The Age of Ice (comic story)

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Summary

Returning to Earth, the Doctor is shocked to discover his old enemies the Skith are planning their second invasion of Earth. Can even the Doctor defeat the powerful Skith leader?

Plot

Part 1 (The Age of Ice)

As a passenger aircraft approaches Sydney airport, it suddenly hits a patch of bright blue lightning. The plane is ripped apart and oxygen masks deploy as the lightning attacks the plane.

Later, the TARDIS lands in Sydney, near the Opera House. Majenta heckles the Doctor about the fact that they're not on Panacea, but the Doctor's gaze shifts towards a landing helicopter. UNIT soldiers emerge from the helicopter, and one of them introduces herself as Captain Kath Braxton. The Doctor is taken to UNIT's underwater base.

As the Doctor and Majenta are taken down UNIT's corridors by armed soldiers, a UNIT soldier named Colonel Tom McCay takes them into a hospital ward in their base. They are greeted by Corporal Manning, who is taken aback when he sees Majenta. The Doctor investigates the patients there, and is surprised to see that they are hundreds of years old. McCay reveals that they have aged while travelling in the passenger aircraft after it was hit by a Chronal Wave. He then reveals that prehistoric creatures have been rampaging across the city.

The Doctor then sees a small column of ice in display. McCay explains that the ice was found in the wreckage of the plane. He tells the Doctor that it doesn't melt, and is giving off electrochemical signals. McCay organises a helicopter for the Doctor so that he can see the Chronal Wave himself. They then realise that Majenta is not with them.

Corporal Manning had also left the group, and is entering the bestiary in the basement. Majenta follows him down, and finds a room full of (mostly alien) tech - Cybermen carcasses, Autons, War Machines and others. Corporal Manning is communicating with a sentient life form when Majenta apears in front of him. Corporal Manning holds Majenta at gunpoint, only for Majenta to explain that she can tell that he is using a cloaking device. Corporal Manning turns off the device...

As the helicopter approaches the origin of the Chronal Wave, the piece of ice begins talking to the Doctor, a message from a life form who have met the Doctor before. UNIT soldier Sergeant Talbot notes that another Chronal Wave is approaching, as hundreds of prehistoric creatures appear near the bridge.

Back in the bestiary, Corporal Manning is revealed to be an alien, of the same species as Majenta: an old friend of Majenta called Fanson. He tells Majenta how much he's missed her, but Majenta pushes him away, and asks him to explain everything. Fanson reveals he can't, and suddenly Majenta is blasted away by a pulse of energy, as a crystalline life form called the 'Skith Leader' appears...

Part 2 (Secrets and Lies)

UNIT's helicopter flies past the bridge, as the Doctor begins to communicate with an 'old friend' via the strip of ice. Suddenly, the helicopter interior is ruptured by a flash of bright blue lightning - an energy spike - which destroys the chopper's engines and kills Sergeant Talbot. In an attempt to get Colonel McCay and the Doctor to safety, The Doctor hits the eject button on his seat, and he and McCay are ejected from their seats, just as the chopper explodes in flames behind them. Their parachutes deploy, and they land safely near the city.

Back in the UNIT Underbase, Majenta begins to recover. Fanson begs the Skith Leader to save her life, and the Skith leader agrees, but warns Majenta not to interfere with their plans. Fanson explains that after the incident with the Hotel Historia, they were both teleported to Thinktwice. Fanson, however, was intercepted, and brought down to a butcher's shop in Australia, where he found the remains of the Skith leader. Fanson made a deal with the leader, so that both of their lives would be saved. He then masked himself under the body of Corporal Manning, in order to carry out the tasks of the Skith. As Fanson finishes his explanantion two UNIT soldiers burst in, and Fanson commands the Skith leader to attack the soldiers. The two soldiers are transformed into Skith, and commanded to spread the Skith transformation through the Underbase.

The Doctor and Colonel McCay enter a gift shop. After speaking the keyword, he and the Doctor enter a secret UNIT safehouse behind the shop. Using the computers and technology available, the Doctor reveals the 'invisible object' - a huge crystal ship hanging over Sydney. The Doctor explains that the Skith's motivation is to 'rebuild the world in their own image'. Colonel McCay sends a command to the Underbase control room to attack the bridge. Suddenly, the two UNIT soldiers converted by the Skith enter the control room...

McCay and the Doctor head back to the Underbase, where the Doctor complains of an ice cream headache. Thinking nothing of it, he spots Majenta, who stops, reaches for a taser, and electrocutes the Doctor with it. Colonel McCay commands Corporal Manning to stop her but Manning refuses, pointing out that McCay is no longer in charge as numerous newly converted Skith soldiers take UNIT captive. The Doctor is dragged away by the converted soldiers...

As the Doctor begins to wake up, he notices that he is with the Skith leader, Majenta and Fanson, whom he fails to recognise. The Skith leader tells the Doctor that he is needed by the Skith to access the Skith's crystal ship, as it is phased out of time. The Doctor, Fanson and Majenta are taken to 'The Starling', a flying base used by UNIT. In the control room, the Doctor asks the leader what plan the Skith have. The leader explains that, as the Doctor is time sensitive, the Skith leader plans to open the door and throw him at the ship. Suddenly, another Skith approaches the leader, and warns the leader not to take such drastic action. He then informs the Doctor that 'everthing is going according to plan', as hundreds of Skith fighters swarm out of the ship towards the UNIT flier...

