THE ADVENTURES BEFORE
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First published 2024 001
Written by Mark Gri ths, Steve Cole, Janet Fielding, Gary Russell, Beth Axford, Janelle McCurdy, E.L Norry and Ingrid Oliver
Copyright © BBC , 2024
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ISBN : 978–1–405–96998–7
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THE ADVENTURES BEFORE
EIGHT TALES THAT PRELUDE THE GREATEST ADVENTURES OF THE DOCTOR
1.
Aprequelto The Daleks
Mark Griffiths
2. THE ROOTS OF EVIL .......................................... 33
Aprequelto The Seeds of Doom
Steve Cole
3. LITTLE DID SHE KNOW ..................................... 71
Aprequelto Arc of Infinity
Janet Fielding
4. THE FOUR FACES OF IMMORTALITY ..........105
Aprequelto The Five Doctors
Gary Russell
Aprequelto Rose
Beth Axford
6. SMILEY’S MIRROR EXHIBIT .............................. 171
Aprequelto Planet of the Dead
Janelle McCurdy
7. THE FALL OF APALAPUCIA ............................. 211
Aprequelto The Girl Who Waited
E.L Norry
8. THE MORNING OF THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR ................................................ 245
Aprequelto The Day of the Doctor
Ingrid Oliver
THE BOY A ND THE D A LEK
MARK GRIFFITHS
The sound of The Teddy Bears’ Picnic reverberates around the TARDIS interior.
Jamie and Victoria look up from their game of snakes and ladders, a pastime the Doctor has assured them will teach them much about the bleak indifference of the universe.
‘What on earth’s this?’ asks Victoria.
‘A new distress call alert,’ says the Doctor, ridiculously proud. ‘There’s only so much beep-beep-beep a person can take, you know.’
‘You mean, this racket means there’s someone out there who needs our help?’ says Jamie, grimacing.
‘I’m afraid so, yes.’ The Doctor studies an instrument on the TARDIS console, zeroing in on the source of the SOS .
‘But why this song?’ asks Victoria. Despite its whimsical lyrics, she can’t help shuddering. Something about it gives her the creeps.
‘Oh, partly because its acoustic profile cuts nicely across the ambient noise within the TARDIS ,’ replies the Doctor. ‘Makes it easy to hear, whatever we may be doing.’ He yanks a lever, causing the familiar TARDIS materialisation sound to fill the air, mingling with the music, and then grins childishly from under his mop of black hair. ‘And partly, Victoria, because I happen to rather like it.’
They step out on to the cramped bridge of a small starship. Now, more conventional- sounding sirens screech while everywhere lights blink chaotically. All around lies the grubby junk of everyday human life: dirty plates, dog- eared paperbacks, crumpled clothes, a battered telepresence headset, random shoes. On one wall hangs a tapestry decorated with a swirling mandala pattern.
‘My Great Uncle Rodney brought back a wall hanging like that from Nepal,’ says Victoria, wading through the clutter. ‘Now he talks about auras and chakras rather too much for a Church of England vicar.’
The Doctor jabs buttons on a control panel. ‘I suspect the owners of this ship were on a similar voyage of spiritual discovery. Accessing crew manifest. Let’s see . . .’
Images of three people appear on a monitor: a casually dressed man and woman in their late thirties and a boy who looks about ten. The boy has a thick mane of dark, shaggy hair and a look of wild mischief in his eye. Victoria reads out the name label under each picture. ‘David X Flannery, Janey X Flannery and baby bear is Harrison X Flannery.’
‘How marvellous,’ says the Doctor. ‘A freewheeling family on a grand tour of outer space. I can think of no better education for a young mind.’ His expression grows serious. ‘The problem is, I’m only picking up one life sign, in the rear cabin.’
The spaceship lurches violently. Jamie claws at the Doctor’s sleeve for support. ‘What’s that? Did we hit something?’
The Doctor gently disengages himself from Jamie’s grip, examines the monitor and shakes his head. ‘There are a number of breaches in this ship’s hull. A force field’s doing its very best to hold things together, but it could fail at any moment and blast us all out into the vacuum of space, which, as outcomes go, would be less than ideal. We need to get that survivor out jolly quickly.’
