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| From Little Acorns by John S. Drew | 8th Doctor |
Lycon, King Mihal'’s wise man, finds the king’s four grandchildren at play and breaks the solemn news to them that their grandfather is close to death and that the eldest, Judai, is next in order of succession. He tells her that when Mihal’'s time came to be the king he had not wanted to until he was persuaded by a man calling himself the Doctor. He proceeds to tell them the story…
When he was younger Lycon was Mihal'’s tutor. Being a similar age the two of them became friends and went hunting one day. Fortunately, the prince’s steed broke down and neither could repair the metallic beast so went on by foot. What they did not know was that in their absence Mihal’s father had been killed in a surprise attack on the castle, led by Mihal’s uncle Kalem. Kalem and some of his men then sped to the forest to murder Mihal, too, but because of the breakdown arrived too soon. One of the soldiers saw the hunters arriving on foot and shot at them but missed. Thus warned the two young men gained cover and managed to see their attackers. They quickly worked out that Mihal’s father was dead and that Kalem intended to usurp the throne. As Mihal launched himself at his uncle he realised he was the victim of an ambush but before his would-be assassins could power up their rifles the TARDIS materialised. The Doctor, apparently knowing the weaknesses of weapons on Zalezna, uses his sonic screwdriver to disable the weapons. Lycon and Mihal overcome five soldiers in hand to hand combat but Kalem escapes on a steed, heading back to the castle. The Doctor gives Lycon and Mihal a lift in the TARDIS to get back to the castle first. Before leaving the TARDIS Mihal confides in the Doctor that he does not feel fit to rule. The Doctor says that if he still feels that way after he has beaten Kalem he will let the young king travel with him until he feels responsible enough to return. When Mihal steps from the TARDIS he finds that all of the soldiers, even those apparently loyal to Kalem, are ready to swear allegiance to him. He is ready for his uncle’s return and quickly overpowers him. When Mihal seems set to leave in the TARDIS as the Doctor had promised, the Time Lord tells him that it is all right to feel unready to rule and that many of the leaders that he has met had similar doubts. To illustrate this he tells Mihal a series of stories…
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| One Fateful Knight by Peter David | 8th Doctor |
The TARDIS crash lands on the watchtower of a castle during a storm. Emerging, rather shaken, from the TARDIS the Doctor is confronted by two guards but hears a woman scream and rushes to her aid. He finds her to be at the end of her second day in labour and performs an emergency caesarian section to deliver the child. He hears that the child is called Arthur and begins to suspect where he has landed. When asked if he is a wizard he lets slip – jokingly – that his name is Merlin. This perplexes Uther Pendragon who solves a mystery surrounding Arthur’s conception: Arthur’s mother has always said that her husband, Gorlois was the child’s father when everyone else knew that Gorlois was dying on a distant battlefield at the time in question; Uther tells the Doctor that another Merlin h ad somehow allowed him to take on Gorlois’s shape and conceive the child; after Gorlois’s death became known Uther married Igerna and said he would bring up the child as his own. When the Doctor asks Uther what this other Merlin looked like he is told that it was a man with a hood that covered his face. The Doctor absorbs this information, returns to his TARDIS and leaves.
