edwards
- Vienna Salvatori - Chase Masterson
Worldbuilding
- Wong, Iqbal, Lamar and Smith are part of Quinn's crew.
- Quinn's crew wear pulse collars.
- Benny does not like Outpost 10, finding the people rude and the food terrible.
- Bobby Shamrock was a comedian who founded Chuckle Aid.
- Jim Irwin and Charles Duke were Apollo astronauts who landed on the Moon on two separate missions. They went on to become preachers.
- Quinn was raised Celestial, but his parents were not especially religious.
- Quinn and his wife had a daughter, Alice, and lived in the Thames Delta. His wife and daughter were killed in an aerial assault during an uprising.
- Selina is studying for her Master's.
- Quinn mentions Freud.
Notes
- This story was recorded on 11 May, 15 June, and 12 September 2014 at The Moat Studios.
Continuity
- Odward's corpse and the Gomagog spaceship vanished from 21st century London and ended up on Sisyphus IX. (AUDIO: Kronos Vad's History of Earth (Vol. 36,379))
- At the end of the episode, the book is handed to the Archive for safe keeping, leading to an ontological paradox regarding the creation of the book. (AUDIO: The Archive)
External links
- Official The Phantom Wreck - The Worlds of Big Finish page at bigfinish.com
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