The Grand Betelgeuse Hotel (audio story)

 was the third story in the audio anthology, You Are the Doctor and Other Stories, which comprised the two hundred and seventh release in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Christopher Cooper and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor and Sophie Aldred as Ace.

Publisher's summary
The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Ace to the most opulent casino hotel in the cosmos – a haunt of the rich, the famous and the unutterably corrupt. There's a robbery in progress – but is the Doctor really in on the plan?

Plot
Ace is accused of a series of crimes and is interrogated about the Doctor by a court.

Ace begins to recount the events leading up to the trial.

She and the Doctor arrived in the Grand Betelgeuse Hotel, heard an alarm and went to investigate. They found the source, turned it off and met Ruben. The court interrupts, reaffirming Ace had contact with the subject Ruben and that the Doctor knew how to disable all security systems.

Ace explains Ruben took them to meet Kordel which turned into a trap. Kordel held them at gunpoint but they convinced her that they were her backup for her plan to infiltrate the temporal portal network in the black hole where the accounts are stored and rob the "Vault". The court accuses Ace of willingly collaborating but she says they had to act under the circumstance so they wouldn't be shot. However, they present video evidence of the Doctor being involved and looking like he willingly committed the crime.

It is revealed that room service had access to a conduit that lead to the hotel's vault. A vault that contained the riches of the patrons of the hotel, rich, famous, successful but shady-types and gangsters. Kordel and Ruben ended up in a spat but the Doctor stopped then by threatening to not help them and open up the conduit.

Ace explains she chatted with Ruben who explained his reasoning for robbing was the interest of his family's well-being. He ran away crying. The Doctor and Kordel prepared to get to the vault. She placed a thermic detonator in order to not be followed. The Doctor asks why she brought Ruben and she explained that they needed someone who knew the hotel layout.

Ace found and tried to comfort Ruben who had revealed his children were kidnapped and taken by hotel staff to ensure good work and he had come to try and find them and get them back. The Doctor and Ace had prepared to leave but Kobel had turned on them and Ruben, upset, attacked her.

The court explains that two burned bodies were found at the scene when enforcement arrived and maintain that Ace is to blame. She continues with her story.

Ruben had forced the Doctor to turn on every temporal portal on the network on both sides of the black hole, something that could have caused the total destruction of the people and planet after having pulled a weapon on him. Ruben, fed up, tried to overload it himself after the Doctor still refuses but the Doctor and Ace talk him out of it. However, it is too late and he is killed (as well as the Doctor, seemingly) as the portal exploded. Ace saw the hostages trapped and let them out, however, they reported her and that is now why she is in currently on trial.

Ace is sentenced to death. They throw her in the portal network to be vaporized, however, she is saved by the Doctor. He explains that he used the thermic detonator to stop the rest of the portal network collapsing. The Doctor explains he picked up the records of Ruben's family and says that thanks to all this, their legal status is now as deceased. He says that they will go help Ruben's people, eventually, as Ace explained one of the video clips she was shown in the court was the Doctor helping Ruben's people rebel against the crooked elites who run the hotel and had enslaved them. They decide to take off for a vacation.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * Ace - Sophie Aldred
 * Chafal - Jon Culshaw
 * Kordel - Nadine Marshall
 * Ruben - George Potts

Continuity

 * The Doctor refers to himself as the "approaching inclement weather system", but admits that name is a work in progress. (PROSE: Love and War, TV: The Parting of the Ways, et al)
 * Ace mentions the Cybermen. She has met them on a number of occasions. (TV: Silver Nemesis, et al)
 * Ace is still trying to pilot the TARDIS (AUDIO: You Are the Doctor) to Sydney. (AUDIO: Come Die With Me)
 * The Doctor says that he has previously visited Betelgeuse. The Fourth Doctor previously referred to the planet. (TV: Destiny of the Daleks)
 * The Doctor would later determine that Ms. Zingiber was an alias of Melanie Bush. (AUDIO: A Life of Crime)
 * The Doctor disguises Ace as a chambermaid/waitress-in-training. Ace was originally a waitress back on Iceworld. (TV: Dragonfire)
 * The judge Chafal asks how it is possible for the suspected to change gender. The Doctor's ability as a Timelord allows for regeneration into a different gender. The Doctor's twelfth incarnation was male but thirteenth was female. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)