The TARDIS lands beside a blue lake and the Doctor emerges, telling someone nearby that he knows they are there. A door opens in a tree and a man in blue robes steps out, congratulating the Doctor’s TARDIS on tracking his own. He says he is Merlin, a Time Lord who knew the Doctor before he left Gallifrey. He admits to using his chameleon circuit to change Uther Pendragon’s appearance to conceive Arthur. He produces a weapon which he says was part of a Sontaran collector’s cache hidden nearby. He intends to share the weapons with the people of Earth. He fires at the Doctor who dodges the blast and enters his TARDIS as Merlin’s TARDIS dematerializes. He finds it easy to track Merlin’s ship which suggests that Merlin intends him to follow. Morgaine the Sunkiller, Battle Queen of the S’Rax, is relaxing after an intimate moment with Arthur. They are talking about the imminent arrival of Arthur’s prospective Bride, Guinevere. Arthur is dismissive of the chances of a wedding taking place. Morgaine suggests that the only reason why she has come to Earth is the advanced technology of their weapons, far ahead of the planet’s development. She gives him a sword, S’rax Cal Byr, which he mishears as Excalibur. He tells her that he will send Guinevere packing but Morgaine says that she will not marry him in Guinevere’s place. The couple part and the Doctor steps out of a nearby clearing in order to follow Arthur, who instantly becomes aware of his presence. The Doctor introduces himself as Merlin, responsible for Arthur’s safe birth, and the young king kneels before him. The Doctor is interested in the advanced technology of Excalibur and asks to see it. He recognizes a tracking device has been placed in the pommel, placed there so that Morgaine could easily find the king. He suggests that Arthur invent a fantastical story to explain where the sword came from. On a battlefield at Baden one of the king’s knights, Ancelyn, feeling close to death, reflects on how Merlin had persuaded the king to marry Guinevere and how20this had led to the enmity of Morgaine. Now he sees Morgaine’s son, Mordred crossing the battlefield. Ancelyn watches as Mordred encounters Arthur and tells him that his mother wishes Arthur’s death to be prolonged. He produces a pulse blaster but Ancelyn leaps up and knocks Mordred to the floor, putting the tip of his sword at Mordred’s throat. Mordred begins to insinuate to Arthur that Ancelyn has been having an affair with Guinevere. Arthur does not believe him and steps up to kill Mordred when Morgaine appears and shoots energy from her hands that knocks Arthur and Ancelyn off their feet. She is about to finish Arthur when the TARDIS materialises around her and then dematerializes. In the TARDIS Morgaine wonders how the Doctor knows her when she does not recognize him but he says he is Merlin and lives his life backwards. She tells how she came to Earth to investigate the weapons and fell in love with Arthur. He tricks her into leaving the TARDIS, only to find she is in the middle of a desert. He then sets off to speak to Guinevere (to see if the rumours about Ancelyn are true) but rematerializes inside the other Merlin’s TARDIS. The Doctor is trapped inside a stasis field as ‘Merlin’ adopts the Doctor’s face and steps into the=2 0Doctor’s TARDIS. Appearing in Guinevere’s presence the fake Doctor tells her that Arthur is dead and that Mordred is on his way. She grabs a crossbow and fires at the person entering the door: unfortunately, it is Arthur. Merlin then vanishes into thin air, only to re-enter by the door. He tells her that he is the real Merlin and that an imposter was there seconds before, as indeed he was. Morgaine has returned from the desert by ‘magick’ and kidnapped what she thought was the Doctor, imprisoning him beneath the Arctic. To save Arthur from Morgaine’s revenge he takes his body across realities to his own version of Earth. He lays him in a chamber, underground, near Lake Vortigern. He then writes a note to his previous incarnation:’Dear Doctor, The King died in final battle. Everything else propaganda. P.S. Morgaine has just seized control of a nuclear missile,’ and signs it ‘The Doctor’. He returns to the surface and inscribes a stone with runes saying ‘dig hole here’.
Continuity Note: This story prefaces the Seventh Doctor story Battlefield.
