Planet of the Rani (audio story)

Planet of the Rani was the two hundred and fifth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Marc Platt and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, Miranda Raison as Constance Clarke and Siobhan Redmond as the Rani.

Publisher's summary
Miasimia Goria was a quiet planet, an ancient world of bucolic tranquility... until the Rani arrived with ideas of her own.

She planned to create a race of new gods... gods that she could keep on her leash, but those plans went horribly wrong.

Now, she languishes in the high security of Teccaurora Penitentiary, consigned there by her arch enemy and old student colleague, the Doctor.

But the Rani, always resourceful, ever calculating, knows things about the Doctor's past that he would rather forget. She wants revenge, even if it takes a hundred years... and then she has other unfinished business.

The ruins of Miasimia Goria await...

Part one
Constance looks through the Doctor's emails and, at her urging, they go to Teccaurora Penitentiary to address the Rani's application for parole. There, they find the prisoners have been sedated and wired up to machines which have given them precognitive abilities, allowing Miasimia Gorian Pazmi to predict what the Doctor and Constance are going to say. They are found by guards and taken to Deputy Governor Montain, who informs them that they are forty-seven years late; the Rani has since been released and, through manipulation and murder, become the governor.

The Rani has Montain initiate the Transfer Program and takes the Doctor and Constance to the Pathfinder Suite where she has created a loopback time field which throws things into the past. She has the Doctor strapped into the Pathfinder to serve as the navigator to create a tachyon portal to Miasimia Goria and Constance locked up and wired up to a machine, but Pazmi frees her and they go after the Rani. Using temporal energy from the nine-hundred inmates' minds and a sample of the Ablative created by the Doctor at the Academy, the Rani opens a portal and takes Constance with her when she tries to stop her.

Part two
All of the prisoners connected to the machine are killed and Galactic Security take control of the penitentiary, but the Doctor and Pazmi escape to the TARDIS and travel to Miasimia Goria where Constance and the Rani have arrived, albeit sixteen years later than the Rani intended. The Doctor and Pazmi are saved from a cybotic creature by Brejesh, a friend of Pazmi, and Minister Chowdras recounts how he protected Pazmi and Brejesh from the Rani's Great Experiment which resulted in the people of Miasimia Goria being unable to sleep.

Initially pretending to be principal of the Brighttime Collegiate, the Rani learns from Minister Degoor how Raj Kahnu, the sole survivor of her Great Experiment, has succeeded her as ruler of Miasimia Goria and recovers a key and a lattice from a casket. Constance, waiting outside, is captured in the dark by Raj Kahnu, who accuses her of being sent by the Rani to spy on him. When she opens the shutters and lets in the light, she sees that he is in a life support machine which makes him look like a metal cockroach. He calls himself the child of the Rani.

Part three
Degoor presents the Rani to Raj Kahnu as C. B. Wainwright of the Brighttime Collegiate, but Raj Kahnu realises the deception and orders her to leave after accusing her of abandoning him. He keeps Constance captive and takes her to his foundry to make armour for her, promising to protect her by making her like himself. He has her taken away to begin the process of becoming a roach, which he says will only hurt momentarily.

On the way to the palace, Chowdras is pulled down to his death by a roach. Brejesh leads the Doctor and Pazmi below the Roof of Trees to show them the Miasimia Gorians, who wandered aimlessly and entered a torpor following the experiment due to exposure to the Ablative. Roaches arrive to take a person contorted in pain to the foundry and to feed the others and, in the confusion, the Doctor loses Pazmi and Brejesh. The Rani saves him and has Degoor hold him at gunpoint to get him to the palace where they are met by the armoured Constance, whom the Rani shoots.

Part four
Constance is unharmed and convinces Kahnu to let the Rani enter the foundry with the Doctor, who realises that the latest addition to the palace is actually a second TARDIS which Kahnu has reconfigured but does not have complete access to. Kahnu releases Constance from the roach and the Rani reactivates the ship, barricading herself away and taking control of the victims of her Great Experiment to have them protect her. The Doctor and Kahnu set up a temporary laboratory and work to save the Miasimia Gorians from the Ablative, but the Rani takes control of her successor.

When a roach brings Chowdras's body to the palace, Kahnu resists the Rani and turns against her once more. She captures the palace using the Miasimia Gorians, but Kahnu releases the Ablative antidote and has his roaches detain the Rani and Degoor to be tried for their crimes against the people of the planet. At the trial, overseen by Brejesh, now a minister, the Rani rejects the Doctor's offer to return her to Gallifrey and Kahnu's to leave in a survival pod and injures Kahnu with a knife before escaping in her TARDIS. The Doctor knows that the Rani has already experienced his death, but tells Constance that his fate could change.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Colin Baker
 * Constance Clarke - Miranda Raison
 * The Rani - Siobhan Redmond
 * Raj Kahnu / Guard - James Joyce
 * Pazmi - Olivia Poulet
 * Brejesh / Security Leader - Dominic Thorburn
 * Chowdras / Governor - Tim Bentinck
 * Degoor / Montain - Chris Porter

Worldbuilding

 * The Rani refers to an experiment that the Doctor conducted in the Time Lord Academy in which he created a bacteria, the Ablative, and was nearly expelled.
 * The Rani describes the Doctor's TARDIS as "a clapped out jalopy".
 * Constance compares the rocket to a Doodlebug.
 * The Rani has been absent from Miasimia Goria for 16 years.
 * The Rani is referred to as "Ushas of Miasimia Goria".
 * The Rani pretends to be the principal of Brighttime Collegiate on Drusis Luna.
 * The Rani has a secondary TARDIS.
 * The Doctor disables his TARDIS's drive system.
 * Tahmun is Pazmi's younger brother. They have several sisters.

Continuity

 * The Rani says that she was imprisoned for 97 years. The Doctor claims to be partly responsible for her imprisonment. (AUDIO: The Rani Elite)
 * The Rani previously heightened the awareness of the inhabitants of Miasimia Goria, causing them to lose sleep and become violent. (TV: The Mark of the Rani)
 * The Doctor says that the Rani has committed crimes on multiple worlds. (TV: The Mark of the Rani; AUDIO: The Rani Elite)
 * Constance mentions the disappearance of her husband Lt. Commander Henry Clarke. (AUDIO: Criss-Cross)
 * The Doctor tells Constance that his next encounter with the Rani has already taken place in her personal timeline. (TV: Time and the Rani)