Storm of the Horofax (audio story)

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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 Oltarian 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 Oltaria 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

After locking Arianda up, Burton checks the crew manifest at the Doctor's urging and confirms that the Nemesis has a dozen fewer marines than it usually would. The Doctor and Jo leave by helicopter with Arianda and watch the Nemesis glow before exploding, leaving no trace behind. They fly to an unmanned UNIT bunker in the Kent Downs rather than UNIT HQ to keep Arianda isolated and the Doctor sends Jo to the nearest village to collect supplies enough for two days. On her way to the bus stop, she meets forest ranger Adam Rigg, who is looking for the helicopter to admonish its pilot and passenger for scaring the deer, and gets a lift in his Land Rover.

Arianda is familiar with the Time Lords, whom she claims have persecuted others like her, and refuses to answer any questions as she claims to be innocent of any wrongdoing. When the bunker's systems detect the landing of a spacecraft larger than hers, one which is detected by the bio-crystal Jo holds, she states that she is not alone. The armoured Horofax leave their ship in search of Arianda, their provost, and attempt to kill Jo and Adam with energy weapons before the Doctor and Arianda leave the bunker. Arianda has Sinko and his men seize the Doctor and go after the escaped Jo and Adam, whose Land Rover has been destroyed, to retrieve the bio-crystal. Adam kills one with his shotgun and is separated from Jo when another attacks.

Whilst the Doctor fights the Horofax and gets away, Jo is captured and brought before Arianda, who takes her back to the bunker to be held as a hostage. The Doctor meets Adam, who no longer has any bullets, and examines the body of the dead Horofax, which is wearing a timesuit. Arianda takes back the bio-crystal, which focuses her abilities, and uses her powers to enter Jo's mind and search through her memories, confirming that the present is the ideal time for the Horofax to invade Earth. Her plan, she reveals, is to bring about the end of humanity.

Part three

The Doctor contacts Trap One to get a request for help to the Brigadier and explains to Adam that the Horofax are an armed cult rather than a species. The provosts, who are linked to the timelines by a genetic abnormality, recruit volunteers from the planets they invade and by forcing loyalty using a method he fears Arianda will use on Jo. Whilst the Doctor puts Adam into the dead Horofax's suit, Arianda shows Jo visions of the defeat of humanity and the Battle of Calicos VIII where she altered Sinko's perspective to make him join her. Jo is able to sense Arianda's thoughts and feelings and realises that the Empire of the Horofax will be defeated. Angered, Arianda turns her mind to the experiences that shaped Jo as a person to change them and make her loyal to the Horofax.

Arianda begins to reshape Jo by removing her mother, father and Uncle Jack from her memories and restructuring her life so that Jack never got her her job at UNIT and she never met the Doctor. Having made her lonely, she gets Jo to remember a life in which she found love and comfort with the Horofax.

to be completed

Part four

to be added

Cast

Worldbuilding

Notes

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

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Twitter: @Andr3wSmith "It's the Destroyer from Thor. The look was an inspiration for the Horofax in my 3rd Dr story 'Storm of the Horofax', so I copped this when I saw it."
v • e
The Third Doctor Adventures
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Volume 7
Volume 8
Volume 9
Volume 10
The Return
of Jo Jones
Volume 12
Volume 13
Volume 14
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