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| The Slave War by Una McCormack | 2nd Doctor, Jamie, Ben and Polly |
The TARDIS lands in Bruttium, southern Italy, in 71 B.C.E. The Doctor leads Ben, Polly and Jamie across some fields to a large villa but when they get inside they find that the residents have been massacred. A group of Roman soldiers run by, fleeing from a battle, and tell the time-travellers that savages are coming. The Doctor becomes separated from his companions and ends up in the camp of the Roman Army, pretending to be a lost traveller called Gaius Iunius Faber. He flatters the Proconsul Crassus, who is the leader of the army, into giving him a tent and lending him a Greek scribe, a slave called Demetrius. Ben, Polly and Jamie are captured by two ‘savages’ who seem unusually friendly and lead them to a distant camp where it is apparent that the victorious army from that day’s battle is celebrating. They are introduced to Spartacus and his wife Calpurnia and manage to convince them that they are slaves from the villa. Calpurnia says that the massacre was carried out by Roman legionaries but will be blamed on the slave army. S ympathising with the slave cause, Ben and Polly decide to join with Spartacus. Jamie, more practical in these matters, is reluctant. He says that the outcome is all too clear to him, and will end badly for the rebel army, which reminds Ben and Polly of the ending of the film they saw about Spartacus. In the morning Polly talks more with Calpurnia. She learns of the origins of the slave rebellions and the atrocities carried out by the Roman army. Polly confesses that they were not slaves but renews her offer to help. Calpurnia tells her that the slaves are tired of fighting: their intention to travel the length of Italy freeing all the slaves is bound to end in defeat and her desire is to escape to Sicily where she feels that they will be allowed to live peacefully. Polly tells her that Ben is a sailor and can get them some ships to escape on. Meanwhile, the Doctor pretends to be Crassus’s friend and over a drunken meal uses the Proconsul’s jealousy of Pompey (the other leader of the Republic, currently in Spain seeking glory) to suggest an end to the Slave Wars. He proposes a wall across Italy, built through the winter by the legions that will trap Spartacus. Crassus is so pleased with this plan that he soon convinces himself that it was his own idea all along. Later, Demetrius puts it to the Doctor that his plan is madness and will tire the soldiers before they can renew their assault in the spring. The Doctor, now confiding in the scribe, agrees. He betrays his own antipathy towards slavery and asks the scribe to write a letter for him. He also says that he has noticed Demetrius’s eyesight failing and knows that the Greek boy’s usefulness as a slave will soon be over.
Ben is entrusted with fifty men and half of the treasure that Spartacus and his army have acquired. He makes his way to the port of Rhegium and arranges for five boats to take the slave army to Sicily. However, he is double-crossed. The men he has placed on the ships are murdered, the money is stolen and the ships sail before the bulk of the rebels arrive, leaving them trapped for the winter on the mainland. When the season ends they head north again and see that the wall is taking shape. Scouts, including Ben and Jamie, report that it is incomplete and undermanned. They propose breaking through it but Calpurnia wonders if they should just stay in Bruttium and try to begin a life of peace. Ben, keen to atone for his failure with the ships, says he will take a message to Crassus. Ben meets the Doctor in the Roman camp. The Doctor tells him his plan of getting Crassus to build a wall was intended to buy the slaves time to get across to Sicily but Ben explains how they tried and failed. Hearing this, the Doctor says his friends must get to the TARDIS and leave because Pompey is on his way with a vast army. He tells Ben not to believe anything Crassus tells him, the Romans will stop at nothing until the slave army is crushed. When Ben returns to Spartacus the news is received grimly. Spartacus vows to fight bravely to the death and Ben tells him that his name will live down through history. As the legions approach, Polly and Jamie are told to lead the children of the slaves to safety in the hills. They are pursued by some soldiers but the two of them separate from the children and successfully draw off their enemy. After leading them further away from the children for a day they find themselves exhausted and trapped, facing death. In their final moments they realise that mixed messages have also left Ben in the rebel army, also facing death. Turning a corner in the path they stumble across the TARDIS. The Doctor greets them and introduces them to Demetrius who is now totally blind. They take the TARDIS to a deserted shore where the Doctor had arranged to rendezvous with Ben. He arrives with Calpurnia who, Polly notices, is pregnant. Calpurnia and Demetrius sail off in a raft that the Doctor, Polly and Jamie have made and the others return to the TARDIS. There the Doctor tells Polly that he forged a letter to the Senate, apparently from Crassus, asking them to send Pompey and his army to end the war. In that way he ensured that Pompey, not the racist and unenlightened Crassus, was the most powerful man in the Empire.
Note: The Doctor calls himself ‘Iunius Faber’, roughly translated as John Smith.