Long coat flapping, he races to the rear of the bridge and slams his hand on the door release mechanism. With a whir of motors, the bulky door retracts, revealing the starship’s lone survivor: an inhuman metal creature, a thing of stalks and panels and thick armour. The Doctor’s blood runs cold.
‘Oh my.’
There’s a deep dent in the dome of the Dalek’s head and a large chunk missing from the housing of its glaring Cyclops eye. Its stubby gunstick barrel lies limp. Before the Doctor can close the hatch again, the Dalek rapidly extends its sucker arm and interfaces with a socket on the wall.
‘DECANTING NEURAL FOLDERS .’
Light detonates. The floor evaporates. The universe flickers like a candle . . . and then vanishes.
A gleaming city rises out of a wasteland of ash and scorched rock.
The Doctor, Victoria and Jamie find themselves suspended in thin air above the scene, a trio of translucent spectres. Below them, thousands of Daleks are engaged in battle with a gigantic earthworm-like creature, which is attacking the city with terrifying fury and flattening buildings with thrashes of its colossal tail. The metal creatures swarm like ants around the invader.
‘What the blazes is happening?’ Jamie’s voice echoes, unreal, around the scene.
‘This is Skaro,’ says the Doctor. ‘The home planet of the Daleks. A place I haven’t visited for many years.’ He spots something in the distance. Semi-invisibly, he frowns and then breaks into a knowing chuckle. ‘Jamie, Victoria! Look at the horizon! See those words floating in the sky?’
Jamie peers into the distance. ‘‘Rubidium Games Corporation’? What does that mean?’
‘It means this is all an illusion!’ says the Doctor. ‘The Dalek must be using the ship’s telepresence gaming system to share its memories with us!’
Victoria groans, her ghostly legs paddling uselessly. ‘Why can’t it show us its photograph album like anyone else?’
The scene crash-zooms to a single Dalek perched on a high balcony on one of the city’s tallest towers. Beside it stands a weird lash-up of circuits, valves and tubing that looks like it has been assembled in the most frantic of hurries.
‘ACTIVATING EXPERIMENTAL PHI BEAM
!’
screeches the Dalek. Even in its grating metallic voice, the wobbling note of panic is unmistakable. Its manipulator arm cuffs a chunky switch, and a series of bright, wavelike pulses surge from the device towards the monstrous serpent laying waste to the city.
Immediately, the gigantic creature freezes as if it has suddenly remembered a pressing engagement elsewhere and is trying to think of a polite reason to leave. A second later, its head explodes in a storm of pink and green goo that rains down on the Daleks below as the creature crashes messily into the base of a building, which collapses.
The eyestalk of the Dalek on the balcony slowly lowers, taking in the sight. The collapsing building is the one it is perched atop.
The picture glitches, blurs. Skips a few rels.
Now the TARDIS crew find themselves in the Emperor Dalek’s audience chamber. The Emperor Dalek itself, resplendent with its massive gold-domed head, converses with a considerably shabbier-looking member of its species. This second’s casing is dented and scratched, its eyestalk badly chipped.
‘DALEK 444, YOUR INVENTION OF THE PHI BEAM HAS SAVED THE CITY FROM CERTAIN DESTRUCTION.’
The damaged Dalek averts its eye modestly. ‘ANY DALEK WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME .’
‘YOU WERE DAMAGED IN THE ACT OF SAVING US ,’ says the Emperor. ‘DAMAGED DALEKS
ARE IMPURE DAMAGED DALEKS ARE EXTERMINATED.’ It pauses, considering. ‘DALEK 444’S INTELLIGENCE IS VALUABLE . DALEK 444 WILL BE SHOWN MERCY. DALEK 444 WILL BE GRANTED A NEW CASING.’
Dalek 444 swings its damaged eyestalk towards the Emperor. ‘UNNECESSARY. I AM A SCIENTIST. MY MIND IS INTACT. BETTER TO USE OUR RESOURCES TO REBUILD THE CITY.’
