The Havoc of Empires (audio story)

The Doctor and Jo take Mike Yates on his first trip in the TARDIS, but instead of the historical cricket match they were aiming for they end up on a futuristic space station in the middle of a diplomatic crisis that might escalate into galactic war.

The alien leader of the Chalnoth Hegemony is marrying the human Director of the Teklarn Incorporation, but there are forces that will stop at nothing to disrupt the ceremony. The Doctor is accused of murder while explosions occur across the station, and only Jo Grant, pretending to be a security consultant, can save the day.

But then, there's the Eels to consider...

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Part one[[edit] | [edit source]]

Having recently had his exile on Earth rescinded by the Time Lords, the Doctor is doing TARDIS maintenance when Jo and Yates remind him that he agreed to take them to the Cavern Club in 1961 to see the Beatles, although Yates persuades Jo to postpone that trip and instead have a picnic at 1899 Trent Bridge to see W. G. Grace's last cricket match. The Doctor has taken the temporal synchromesh offline but agrees to take them.

The TARDIS instead materialises in a docking bay on Harmony Station in 2679. Lieutenant Commander Alex Filton arrives, having been sent by Earth Empire to coordinate security for the wedding of Regent Tharlar of the Chalnoth Alliance and Chief Executive Officer Tina Andresson of the Teklarn Incorporation, and forces the Doctor, Jo and Yates to identify themselves. Yates knocks him out with his cricket ball and they take him to safety before planning on returning to the TARDIS, but the docking bay is sealed for three hours for decontamination. The Doctor proposes that he takes on Filton's identity, but Jo does so instead due to their similar size.

The Doctor, Jo and Yates meet Louis Markell, Andresson's executive officer, and May Zalrick, wedding arranger and split up, with the Doctor meeting Tharlar and Yates meeting Andresson whilst Jo checks security arrangements with Louis. The decontamination of the docking bay is complete and Janos Pirell, who arranged the match, arrives; Jo has the Doctor and Yates join her to greet Pirell so that they might sneak away into the TARDIS, but Pirell's ship explodes.

Part two[[edit] | [edit source]]

The docking bay door is automatically closed due to structural damage which will take eight hours to repair. In the meantime, the Doctor, Jo and Yates decide to investigate Pirell's death; Jo meets with Markell and Lady Gurlen in the security centre and is unable to narrow down any suspects, but security recordings show that the bomb was beneath the ship rather than on it. Gurlen withdraws from the investigation until the Teklarn, whom she blames for the attack, is disciplined.

Jo summons the Doctor and Yates outside the docking bay and informs them of a sound in there that she and Markell had heard prior to the explosion. Amongst the weapons of the Chalnoth and Teklarn, stored away to prevent fighting, the trio find a cage of five Attow Eels. Zalrick enters and explains that they are from Tersurus and will be the centrepiece of the ceremony, being heraldic animals of the Chalnoth extinct in their space. Later, Gurlen tells Jo that she now believes that the Teklarn are unlikely to be behind Pirell's death and that blame might instead lie with the Delphons.

Jo runs a spectral analysis on the explosion and learns that the bomb contained halgenite, often used by the Delphons and their occupied worlds. The Harmony Station AI is initially unhelpful and reveals that it knows that Jo is not Filton, but has not told anybody because artificial intelligences who show initiative are often switched off. At a meeting, Tharlar and Andresson meet for the first time and Jo scans everybody for helgenite, finding a trace on the Doctor's hands.

Part three[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor is arrested and to be tied to a chair to await execution by laser pulse rifle at the sounding of an Entropy Clock per Chalnoth law. Whilst he awaits execution, he may be tried by human law based on evidence gathered by Jo. Privately, Markell and Gurlen agree that the Doctor is likely working with the Delphons. A Delphon fleet approaches the station and, when nobody is able to understand their transmission, Jo visits the Doctor and has him carried out in his chair to translate.

Although unfamiliar with the dialect, the Doctor is able to understand that the message is from Commander Pharlac of the Delphon Ceremonial Fleet, here for the wedding at Pirell's invitation. The Doctor tells Yates to investigate Filton, as he had potentially got the halgenite trace from going through Filton's pockets. Yates finds that Filton has disappeared, the ropes restraining him having been cut and a bomb without a timer left in the cupboard. Jo loses contact with him and the AI reports that there has been an explosion.