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| Goths and Robbers by Diane Duane | 5th Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan |
Tegan and Nyssa are deep in the TARDIS searching for some jars of pasta sauce to make lunch. When they fail in their quest the Doctor offers to take them to a modern Italian superstore but lands in Ravenna, two hundred males and 1500 years off target. Their appearance is noted by some soldiers who take them to Flavius Theodoricus, King of the Ostrogoths and ruler of Italy. To their surprise, the king recognizes them and greets all three by name, calling Tegan a queen. As he guides them around his palace Theodoric explains the complexities of the political situation in the latter days of the Roman empire. In one room they are horrified to see the corpse o f Odoacer, former king of Italy, murdered at a feast earlier in the day. Theodoricus seems saddened by this murder but regards it as expedient. Later, in his rooms, Theodoricus tells them that they met many years before in Constantinople when the Doctor found something that was lost. He suggests that he is not meant to give anything away about that meeting, but that something that occurred has a bearing on the events of earlier that evening.
The next morning sees them return to the TARDIS and make their way back in time to Constantinople. Landing in an ornate garden they meet a small boy searching for his rabbit. He introduces himself as Rithros, a hostage of the Emperor. The Doctor uses his celery to catch the rabbit as armed guards emerge from a large building nearby and take them prisoner. Another boy, somewhat older, is introduced as Prince Leo. He fills the travellers with a sense of distaste, particularly in the malevolent way he looks at Rithros. They are taken before Leo’s mother, Princess Ariadne, daughter of the Emperor. She accuses them of stealing the Crown of Byzantium which has just been discovered to be missing. Tegan objects vehemently to this. When Ariadne demands to know who Tegan is Nyssa introduces her as the High Queen of Brisbane. They are incarcerated in the dungeons where the Doctor takes the opportunity to explain about the missing crown. He says it has a reputation for having a life of its own and eventually gaining a legal standing as a person in its own right in the Hungarian Empire. While it also has a reputation for getting lost and turning up again the Doctor is puzzled because it is not meant to go missing so early in its life. At this point Rithros appears outside the cell and returns the TARDIS key to the Doctor who had dropped it, without realising, in his hunt for the rabbit. He tells them that the TARDIS has been brought into the building but guards are coming because the princess wants to get into it. He adds that Prince Leo has stolen and hidden the crown. When they arrive in front of the TARDIS, Nyssa and Tegan drive off the guards by claiming to be sibyls with the power to transform their victims into plants. The Doctor opens the door and all three scramble inside. The Doctor hops the TARDIS up to Rithros’s room and picks up the boy. They then hop into the room where the crown is hidden and then hop back to Prince Leo’s room and leave the crown in plain sight. Finally they take their leave of Rithros, but not before Tegan has tried to warn him against acting in anger, fearing that when he grows to be Theodoric he will murder Odoacer because of her. Returning to Ravenna and the palace of Theodoric the Doctor has time to tell them that the cr own’s subsequent reputation is because it has been in the TARDIOS and close to the Eye of Harmony. In the palace Tegan finds that the murder of Odoacer still took place. Theodoric explains to the Doctor that he had to have the king killed to prevent his own murder at the hands of Odoacer’s lieutenants. When the Doctor returns to the TARDIS he finds Nyssa and Tegan standing beside four rather dusty jars of pasta sauce.
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| Good Queen, Bad Queen, I Queen, You Queen by Terri Osborne | 4th Doctor, Romana and K9 |
The TARDIS lands in Roman Britain. Romana dresses in authentic Roman clothes, which proves a problem when they realise they are in the camp of the Iceni. King Prasutagus has just died from wounds received defending the Druids of Anglesey from the Romans. Queen Boudicca, his widow, knows that she will soon have to fight off the Romans when they come to claim his kingdom. The Doctor and Romana persuade Boudicca of th eir friendly intentions but when they return to the camp the next day they find the Romans pillaging the place and slaughtering the Iceni. Boudicca is so badly whipped that the Doctor takes her to the TARDIS’s Zero Room to recover from her injuries. Romana disguises herself as Boudicca in order to unite the other tribes in the region to fight off the Romans. Despite a series of victories on the battlefield the Britons still have to face the might of the Roman army at Londinium. Boudicca returns to the battlefield for this final assault and Romana joins the Doctor to observe the terrible outcome. The better trained Romans win a great victory in the battle and the tribes are horribly defeated. The Doctor and Romana leave history to take its dreadful course and leave in the TARDIS. Boudicca finds a woman’s corpse on the battlefield and dresses her as herself, while regenerating into a new body. She convinces the remainder of the Iceni that the queen is dead before travelling to Stonehenge where it is revealed that she is a Time Lord called Fimmilena and she enters her TARDIS which is disguised as one of the standing stones.