The Emperor jerks backwards in surprise, unused to the rebuff. Its gunstick twitches. Its single iris focuses on 444’s damaged eyestalk.
‘IS YOUR VISION IMPAIRED ?’
444 holds the Emperor’s gaze. Steady. ‘NO.’ A pause. The Emperor lowers its gunstick.
‘THEN RETURN TO WORK . YOUR PERFORMANCE WILL BE MONITORED.’
Work for Dalek 444 means tending the crop of Arkellis flowers that grow outside its laboratory on the city’s edge. The Arkellis is one of the rare plant species to thrive in the poisoned ecosystem of Skaro, its tough, fibrous stalks able to take root in solid metal. The Daleks have cultivated it for centuries for its precious biochemical extracts, which have a
multitude of uses. One of these, as Dalek 444 has fortuitously discovered, turns out to be the ability to emit Phi waves, capable of disrupting the neural activity of Skaro’s mutant Soil Serpents.
Under gun-metal grey clouds, 444 glides between the rows of large circular flower beds, checking on the progress of each bloom, mentally tabulating this year’s growth cycle and comparing it to previous harvests. It stops in its tracks. Something is way off. Could it have miscalculated? No. Daleks do not make mistakes. Even so, it glides around again and recounts. Just to be sure.
There is no error – this year’s harvest is forty-three per cent bigger than last year’s. Yet Dalek 444 has done nothing different: the current crop of Arkellis bulbs was given the same amounts of water, food and ambient radiation as the previous year’s. And yet, the yield has vastly increased. The disparity is wild and unprecedented. What was going on here?
Dalek 444 considers. Usually, a proportion of each year’s crop is eaten by the silvery Magnedon beasts, which lurk in the planet’s petrified forests and scavenge what they can from the fringes of the Dalek city. Perhaps some new disease has decimated the Magnedon population? Now 444 notices something unfamiliar in one of the flower beds: a thin loop of
wire hanging from a rough rectangular frame made of twisted Arkellis stalks.
A snare.
That night, under the dim glow of the moons Flidor and Falkus, Dalek 444 lies in wait, wreathed in shadow behind a pillar outside the lab’s rear entrance. Before long, there is a glint of light and a rustle of movement in one of the nearby flower beds. It hears the strangled squeal of a Magnedon breathing its last and then – eventually – the soft patter of footsteps.
444 glides forward, activating the lab’s powerful rear floodlight. A skinny humanoid figure stands silhouetted in the glare, dressed in rags and frozen with fear.
‘DO NOT MOVE .’
The figure tries to run for it. 444’s gunstick spits fire, and the colours of the world invert.
‘Huh? W-what?’
The boy sits up, dazed and panicking. He tries to move but quickly falls backwards on to the plain metal bench.
‘YOUR LEGS HAVE BEEN PARALYSED,’ explains Dalek 444. ‘THE FEELING WILL RETURN SHORTLY.’
‘Where am I?’
‘MY LABORATORY. STATE YOUR ORIGIN.’
‘A planet called Earth,’ says the boy, rubbing his numb legs through his tattered trousers. ‘We were travelling. Mum, Dad and me. But we got pulled into a space- time rift near the Rhea Nexus. It spat us out here.’ He wipes his eyes with the back of a filthy hand, leaving streaks in the dirt on his face. ‘It was a bad crash. The ship’s ruined.
Mum and Dad . . .’ The boy shakes his head. ‘There’s just me now. But I do OK . Better than OK . Dad taught me how to hunt when I was little, using the ship’s telepresence game system. There’s plenty of good meat inside those silver animals.’ The boy’s body shakes, suddenly wracked with coughs.
‘YOU HAVE RADIATION SICKNESS CAUSED BY THIS PLANET ’S POISONED AIR . YOU WILL DIE IF IT IS NOT TREATED.’
The Dalek glides to its workbench and grasps a glass vial containing a thin green liquid. It hands it to the boy.