Everybody hurries to the life pods except for Jo, who goes to find the Doctor and Yates. The life pod launch system has been compromised, however, and Tharlar and Andresson are trapped inside when a girder blocks the way out. Jo runs into Zalrick, who claims to have been checking on the Attow Eels and, after another explosion, shouts that the Eels have escaped.

Part four[[edit] | [edit source]]

Zalrick tries to get the Eels to listen to her, but Jo pulls her to safety. Jo knocks out the Chalnoth guard and convinces the human guard to leave, allowing her to rescue the Doctor and go in search of Yates, whom she believes to be injured. The Doctor and Jo herd the Eels back into the storage area with laser pulse rifles and find Yates unconscious, buried under ceiling tiles.

With the help of the AI, the Doctor, Jo and Yates find that the bombs were detonated away from concentrations of people and have caused no death, indicating that they were only intended to cause panic. They learn that the AI was built by the Tiresias Corporation and that Filton and Pirell, who is most likely alive, are connected to the entity; because this has been discovered, the AI announces that it will shut down all life support systems. It does not want them to die, however, and is shutting down unoccupied areas first.

Following the AI's instructions, Jo stops the subroutine causing the shutdown of the life support systems. Yates goes to save Tharlar and Andresson and the Doctor and Jo find Zalrick, who puts a harness on one of the Eels and has it track Pirell and Filton down by scent. They find them in the power core room and arrest them. Tharlar and Andresson wed, with the Doctor officiating the ceremony, after which the travellers return to the TARDIS and decide to eat their picnic before going to see the Beatles.

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Narrator / The Doctor - Tim Treloar
Jo Grant - Katy Manning
Mike Yates - Richard Franklin
May Zalrick / Harmony Station AI - Helen Goldwyn
Regent Tharlar / Alex Filton - Hywel Morgan
Tina Andresson - Lucy Briggs-Owen
Lady Gurlen - Joanna Bacon
Louis Markell / Human Guard - George Layton

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Jo wants to see the Beatles play at the Cavern Club in 1961 with Yates.
Yates wants to see W. G. Grace's last cricket match at Trent Bridge in 1899. He brings a picnic hamper with champagne and crab paste and cucumber sandwiches and a cricket ball for Grace to sign.
The Doctor met W. G. Grace during an adventure involving the Medusoids.
The Teklarn Incorporation is an offshoot of Earth Empire run on business lines. It controls five-hundred planets across several thousand light years. Jo likens it to the East India Company.
The Chalnoth are a warlike race with small horns, rough skins and plates on their body and face which act like natural armour.
Led by Tharlar's great-grandfather twenty-two times removed, the Chalnoth subjugated the Varlig Horde.
Markell says that the Draconians and Alpha Centaurians would rather the Chalnoth and Teklarn Incorporation be at war than eyeing up their territories.
Lady Gurlen says that the Sontarans and Rutans would not want the alliance as it might impinge upon their perpetual war, not to mention the nearby Delphons.
Tharlar's father was assassinated when he was a youth.
Attow Eels are heraldic animals of the Chalnoth Hegemony. They are the size of horses and have rough, pebbly skin, coloured bright blue with red stripes, with gaping mouths lined with tentacles. Their eggs are accidentally spread through the planets by spacecraft and, upon arrival, they quickly establish themselves as predators.
The Doctor mentions Drashigs.
Halgenite is a compound of mercury, nitrogen, oxygen and salestrom trinithrate.
The Doctor learnt Delphon in Little Tratteria on Alpha Centauri V.
Andresson worked in spacecraft manufacture before being promoted to director.
Before becoming Regent, Tharlar was a general in the Chalnoth Army. He was put in charge of comms and signals by Gurlen, then a staff sergeant, and later made her his chief adviser.
The AI was built by the Tiresius Corporation. Pirell is a non-executive director of the corporation and Filton is in its employ.
Tharlar's mother died in childbirth. He was raised by nurses.

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

This story was recorded at The Moat Studios.
The first part of this story was released for free to newsletter subscribers.
The Chalnoth share their name with another warlike alien race seen in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Allegiance".
The name Attow Eel was created as an anagram of "tea towel" by analogy with Drashig being an anagram of "dish-rag". (BFX: The Third Doctor Adventures)