Terminal of Despair (novel)

In Terminal of Despair, the TARDIS crew is quarantined in Terminal 4000, where the hideous Desponds have destroyed the hopes of all awaiting passengers. Can the Doctor and his friends help them escape without succumbing to despair themselves?

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor, Amy and Rory have landed inside what seems to be a spaceport and look around. The Doctor meets a flight attendant with a grim face. She explains that thirteen creatures had invaded Terminal 4000. Amy and Rory, inside a shop, find that something's inside with them.

A dog-like creature is inside the shop. When Amy approaches it, it jumps on her. A tentacle protrudes from its mouth and tries to latch onto her throat. Rory helps knock it out the way and they escape. The Doctor learns the creatures are called Desponds, dog-like aliens who feed off hope. Everyone is in despair because there is no hope left inside them.

The TARDIS crew meet Roger McDowell, who has apparently shot one of the creatures. Now there are twelve. The Doctor follows Janie and Amy to the control room. Rory remains with the people in the lounge and meets Mr and Mrs Henry. In the control room, the Doctor tinkers with a machine. Realising that an alien has just entered, the computer releases a killing gas. Janie and Amy choke on it as the outside doors began to close.

The Doctor, unaffected by the gas, disperses it. Rory goes to look for Amy and the Doctor and finds Roger, who knocks him on the head with a gun butt. The Doctor decides the only way they could escape is if he dies. Amy isn't so sure.

The Doctor performs a Time Lord trick involving his binary vascular system. Amy and Janie escape and return to the lounge. The Doctor wakes and tries to figure a way out. In the lounge, everything is chaos. People talk of raiding the shop where other people went. Amy and Janie feel compelled to help them.

Amy and Janie are caught in the raid. Rory wakes in a space ship, where Roger introduces him to Cap. They believe that he can fix their ship's engines. Rory is forced to agree to help.

The Doctor is still inside the control room, trying to get the spaceport's quarantine lifted. A control panel gives him an electrical shock. Amy grows worried about Rory. The raid persists to continue in their attack and the Doctor watches from the cameras as Amy is thrown against the shop along with other caught people.

Rory is now fastened into a space suit and led by Roger out into space who would watch over him and make sure that he wouldn't tamper with the engine, but instead fix it. Deciding to escape, Rory tries to distract Roger and starts to head back to the airlock, but too late. Cap cuts the wire and he is sent sailing out into space.

The Doctor finally manages to trick the machine and he escapes from the control room. Rory, starting to panic, pulls the air tube from his tank and points it out to space. He begins to soar towards the airlock. He quickly enters the terminal. The raid, after a quick brawl, gives up on its attack and Amy is allowed to roam free. She finds the Doctor in the baggage claim, but Desponds suddenly approach them.

Rory wants revenge and so leads two Desponds into the space ship where Cap and Roger were hiding. They begin to feed. The Doctor is attacked by one of the Desponds and is fed on, he loses all hope of ever escaping the terminal or helping the passengers.

Amy drags the Doctor away from the Desponds and into the TARDIS, where they are safe. Rory finds them and discovers what has happened. They try to rejuvenate the Doctor's hope, but it is no use. He is completely drained of any information or hope on ever escaping the terminal.

Amy decides to try something and heads up to the control room. Turning on the microphone she begins to recite the story of the "raggedy Doctor". She talks of monsters and aliens that they had faced together and how the Doctor had made them turn away. Passengers were beginning to feel hope and were gathering outside the TARDIS, chanting the Doctor's name.

The drained Doctor seems confused, wondering whether he is the correct man. Rory reassures him of that. Suddenly, he becomes the real Doctor again and begins to organise the people. He sets up three ships and puts Janie in charge of organising everyone for each ship.

Rory is helped by a few male passengers to divert Desponds away from the crowds. He is forced to use a primitive weapon as a helping tool. Upon entering a shop, Rory and his fellow searchers are trapped as six Desponds surround them.

Roger appears from his ship; he had left Cap behind to be fed on. He finds Amy and tricks her into opening the TARDIS. Shoving her inside, he orders her to control it and take them away from the carnage. After she refuses, he decides to drive it, and the TARDIS disappears from the terminal.

The Doctor arrives in aid of Rory and the male passengers and locks the Desponds inside the shop. He then spots his ship hovering outside a window, in the middle of space. Inside the TARDIS, Roger apologises for his action to Amy and explains that it was his fault that the Desponds had invaded and how the quarantine had begun.

Under the orders of the Doctor, Rory begins to organise the passengers onto the ships. Meanwhile, the Doctor has called the TARDIS phone and explains to Amy that she must fly the TARDIS at an exact moment. Using his sonic screwdriver, he attracts the creatures ever closer.

Roger explains that it was his fault. He had found the Desponds when they were babies after their mother had died. He kept them and looked after them inside the Terminal, in a storage cupboard. And they managed to escape. Amy doesn't blame him entirely. After not hearing from the Doctor for a while, Amy decides to pull the lever, it engulfs the Doctor and Rory as they back away from the Desponds.

Steering carefully onto one of the space ships, the Doctor, Amy and Rory say their goodbyes and thank Janie for her hard work. The TARDIS disappears.

more to be added

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

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Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

This story was collected in Sightseeing in Space.
This story was also released as an ebook (together with Web in Space!) available from the Amazon Kindle store.
This book was later re-released individually, and with a new cover, as part of the Eleventh Doctor Adventures. This edition was released as a ebook on 4 August 2016 and in paperback on 27 September 2016. Strangely, this new edition's cover clearly shows the Eleventh Doctor in his latter-day attire, from the Doctor's travels with Clara Oswald, despite Amy and Rory starring alongside him in the story within.