‘I HAVE SYNTHESISED AN ANTI -RADIATION DRUG. DRINK IT, AND YOU WILL REGAIN YOUR HEALTH .’
The boy sniffs the concoction warily, shrugs, and knocks it back. Fire blooms in his stomach. He shudders.
The Dalek watches him silently.
The boy yawns and wipes his mouth with the crook of his arm. ‘I think I can feel my legs again now. I’d better get going.’ He totters to his feet. ‘Thanks for looking after me. I’m Harrison, by the way.’ He holds out his hand as if to shake 444’s sucker arm. The metal creature merely stares back at it through its damaged eyestalk.
‘ MY DESIGNATION IS DALEK 444. I HAVE ALLOWED YOU TO LIVE BECAUSE BY HUNTING THE MAGNEDON PEST CREATURES, YOU ARE CONTRIBUTING TO THE WELFARE OF DALEK SOCIETY,’ the Dalek intones. ‘ IT IS THEREFORE IN OUR INTERESTS TO KEEP YOU ALIVE . HOWEVER , NOT ALL DALEKS WILL IMMEDIATELY UNDERSTAND THIS REASONING. CONSEQUENTLY, YOU SHOULD REMAIN OUT OF THEIR SIGHT IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE EXTERMINATED. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ?’
Harrison nods. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll keep my head down. And thanks again.’ He pats the side of 444’s casing.
‘THANKS ARE NOT NECESSARY.’
Dalek 444 operates the lab door control, and the boy vanishes into the night.
It is a bumper year for the Arkellis. Loss to Magnedon grazing has been reduced virtually to zero. The large, bellshaped blooms in 444’s flower beds grow to record size. One day, while watering the crop, 444 discovers something sitting beside one of Harrison’s snares. It is a small model Dalek, cunningly wrought from Arkellis stalks. The head of the model has a dent built into it, and the eyestalk has a section missing, just like 444’s own casing. The Dalek quickly surveys the area to check it is unobserved, picks up the model and swiftly turns into its laboratory, where it places the offering on its workbench. The interior door of the laboratory is open to a corridor, and a few Daleks glide silently past the doorway. After an indecisive moment, 444 covers the model with a sheet of metal foil, hiding it from view.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
444 is working late one night, testing the potential use of Arkellis sap as a protective coating for metal, when it hears an urgent pounding on the outer door of its laboratory.
It’s Harrison. His eyes and shaggy hair are wild, like those of a frightened beast. He staggers inside, knees buckling, and throws his arms around the Dalek.
‘You’ve got to help me! They’ve taken it!’
444 registers trace amounts of dirt, blood and sweat from the boy’s skin adhering to its casing but does not back away.
‘TAKEN WHAT ?’
‘The ship!’ moans the boy, his small shoulders heaving. ‘Our crashed ship, out in the desert! It might be an absolute wreck, but it’s still my home. All my memories of Mum and Dad are there. A bunch of Daleks found it a few hours ago. I was coming back from hunting, and they didn’t see me.
But I’ve got nowhere to live now. What am I going to do?’
‘SIT,’ commands 444, and the boy obeys. Using its gunstick, 444 flash-chars a few dried Arkellis leaves and drops them into a flask of boiling water. ‘DRINK THIS . IT WILL HAVE A SOOTHING EFFECT ON YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM .’
Harrison sips the steaming concoction and eyes the laboratory with its neat rows of gleaming instruments and neatly labelled jars. ‘This place is cool. Can’t I stay here with you?’
‘NEGATIVE .’
444 moves to the information socket on the wall and interfaces with it using its sucker arm. Diagrams and text in Dalek script flash by on a circular monitor screen.
‘What are you doing?’
‘ATTEMPTING TO LOCATE INFORMATION ON YOUR STARSHIP FROM THE DALEK CENTRAL COMPUTER SYSTEM .’
Finally, a diagram of the Flannery family’s starship appears on the screen, surrounded by several labels.
‘That’s it!’ says Harrison. ‘What does it say?’
444’s damaged eyestalk quickly scans the text.
