Number Ten (short story)

Number Ten
Main character(s):	Jenny Maguire, A. Frederick
Main setting:	United Kingdom, 2006
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC
Writer:	BBC webteam
Release details
Genre:	Science fiction
Release date:	23 April 2005
Website:	U.N.I.T.
Format:	Online short story
U.N.I.T. website fiction
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Operations Board
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You may be looking for another short story on the U.N.I.T. website with a similar title.

Number Ten, also called Aftermath of Number Ten and prefixed as Operations Board: Number Ten on the story's page, was the tenth short story and fourteenth release published exclusively on the U.N.I.T. website on 23 April 2005 by the BBC webteam to coincide with the broadcast of World War Three. Number Ten was the third release in the Operations Board series of in-universe chat logs between UNIT personnel.

This short story was set concurrently with another, Number Ten Pays Tribute to UNIT.

Plot

In an operations board, Major Jenny Maguire mournfully announces the deaths of Major Frost and her Geneva EVA team, and informs them that she has spoken to the UK based families, with Geneva dealing with the others, and that a statement and tribute will be issued soon. A. Frederick (now a captain) responds, saying that they were knew what they were doing.

Maguire is flummoxed by the recent events, as Number 10 has been destroyed, the UK's defence system is completely compromised, UNIT's computer security has been "ripped open", the world's nuclear deterrent is offline, Europe's top counter-alien squads have been assassinated, and the PM is someone she has never heard of.

Out of habit, Frederick tells Maguire that the acting PM wants to brief Maguire at No10, before correcting herself, telling Maguire to go to the acting office in Westminster. The PM wants to brief her on what happened to Frost's team and the Doctor's involvement. Maguire remarks that the PM is going through that "starry-eyed phase", and states that she'll travel there as soon as she sees the coffins of the deceased off the air strip.

Characters

• Major Jenny Maguire
• Captain A. Frederick

Referenced only

• Major Frost
• Jenny Maguire's mother
• The Doctor
• Acting PM

Worldbuilding

• The acting PM has, according to Maguire, the same hairstyle as her mother.
• The acting PM is impressed that Maguire has met the Doctor, though Maguire evidently thinks little of him.

Notes

• Up until this point, Annie Frederick had always been a Staff Sergeant. Becuase she is now a Captain in this story, it implies she was promoted shortly after the London UFO crash; however, from this point onwards, stories depict her as just a Sergeant, implying a demotion.
• The previous two stories in the Operations Board series featured times and dates for the messages and the operations board, respectively, however this story doesn't follow suit, perhaps due to the BBC webteam not wanting to keep using the dates established in earlier stories due to their overall contradictory nature.
  • It is also possible that they didn't want to use the date from Number Ten Pays Tribute to UNIT, which was, for some unknown reason, set nearly a month prior to the 28 June date attributed to TV: Aliens of London by other stories on the website.

Continuity

• The story is set directly after TV: World War Three.
• UNIT issues a press briefing about the destruction of Number Ten. (PROSE: Number Ten Pays Tribute to UNIT)

External links

• Number Ten at U.N.I.T. via the Wayback Machine