Part 3 (The Master of the Skith)

In Sydney dinosaurs still ravage the streets and chase humans. The Doctor, Majenta, Fanson and McCay are being marched down an ice corridor by the Skith. The Doctor notes that the Skith have a huge army. As the Doctor is separated from the group by the Skith, he tells Majenta to take care of herself.

The Skith General and the Skith leader meet. The Skith leader is annoyed at the Skith General for the breach of authority. As the Skith Mindcore watches in tacit approval, the General turns on leader and throws him into the ship's fusion core.

At the Underbase the occupying Skith soldiers sense the leader's demise and hesitate. Captain Braxton, seeing an opportunity, calls out the keyword "Leviathan."

Majenta, Fanson and McCay are bound on examination tables. The Skith scan the three of them and find they can't get anything from Majenta, except that she's a time traveller like the Doctor. While the Skith discuss what to do next, McCay melts through his bindings, grabs a Skith weapon (with Skith attached) and shoots down his captors.

The Doctor confronts the Skith General, who explains that the Skith homeworld was destroyed by a large crimson hand. The Mindcore can't figure out who or what caused this, but has put the Skith on a war footing to stop it from happening... and are working on Time Travel as a solution.

McCay has freed Majenta and Fanson, with a plan to storm the ship's nerve centre.

At the Underbase the Leviathan protocol activates. The base computer projects a psychic wave that incapacitates all of the Skith in the base, then heads the Underbase up to the surface of Sydney Harbor.

The Skith General takes the doctor to their homemade time machine, which he has named the SKARDIS. The Skith had gained knowledge of the TARDIS when they probed the Doctor's mind in 1915, and built their own version, but found it needed a living time brain to make it work. The appears eager to cooperate, but the Mindcore warns that this is the Doctor's way of "getting inside the system, destroying it from within."

At that moment McCay, Fanson and Majenta race in. The Skith General easily subdues McCay, then turns toward Majenta as a more suitable subject. Over the Doctor's protests she is transformed into the new Queen of the Skith.

Part 4 (Ruins and Snow)

Majenta, now the Skith Queen, orders the Skith General to throw the Doctor, Fanson and McCay into the fusion core. She's elated to be part of something big again, but thinking about it brings up a fleeting image of four darkened figures. As the others are led away towards the core, the Skith Queen tries out her new SKARDIS.

In the newly surfaced Underbase Braxton and Lowrie observe as a Chronal Wave freezes the Sydney Bridge, killing all the dinosaurs.

The Doctor and others arrive at the central core. The Mindcore gloats it is going to watch as the Doctor falls and burns. The execution is interrupted, however, when the Skith Leader claws his way up from the fusion core and promptly shoots the Skith guards. With his dying breath the Leader tells Fanson he must save the Skith. Fanson reaches for him as he dies and scatters into shards.

Braxton reports to McCay that the Skith ship is causing a new Ice Age to envelop Sydney.

At the SKARDIS the Skith General suggests they go and strike "The Hand". The Skith Queen has other ideas, and suggests they go to Panacea to restore her memory first. The Doctor returns at this point and appeals to the vestiges of Majenta still in her. He tells her that every time they use the SKARDIS a Chronal Wave moves across the city leaving devastation. Unmoved, Majenta turns a dial and the SKARDIS materialises above Sydney.

Braxton, seeing the opportunity, turns the Underbase's main guns on the Skith ship.

The Doctor advises the Skith General to take his ship (the Oppressor Two) and leave Earth. The Mindcore agrees. The General, furious at the Queen's betrayal, shoots ice spikes at her, but Fanson dives in front and takes the hit instead. Fanson in his dying words tells Majenta it was he that had wiped her mind. She had gotten herself mixed up in a terrible secret that was driving her mad. Fanson dies, as the Doctor pulls an angry Majenta away to the Starling. The flier escapes as the Skith ship is destroyed.

Inside, the Doctor says the effects of the Chronal Wave should clear up in a few days. Majenta asks if the Doctor still wants to help her. He admits he can't pass up on a good mystery, and they pledge to stay together.

Characters

References

  • The previous year Corporal Manning dealt with an advance party of Ice Warriors.
  • The Doctor reminces about when UNIT used to operate 'out of a draughty old house in the Home Counties' (in the 1970s)
  • The 'grey haired fella' and the 'bloke with the recorder' are references to the Third Doctor and Second Doctor.
  • A UNIT officer refers to the Doctor saving everyone from the Daleks in DW: Journey's End
  • The Multiverse is mentioned for the second time in this arc.
  • The Doctor mentions Benidorm.
  • Inside the UNIT Underbase 1 there is a section call 'The Bestiary' which contains:

Notes

  • This was voted in the Doctor Who Magazine 2009 survey as the most popular comic strip of that year.

Continuity

Timeline

v • e
DWM Tenth Doctor comic stories
Rose
Solo
Martha
Solo
Donna
Majenta
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