Cold Vengeance (audio story)

Cold Vengeance was the third and final story in the The Tenth Doctor Adventures: Volume Two, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Matt Fitton and featured David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler.

Publisher's summary
The TARDIS arrives on Coldstar, a vast freezer satellite, packed with supplies to feed a colony world.

But there are cracks in the ice, and something scuttles under the floors. Soon, Rose and the Doctor encounter robots, space pirates and... refuse collectors.

As Coldstar's tunnels begin to melt, an even greater threat stirs within. An old enemy of the Doctor puts a plan into action - a plan for retribution.

Nobody's vengeance is colder than an Ice Warrior's.

Plot
The TARDIS materializes in what seems to be an ice cave and the Doctor and Rose emerge, immediately feeling the cold. Rose remarks that she can't complain as they can't go skiing without a bit of ice. When asked where the snow is, the Doctor explains that he asked the TARDIS to land on the nearest place with optimum temperatures for downhill slaloms. Rose thinks that the TARDIS has landed inside of an ice hotel similar to the one that Anne-Marie went on for her honeymoon, then wonders if they're in Sweden, a theory that is shot down by the Doctor pointing out that the gravity is wrong.

The Doctor finds a sign that says "Coldstar - Frozen Food Storage", leaving Rose wondering if they're in a frozen food shop. Exploring even further, they find rows of frozen peas, then decide to continue exploring in hopes of finding choc-ices. The Doctor notices some cracks in the ice and then Rose steps in a puddle of water, making the Doctor realize that the frozen food storage has been thawing for a while.

Elsewhere, Ice Lord Hasskor watches as his warriors awake from their slumber. When his second-in-command, Slaan, asks him what his command is, Hasskor replies by saying "We have slept long enough. It is time to exact our vengeance!"

A transport vessel docks at Coldstar as Lorna and Bert are busy collecting the recycling from the blue, green and brown bins. Bert asks Lorna if she wants a tea break, but Lorna decides to continue working on her own.

The Doctor and Rose are walking down a service corridor, while the Doctor points out the porthole, which they both look out of to find themselves looking into deep space. The Doctor realizes that what he and Rose have found in the food storage area could feed millions of people on the planet that Coldstar is orbiting. They then hear a noise coming from inside the hull. The Doctor uses his Sonic Screwdriver to try and open the plating that the noise is coming from, but it seems to aggravate whatever is making the noise. They both begin to follow the source of the noise back towards the ice.

Meanwhile, Brona Volta and her son, Callum, are waiting in reception for an order they have made. Lorna appears in reception so she can leave her bins there. The management droid tells her to attend the desk and explains that he attends to all the matters pertaining to the station. Lorna gives the droid some papers to sign, then turns her attention to Callum who she seems to recognize. Brona explains that people always mistake Callum for someone who won "Supernova Star Makers" last year due to them both having similar eyes. The management droid finishes signing the papers and hands them back to Lorna, but before Lorna can make her way to maintenance so she can collect the recycling, Brona suddenly holds her at gunpoint.

The Doctor manages to find the source of the noise that he and Rose heard earlier: a robotic crab which the Doctor identifies as a Wrecker. He explains that the Wreckers were used by privateers to scuttle ships and that it sabotaged Coldstar's temperature controls, causing the ice to start melting. But as they decide to and scan the Wrecker in the TARDIS, they find that the TARDIS has vanished and the ice wall has been broken into pieces. Rose thinks that someone couldn't wait to get some frozen lasagna, but then notices that the ice splinters are in the area where they are standing, realizing that someone broke out of the ice wall instead of breaking in.

They then hear a hissing voice calling to its fellow warriors. The Doctor and Rose go to investigate and see an Ice Warrior blasting the ice with his sonic weapon. The Doctor hopes that everything will be fine, but this hope is squashed when he hears the warrior telling the others to prepare for the attack against the human resistance, having been awoken by the raising temperature. Rose and the Doctor decide to go and tell the people in charge of Coldstar about the presence of the Ice Warriors.

The management droid explains to Brona that he is responsible for the comfort of all visitors to Coldstar, to which Brona replies that no one will be hurt if Lorna (Who she misnames as "Laura") stays calm. Lorna asks Brona and Callum if they're hijacking Coldstar, to which Callum replies that they're not hijackers. Just then, the Doctor and Rose rush in telling everyone to evacuate, only to find themselves being held at gunpoint by Brona who orders Callum to move them both over to where Lorna is.