‘YOUR STARSHIP WAS DISCOVERED BY A ROUTINE SCOUTING MISSION AND BROUGHT TO THE CITY. INITIAL EXAMINATION BY OUR ENGINEERS HAS SUGGESTED THE DAMAGE IS NOT AS SEVERE AS IT APPEARS . WHILE THE HULL IS BREACHED IN SEVERAL PLACES , THERE IS ENOUGH ENERGY IN THE SHIP ’S FORCE FIELD GENERATOR TO MAINTAIN STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY FOR A SHORT VOYAGE , PLUS SUFFICIENT FUEL IN ITS RESERVE TANK TO ACHIEVE ESCAPE VELOCITY.’
Harrison’s jaw drops. ‘You mean, it’s been spaceworthy all this time?’
‘AFFIRMATIVE THE EMPEROR PLANS TO REVERSE -ENGINEER THE SHIP ’S
TECHNOLOGY IN ORDER TO CREATE DALEK WARCRAFT CAPABLE OF CONQUERING OTHER WORLDS . IT SEEMS THE SPACE -TIME RIFT THAT BROUGHT YOU HERE IS STILL EXTANT AND COULD BE USED TO REACH DISTANT AREAS OF THE UNIVERSE .’
‘Or send me back to Earth.’
444 disengages from the information socket. The screen goes blank. ‘IT IS UNLIKELY THE EMPEROR WOULD AGREE TO SUCH A COURSE OF ACTION.’
‘So, what do we do?’
The Dalek glides about the laboratory, apparently thinking out loud. ‘ WE ARE QUICK TO MISTRUST. OUR PRIMARY URGE IS TO DESTROY THAT WHICH IS DIFFERENT TO US. BUT RECENT EVENTS HAVE PROVEN TO ME THAT WHEN DIFFERENT SPECIES COOPERATE , THE BENEFITS FOR BOTH ARE CONSIDERABLE . A DEMONSTRATION OF SUCH WILLINGNESS TO COOPERATE TO THE WIDER UNIVERSE MAY ULTIMATELY BENEFIT THE DALEKS.’
Harrison wipes his shaggy fringe from his eyes. ‘What are you saying?’
‘WE WILL STEAL BACK YOUR STARSHIP AND RETURN YOU TO EARTH .’
Dalek 444 interfaces quickly with the information socket once more. A low tone begins to throb.
Harrison puts down the flask. ‘What are you doing?’
‘PLAYING BACK SECURITY FOOTAGE OF A RECENT SOIL- SERPENT ATTACK THROUGH THE CITY’S DISTRESS CHANNEL. IT WILL CREATE A DIVERSION THAT WILL ALLOW US TO ACCESS YOUR STARSHIP. IT IS BEING RETAINED IN THE PRIMARY ENGINEERING YARD.’
Through the lab door, they see a stream of Daleks hurtle past, barking frantic orders and reports to one another. 444 waits until they vanish out of sight at the end of the corridor and then rolls forward, gesturing with its sucker arm for Harrison to follow.
‘STAY BEHIND ME AND KEEP OUT OF SIGHT.’
They hurry through the night-time city. At each junction of corridors, Dalek 444 goes on ahead to check the coast is clear before beckoning Harrison to follow. The throbbing alarm has now ceased, suggesting the Daleks have detected their subterfuge. Suddenly, the young boy cries out in pain.
‘WHAT IS THE MATTER ?’
‘Something sharp,’ groans Harrison, clutching at his foot. He’s cut the sole on a metal waste grid, a thin line of sticky blood oozing from the toughened skin.
‘HOLD ON TO MY CASING,’ commands 444. ‘AS TIGHTLY AS YOU CAN.’
Harrison balances with his good foot on the Dalek’s thick black fender and hooks his fingers under the metal collar rings of 444’s casing. A second later, 444 hurtles away at astonishing speed, skidding slightly around corners as if unused to the extra weight.
Despite the fear he feels and the pain in his foot, Harrison allows himself a small whoop of pleasure.