Time-Placement: Almost immediately after The Armageddon Factor. | |
| The Price of Conviction by Richard C. White | 1st Doctor and Susan |
After landing in Worms, Germany, in the sixteenth century, the Doctor and Susan find that the city is filled by visitors who have come to witness the trial of Martin Luther. Susan gets lost in an alleyway where she overhears two assassins discussing their plans to murder Luther. They discover her and assault her but she is rescued by a man who turns out to be the chief magistrate, Rudolf von Slesinger. He questions Susan in an inn before offering her and the Doctor his hospitality and a welcome at his home. They refuse but he has them arrested and taken to his residence. There they are introduced to Luther and his inquisitor at the trail, Johann Eck. Between them they concoct a plan which involves taking Luther to the trial through underground passages that run from the magistrate’s castle to the trial in the Diet. Later, however, the Doctor and Susan discuss their suspicions: the assassins discussing their plans in a public place as if they were meant to be overheard; the ease with which Rudolf rescued Susan; the coincidence that her rescuer was the chief magistrate; their inclusion in the discussion of Luther’s predicament. They fear that the whole matter is a ploy to dispose of Luther in secret and they have been used as a means to faci litate this. Susan disguises herself as a servant and escapes from the castle at night. She makes her way to warn Eck of their fears. The next morning the Doctor, Susan and Rudolf make their way through the tunnels with Luther. Sure enough, on their journey, the two assassins appear and kill Luther’s two bodyguards. Rudolf confesses to being the author of the plot but before his men can kill Luther (and the two time travellers) Eck arrives with his men. Rudolf is arrested and Luther goes on to his trial. The Doctor and Susan decide to stay in the city to watch the proceedings develop.
Time-Placement: The chameleon circuit is working and the TARDIS disguises itself as a shed so sometime before ‘100,000 BC’. | |
| God Send Me Well to Keep by Linnea Dodson | 5th Doctor and Nyssa |
The TARDIS lands off course in London during the Christmas of 1539. King Henry VIII is in the middle of protracted negotiations for a new bride. Thomas Cromwell is advising that the king marry Anne of Cleves but his rival is pushing for his own niece, Katherine Howard , to be the next queen. Oblivious to this, the Doctor and Nyssa gatecrash a party being held by the king who is very taken with Nyssa. Norfolk imprisons the pair (as his ‘guests’) which allows Nyssa and Katherine to become friendly but the Doctor is locked in his room. Norfolk persuades the king to accept the two girls as his ladies-in-waiting but Lord Cromwell sees the attention that Nyssa is drawing from the monarch. While the Doctor is trying to help Norfolk’s case in getting his niece into the king’s favour he realises that Norfolk’s hatred of Cromwell means that he will accept anyone as the next queen other than Anne of Cleves. Matters become even more serious when the Doctor also receives a death threat from Cromwell. The Doctor manages to escape from his room after feigning drunkenness. He gets back to the TARDIS with Nyssa but explains to her that the temporal nexus is unpredictable at this point and that they must help to retain the established order. He hops the TARDIS forward six days and lands at Rochester Castle on New Year’s Day where he knows The King is about to meet Anne for the first time. He and Nyssa draw a large crowd as they put on a magic show and this is sufficient to make the young Anne spend all of her time looking out of the window, thereby ignoring the king and antagonizing him sufficiently into turning towards Katherine, who the Doctor has told will be the next queen of England.