The Doctor tries to tell everyone about the Ice Warriors, but Brona refuses to listen. When reminded about the robotic crab they found earlier, the Doctor realizes that he is talking to a pirate. Rose is puzzled about why Brona and Callum are trying to rob a supermarket, and Lorna introduces herself to Rose. Brona explains that 200 tonnes of Viltranium Caviar is held in Coldstar and it is going for a very high price. She also explains that she has turned off the freezers in an attempt to persuade everyone in Coldstar to give her the caviar. When Rose asks if they're going to let all the other food rot, Callum explains that they'll turn everything back on when they leave.

Lorna recognizes Brona and Callum from the news and Volter's Pearl, the ship that she and Bert parked next to, prompting Brona to explain that it was handed down through her family's generations. The Doctor is amazed to see the 2 pirates and the management droid who welcomes him to Coldstar. Rose asks the droid if there are any choc-ices, but the droid gets reports of non-human life forms approaching, just as the Ice Warriors appear and tell Brona and Callum to lower their weapons. The squad leader, Slaan, informs Lord Hasskor that they have taken the control area, to which Hasskor replies that he is takin a patrol to asses the strategic value of the hips that are docked nearby. The Doctor tells Rose to keep playing it cool for now.

Cast

 * The Doctor - David Tennant
 * Rose Tyler - Billie Piper
 * Lorna - Keziah Joseph
 * Brona Volta - Maureen Beattie
 * Callum Volta - Sean Biggerstaff
 * Management/Bert - Anthony Stuart-Hicks
 * Lord Hasskor/Commander Slaan - Nicholas Briggs

The Doctor

 * The Doctor mentions Rudyard Kipling.
 * The Doctor calls Rose a social justice warrior.

Wars

 * Humans and Ice Warriors fought many wars over countless systems.

Ice Warriors

 * Ice Warrior refugees who fought the War with the humans were given homes on Enyo as part of the Treaty.
 * Bert calls Hasskor a "greenie".
 * Rose describes the Ice Warrior as "totally turtley."

Astronomical objects

 * There are over 2000 Coldstars.
 * Ice Warriors have lived on Bellona for 10 years.
 * Coldstar scooped ice 20 years ago from Bellona, also designated K-Z-Alpha-9, unaware of the Ice Warriors within.

Technology

 * Hasskor and Slaan's armour, or biosuit, is sleeker than standard armour. It's designed to keep the occupant alive, and is equipped with a self-destruct bomb.
 * Isomorphic is equated with low level psionic waves.
 * Memory wafers.
 * The wreckers are equipped with ion propelled blowtorches.
 * Ice Warrior refugees who fought the War with the humans were given homes on Enyo as part of the Treaty.

Continuity

 * Rose would later encounter another Ice Warrior with the Doctor. (COMIC: Untitled)
 * Later, in the same incarnation, the Doctor with Donna would meet an Ice Warrior. (PROSE: Cold)
 * The Doctor would later encounter Ice Warriors in his eleventh incarnation (TV: Cold War) and his twelfth incarnation. (TV: Empress of Mars)
 * He previously encountered them in his second incarnation (TV: The Ice Warriors, The Seeds of Death), his third incarnation (TV: The Curse of Peladon, AUDIO: The Prisoner of Peladon, TV: The Monster of Peladon), his fourth incarnation, (PROSE: Red Planet) his fifth incarnation (AUDIO: Red Dawn, The Bride of Peladon, The Judgement of Isskar), his sixth incarnation, (AUDIO: Mission to Magnus) his seventh incarnation (PROSE: Legacy, AUDIO: Frozen Time) and his eighth incarnation (AUDIO: Deimos / The Resurrection of Mars, PROSE: The Dying Days)
 * The Doctor has seen the Ice Warriors' seeding process before when they tried to terraform the Earth. (TV: The Seeds of Death)
 * The Doctor remarks that an Ice Warrior who was a member of the Galactic Federation saved his life once. (TV: The Curse of Peladon)
 * The Doctor tells Vorna about how there used to be laws of time and how the responsibility of them was extensively down to him now. (TV: The Waters of Mars)
 * "Greenie" is a term that the Doctor heard before. (PROSE: Transit)