‘PLEASE REFRAIN FROM VOCALISATION.’
After several more minutes of this hectic dodgem ride, the pair reaches the corridor leading to the Primary Engineering Yard, and 444 slows down. Two Daleks stand sentry at either side of a set of thick double doors. Their robotic limbs twitch with surprise and curiosity as they see the unlikely duo approaching.
‘What do we do now?’ hisses Harrison.
‘LEAVE INTERACTION TO ME .’
‘DALEK 444,’ barks one of the two sentry Daleks, its gunstick raised. ‘YOU APPEAR TO HAVE A
PARASITIC GROWTH ATTACHED TO YOUR CASING. WOULD YOU LIKE US TO EXTERMINATE IT FOR YOU ?’
‘UNNECESSARY,’ replies 444. ‘THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL BIOCHEMICAL ATTACHMENT. ALL DALEKS MAY CARRY SUCH AUGMENTATION ONE DAY. MOVE ASIDE . I NEED TO ACCESS THE ENGINEERING YARD.’
The two sentries exchange a glance and move to block 444’s path.
‘DENIED,’ screeches the other Dalek. ‘I SUSPECT YOU ARE MALFUNCTIONING, 444. THIS IS NOT DALEK -LIKE BEHAVIOUR .’
With two rapid high-energy bursts from its gunstick, 444 destroys the other two Daleks, their casings shattering like eggshells. Fetid steam rises from the remains.
‘I DISAGREE ,’ says 444 flatly. It operates the door mechanism, and they speed out into the Primary Engineering Yard. The sky above is clear and sprinkled with jewelled stars. Harrison’s family’s starship stands in shadow, connected by a tangle of wires and ducts to a bank of instruments.
‘Why would you do that?’ asks Harrison, breathless, stepping down from 444’s fender. ‘Kill your own kind?’
‘THE LOGIC OF SURVIVAL WAS PLAIN IT WAS THEM OR US . LET US WASTE NO FURTHER TIME .’
Swiftly and efficiently, 444 moves to the instrument bank and activates the controls. Immediately, the stricken starship hums with power.
‘Will it really work? Will it get me back to Earth?’
444’s chipped eyestalk surveys the instrument read-out.
‘ENGINEERING REPORT SUGGESTS A SMALL ENERGY TRANSFUSION WILL ACTIVATE THE STARSHIP ’S SELF -REPAIR MECHANISM . THERE IS SUFFICIENT FUEL AND FIELD -BOOSTED HULL INTEGRITY FOR THIS CRAFT TO TAKE OFF.’
‘How long will it take to reboot the ship?’
‘APPROXIMATELY FOUR RELS .’
‘Is that long?’ ‘NO.’
Harrison grasps 444’s sucker arm in his grimy fingers.
‘Thank you for helping me. For looking after me. I could never have survived without you.’
‘THANKS ARE NOT NECESSARY. YOU HAVE TAUGHT ME THAT COOPERATION IS A HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL SURVIVAL STRATEGY. THE
OTHER DALEKS MUST TAKE HEED, OR THEY WILL BE DOOMED.’
A light on the instrument panel flashes. The starship’s motors begin to throb with power.
‘YOUR STARSHIP AWAITS .’
Harrison takes a step towards the ship that has been home for almost his entire life – and quickly turns back and throws his arms around 444’s casing.
‘I won’t forget you.’
‘THERE IS INSUFFICIENT TIME FOR PROLONGED FAREWELLS . GO. TELL THE UNIVERSE THAT THE DALEKS POSSESS THE POTENTIAL TO WORK CONSTRUCTIVELY WITH OTHER LIFE FORMS .’
The boy lets go of the cold metal casing and raises a grubby paw of a hand.
‘I will. Bye, then.’
But now, a near- spherical golden form glides round from behind the starship, blocking Harrison’s path. The Emperor Dalek’s gunstick twitches and fires a bolt of energy at the boy. The last thing Harrison notices as he collapses with a groan is a familiar- looking object made from twisted Arkellis stems, clutched in the Emperor’s manipulator arm.