Time-Placement: After Time-Flight. | |
| Peaceable Kingdom by Steven Savile | 7th Doctor |
On the planet Mitidiki the insectoid inhabitants, the Kortani, are in the process of The Winnowing where their young fight each other for the right to survive. Into the middle of this comes the White Preacher. He arrives in an Akthon Mark 2 transporter and walks into the middle of the huge spider-scorpion warriors. He preaches a peaceful existence, to the disdain of the Kortani. Yet, even though he apparently surrenders to their violent whims he remains unscathed. Orwen Kleth, the chief of the Kortani observes that the preacher is using a device that displaces his image from his body but decides to use this information at a later date. The next morning the TARDIS arrives on the desert world and the Doctor makes his way towards the cliffs where the Kortani nests are. He sees some very old carvings in the stone, partly obscured, that seem to show an Akthon ma rk 2. He is puzzled by this, even more so when he sees the recently arrived spaceship nearby. Before he can solve this anomaly of the carvings he also finds the desiccated corpses of six Kortani young. He has no chance to explain himself when the tribe discover the corpses too and sentence him to death for murder. He is thrown into a pit and left to die under the merciless sun. He manages to use his umbrella to cause a partial collapse of the wall of the pit and escapes. He retraces his steps to the preacher’s vessel and finds inside it all the equipment necessary to cause a transition from a desert planet to a water world. Realising that the preacher is a hydrovore who sucked the water from the Kortani, and who intends to wipe out all life on the planet to fulfill his own ends, he sees the significance of the carvings he discovered earlier: they were warnings drawn by previous generations of Kortani to alert their descendants to the dangerous traveller who has evidently visited the planet several times before in order to set in place his plans. The Doctor uses a flare from the ship to start a tremendous rainstorm. This is too late to save Orwen Kleth from death by dehydration at the hands of the preacher but the hydrovore finds itself unable to stop absorbing the abundant water and begins to lose control of its shape. The Doctor offers to help the hydrovore get back to its ship as long as it promises to leave the planet for good. As the Akthon lifts off the Doctor w onders whether by saving the Kortani he has allowed a species as evil and remorseless as the Daleks to survive to the detriment of the future of the universe.
Time-Placement: Late Seventh Doctor solo adventure. | |
| Rock Star by Robert T. Jeschonek | 3rd Doctor and Jo |
The Doctor and Jo are attending Beatfest on the planet Rishik. This giant music festival is interrupted when an earthquake strikes the amphitheatre where the event is being staged. They are rescued from the disaster by Anderian Gosha, the Doctor’s friend and minister for music for half the world. He takes them back to the TARDIS where the Doctor works out that the area where the quake struck is normall y geologically stable. A second quake strikes as he is checking the data and he recognizes that the seismic waves are too regular to be natural. They take the TARDIS to the ministry of Music but are ambushed when they get there. The Doctor manages to sneak up and disarm their attacker, who turns out to be Anderian’s chief of security. The Doctor tells Jo that Rishik is a planet where music is the most important thing, but the two hemispheres, East and West, are currently involved in a music war. The security chief is obviously a double agent and Anderian accuses her side, the West, of triggering earthquakes. However, she makes the same accusation against the East. The Doctor concludes that neither side is the culprit. When he checks the maps of the planet he sees that there is one place which has remained unaffected and that is the estate of Genus Fry, the planet’s leading musician.
