Storm of the Horofax (audio story)
Storm of the Horofax was the second and final story in the audio anthology The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume Three, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Andrew Smith and featured Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Grant.
Publisher's summary
During a North Sea military exercise, the crew of the destroyer HMS Nemesis detect what they suspect is a submarine following them. But it's actually a futuristic ship with an alien occupant, Arianda.
The Doctor and UNIT are called in, but things are already running out of control. The damaged craft is leaking particles and contaminating the Nemesis with time disruption.
But that's not the biggest problem. For Arianda is being followed by the warships of the Horofax, who have picked precisely this moment to invade. Soon the destruction of humanity's future will begin.
Plot
Part one
During a joint Royal Navy-NATO exercise in the North Sea, HMS Nemesis detects what seems to be a submarine where depth charges are being tested and Commander Burton has it brought aboard. The alien Arianda emerges from it, revealing that it is a spaceship, and foresees that Burton will contact UNIT and that Jo and Major Hardy, the former of whom she will befriend, will be sent. The pair arrive by helicopter with the Doctor, who goes with Burton to the sick bay where Bruce and Roberts are convalescing after being aged twenty years, apparently because of them handling Arianda's ship. Jo and Hardy meet Arianda in the ward room and learn that she is a historian who has come back in time to observe humanity before they leave Earth. When the Doctor joins them, he recognises her as an Altarian and a time sensitive, although she is unable to see the Doctor in the future.
The Doctor agrees to see if he can repair Arianda's ship and Jo acts friendly with her just as she predicted so that she might get information from her. He gains entry to the ship using his sonic screwdriver and turns off the power because of the time engines' leaking cells to prevent anybody else from being prematurely aged, intending on making proper repairs once it has been transported to his laboratory at UNIT HQ. Privately, he confides in Jo that Arianda must be supremely powerful to operate the ship and removes what he believes could be a data crystal. Whilst the Doctor goes to contact UNIT, Jo returns to speak with Arianda about Altaria and how she met other time sensitives after being persecuted on her own world because of her powers.
The Doctor confronts Arianda with the fact that her ship seems to have been following the navy for several hours, but Nemesis comes under attack and Able Seaman Ronson is left to guard her whilst the Doctor, Jo and Hardy go the deck. There, they and the marines experience a time echo of a futuristic battle and, once it subsides, the Doctor tells a resistant Burton to evacuate the crew. Arianda ages Ronson with her touch and escapes to her ship despite the Doctor and Jo warning her of the danger, but she is unable to take off thanks to the Doctor using his screwdriver. He realises that Hardy and two of Burton's marines disappeared during the release of time energy and that only he and Jo, with coaxing, can remember them.
Part two
to be added
Part three
to be added
Part four
to be added
Cast
- The Doctor - Tim Treloar
- Jo Grant - Katy Manning
- Arianda - Robin Weaver
- Adam Rigg - Iain Batchelor
- Major Hardy / Crewman - Robert Hands
- Commander Burton - Richard Derrington
- Sinko / Ronson / Lieutenant - Ian Conningham
- UNIT Radio Operator - Jake Dudman
Worldbuilding
- Commander Burton was briefed on UNIT whilst training at Dartmouth.
- The Altarians come from Altaria.
Notes
- The look of the Horofax was inspired by the Destroyer from Marvel Comics.[1]
Continuity
- The Horofax's method of converting other races into their own kind- taking the individuals back through time and influencing their history- is similar to the method used by the clock-faced people, save that the clock-faced people explicitly changed the history of their subjects where the Horofax just change the subjects' perceptions of their history. (PROSE: Anachrophobia)
- Jo is partially immune to the memory loss caused by people being erased from history due to her own history as a time traveller. (TV: Flesh and Stone, Cold Blood, et. al)
- As she begins to forget him, Jo recalls Paul Hardy helping her and the Doctor against the Autons and the Axons. (TV: Terror of the Autons, The Claws of Axos)
- Jo tries to recite Mary Had a Little Lamb again but this time in vain. (TV: Frontier in Space)
External links
- Official Storm of the Horofax page at bigfinish.com
Footnotes
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