Fugitive in Time (audio story)

 was the third story in the audio anthology The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Three, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Roland Moore and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, Rakhee Thakrar as Bliss, Adèle Anderson as Major Tamasan and Michael Jayston as the Valeyard.

Publisher's summary
Returning a favour for Major Tamasan, the Doctor and Bliss accompany her to extract a dangerous fugitive from an isolated medieval world.

Shonnath is the last of her kind and has her reasons to be wary of Time Lords. What's more, the Daleks are also on her trail – and when the Doctor and friends arrive, the enemy is already closer than they think.

Plot
The Doctor, Bliss and Major Tamasan fly an Argodian escape pod into the dense atmosphere of Thellian on a reconnaissance mission to find the last of the Helixara, a race believed to have been erased from existence by the Time Lords. They crash.

King Vashko is informed by Chief Scientist Dransino that Lady Shonnath wishes to speak to him on the viewing screen, technology which is new to him. The weary Shonnath has detected what could be interstellar debris but wonders if it could be more and tells Vashko to be ready to collect any fallen technology and to deal with any survivors.

The Argodian escape pod is completely destroyed. The Doctor, Bliss and Tamasan head off, discussing the Helixara and how they were genetic engineers who once killed a Time Lord and stole her TARDIS, using it to spread their race bank throughout time and leading the Time Lords to erase them. Tamasan believes that one has survived and that knowing how they survived time deletion could be useful in the Time War.

Shonnath commends a servant, who obeys her and steps into a glass chamber. She has Dransino set the tracking coordinates and initiate her experiment, causing the servant to disappear. According to Dransino, the tracking coordinates strayed and the servant was sent "nowhere". Shonnath is deteriorating beyond repair and asks Dransino to tell Vashko to provide more volunteers for the experiment as she wants to escape from this planet.

The Doctor, Bliss and Tamasan come across the wreckages of numerous alien spacecraft destroyed by the atmosphere before having the technology harvested. One of the ships has modified Dalek technology which seems to have been used to send a Dalek agent. They enter the castle and watch Vashko make a speech about the scientific advancements that Shonnath has bestowed upon them since coming from the stars and gives Dransino the choice of selecting volunteers to repay that debt. The crowd are eager to be chosen and the Doctor, Bliss and Tamasan too raise their hands; the Doctor and Tamasan are chosen and Vashko picks Bliss as a new lady-in-waiting.

In the castle, Bliss sees the Great Tapestry showing Shonnath's arrival and how Vashko saved her, after which she provided technological advancements and began to ask for volunteers to be sent to the stars. Bliss dresses Vashko for entertaining guests and hears Shonnath report that their crashed escape pod has been detected and is to be salvaged. Vashko orders Bliss to accompany him and his riders.

Outside of the atmosphere of Thellian, the Dalek Time Strategist receives communication from the Dalek agent on the planet below; the message says that Shonnath's experiment failed and, until it is operational, the Daleks cannot set the transmat as a destination to transport themselves. The Time Strategist orders the agent to expedite matters.

The Doctor and Tamasan are introduced to Shonnath, whom they are to help build the transmat. The Doctor determines that the transmat, not having a destination, must be intended to hook into the Garlads' already-established transmat system. Tamasan does not care, however, only wanting to find out how Shonnath survived. At the point of Dransino's gun, the Doctor is ordered to operate the transmat's controls.

Vashko finds that the Argodian pod is almost entirely useless aside from a medical scanner and a device which detects other spacecraft. Whilst the riders return, he shows Bliss a waterfall which she is unable to name, outing her as a non-Thellian; when she claims to be an Argodian, Vashko asks where her two companions are.

The Doctor shuts down the transmat, refusing to send a man to his death, but Dransino activates it himself and kills the volunteer. Vashko contacts Shonnath and outs the Doctor and Tamasan as off-worlders, which leads her to put the Doctor to work with the circuits whilst Tamasan is imprisoned with Bliss to ensure his cooperation. Using an antenna, Bliss fashions a skeleton key to allow her and Tamasan to escape their cell.

to be completed

Cast

 * The Doctor - Paul McGann
 * Bliss - Rakhee Thakrar
 * Major Tamasan - Adèle Anderson
 * Vashko - Jamie Newall
 * Dransino - Jude Owusu
 * Shonnath - Wendy Craig
 * Daleks / Time Strategist - Nicholas Briggs
 * Servant - Tracy Wiles
 * The Valeyard - Michael Jayston

Continuity
to be added