Fry is feeling guilty. He has used his musical skill, channeled through some high-tech equipment, to create the earthquakes. The equipment was provided by two enormous granite men, Oke and Erm, who call themselves Tun. Anderian takes the Doctor and Jo to fry9s house and distracts him with a musical jam session while the other two search the house. They see the Tun underground but the Doctor does not recognize them. They wait for the Tun to leave then infiltrate their laboratory. There they find a mineral-based matrix that links a biological entity with machinery. They are interrupted by voices and hide when the Tun push Anderian and Fry into the room. Fry steps into the matrix and begins a series of earthquakes. The screens in the laboratory show that these are the worst yet and are causing many fatalities. The Doctor leaves his hiding place and tries to disrupt the matrix but he is pulled away by one of the Tun. He leaves his sonic screwdriver in the matrix, reversing its polarity. As Anderian and the Doctor are dragged away Fry is in the matrix using his skills as a musician to ‘play’ the structure of the planet’s crust. He soon notices a discordant note which causes the seismic waves to turn back on him. He realises that the quake is on its way back to his house. Jo is wondering what she can do to stop the carnage she can see on the screens when Fry emerges from the matrix, telling her that the quake is on its way. He says he needs Jo’s help and thrusts her into the matrix. The Doctor and Anderian escape from their captor when the first shock waves hit the house and the Tun is buried. The Doctor races back to the laboratory but Fry begs for his help. He tells the Doctor that he is not trying to destroy the planet but save it. He says he has the gift of seeing exactly ten years into the future but for the last decade he has only seen darkness. At first he thought it was a premonition of his own death until the Tun came to him and told him they were the guardians of the planet. They said that both West and East had developed nuclear capabilities and were set to go to war. His vision was of the destruction that would ensue. He was using the earthquakes to wipe out the subterranean nuclear arsenals. When the Doctor says that the quakes will destroy cities Fry tells him that he chose the lesser of two evils. The Doctor and Fry join Jo in the matrix and manage to use their minds to control the earthquake. However, the stress was too much for Fry and he died, but the Tun downloaded his life into a spare body like their own. As he revives he realises that the vision of darkness he had was of the view of his closed eyelids. The Doctor cannot resist telling the granite musician that he is a rock star.
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| On a Pedestal by Kathleen O. David | 2nd Doctor, Jamie and Victoria |
Jamie and Victoria are arguing in the TARDIS about the true nature of the Scottish rebel, William Wallace, who Jamie regards as a villain and Victoria considers a murderous rogue. Later, while they are asleep the Doctor lands the TARDIS in the Scottish highlands and goes out for a walk. They land shortly after the local landowner Sir Douglas has discovered the theft of his prize bull. Jamie emerges from the TARDIS, only to be caught and accused of the crime. He is dragged off and sentenced to be hanged. Victoria has overheard Jamie’s capture and sets off in pursuit. On the way she meets a young man called Willie. The Doctor catches up with the pair and together the trio20intervenes just before Jamie is killed. They then persuade Sir Douglas to return to the field from which the bull was stolen and the Doctor uses the prints left in the mud to clear Jamie but implicate Willie. Willie (or the young William Wallace as he is revealed to be) confesses, and it transpires that this is another in a long series of practical jokes on his part. To recompense the travellers, he invites them to his father’s house for a celebration. While Jamie and Willie become friends, Jamie finds it hard to reconcile his image of Wallace with the irresponsible man he has just met. Victoria, on the other hand, seems to enjoy Willie’s company enormously. Their party is broken up by the arrival of Captain Fitzroy and his soldiers, who declare it an illegal assembly. The next day sees Willie take the travellers fishing. Fitzroy arrives with two men and accuses them of poaching. When
Victoria stands up to him, saying that he is a vindictive bully who she shall report to the English army authorities. Fitzroy lunges at her with his sword but Willie kills him. Unfortunately there are two other soldiers who witness this incident and Willie is forced to go on the run. Victoria wants to take him with them in the TARDIS but Jamie explains that history records that Wallace began his campaign against the English after a fight with soldiers in an argument about fishing.
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| Clean-up on Aisle Two by James Swallow | 7th Doctor |
Randall is the night manager of the Nev-R-Close supermarket. It is a rainy Monday night and he is disturbed from his fantasies of becoming a day manager and his victories in on-line strategy games when he has to clean up the vomit left by a child in one of the aisles. Despondently ruminating on the lack of trade at this time (the shop is empty of customers) and his unenthusiastic staff, he notices a large blue box outside which he thinks has been delivered by mistake. He notices that a small man has entered the shop: the Doctor. The Doctor is holding a copy of a games magazine and explains his attention was caught by the drawing on the cover (it bears a striking resemblance to a Cyberman). The Doctor uses an American Express Diamond Card with unlimited funds to buy several boxes of Snackee Cakes=2 0but then proceeds to empty the cakes into the bin saying he needs the wrappers to give to a pregnant friend with cravings. Two armed robbers burst in and the Doctor advises Randall to comply with their demands for the takings from the tills. Randall tries to stand up to them but his staff refuse to support him and Randall realises that this is because he has never treated them like people, more like avatars from his games. Without their support Randall has to back down. When a motorcyclist comes into the store one of the robbers shoots him, mistaking him for a police officer. The Doctor quietly stands up to the robbers, telling the leader that he knows he does not do this for financial gain, the whole thing is for his own entertainment and gratification. The robber agrees, but lets the Doctor and Randall help the injured man. The Doctor uses a device to heal the motorcyclist’s wounds but the man still needs hospital attention. The Doctor tells Randall that to earn the respect of his people a leader must treat them like people. Once Randall has opened the safe and the robbers have all that they came for they say they are going to take Lucy, one of the younger staff, with them. Randall now stands up to them, despite his great fear, and says he cannot allow Lucy to be taken because she is a person with a life and a future. Following his example, the rest of the staff stand up and support him. The Doctor tells them that they had better leave, which they do, but not until20one of them has broken Randall’s nose. After the police and an ambulance have arrived the Doctor departs and Randall, now knowing that he has the respect of the staff, only notices that the blue box has gone later the following day.
Time-Placement: Late Seventh Doctor solo adventure. | |
| The Spindle of Necessity by Allyn Gibson | 6th Doctor |
In a recently discovered play by Aristotle, “Eudemus, or On the Soul’, the story of a journey undertaken by Plato and the Doctor is recounted. Plato is in Egypt looking for the Spindle of Necessity, the axis of the world, which he imagines to be the point around which the heavens turn. He a rgues with the Doctor that this spindle must exist or the heavens would fall to Earth. He wishes to climb the spindle to the heavens to ask the gods to release the soul of his teacher, Socrates. Plato is fascinated by the Doctor, a man who claims to have met his future self and despairs at what he will become (a creature called The Valyard). The Doctor tries to argue with Plato that his vision of the universe is seriously flawed but becomes so intrigued by the folly of his quest that he agrees to sail with him. After a lengthy voyage they arrive at an impossibly high mountain. Plato and the Doctor leave the ship to return to its home and encounter the three Fates, three women called Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. They claim to know of the Doctor and his many lives. To the doctor’s amazement they also claim that the mountain is, indeed, the Spindle of Necessity. They transport Plato and the Doctor up the mountain and to the moon (which is far smaller than the Doctor remembers it). They then travel on to Mars and Saturn where Plato discovers the soul of Socrates. Plato elects to stay with his former master the Fates reveal to the Doctor the true nature of the Earth. It is one of many worlds that have been pulled from reality to protect them from the ravages of a war between the Gods. They say that they plan to return the Earth to its proper place when the war ends within the millennium. They have been alarmed by the Doctor’s ability to pass through their protectiv e shell around the planet in his TARDIs and they demand that he return to his craft and continue on his journeys. He argues that he does not want to travel again, knowing what he does of his future but the Fates tell him that what he has seen is but one possible outcome. Heartened, he resumes his travels.
Time-Placement: Soon after The Trial of a Time Lord. | |
| Epilogue by John S. Drew | 8th Doctor |
The Doctor returns to the planet of Zalezna in time to say farewell to the dying king Mihal. The king tells the Doctor that he can die happy, knowing that his grandchildren have heard the Doctor’s stories, confident that his kingdom is in safe hands. Lycon reflects on the toll that time has taken on his own body while the Doctor remains essentially the same.
Time-Placement: A long time after From Little Acorns, so we put it near the end of his incarnation. | |
| Source: Mark Senior | |
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