The Grel Invasion of Earth (audio story)

The Grel Invasion of Earth was the second story in the Bernice Summerfield box set The Story So Far: Volume One.

In a similar vein to Jacqueline Rayner's previous Grel story, Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Grel Escape, this story was something of an homage to a First Doctor Dalek story, in this case The Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Publisher's summary
Good Fact: Jason Kane is still in love with Benny!

Additional Fact: He's using the Time Rings to prove it!

Bad Fact: The year is 2150-ish and the Grel have invaded the Earth!

Plot
Using his Time Ring, Jason makes several attempts to speak with Benny at St Oscar's before disguising himself as a deliveryman and tricking her into using their Time Rings to take them both to Paris 1889. Benny tries to cancel the journey mid-time jump and they instead arrive in a ruined Bournemouth in or after August 2164 without their rings. Whilst she explores, Jason, his ankle twisted, is kidnapped by Kerrigan.

Jason is taken to Davina and learns that the Grel, whom he has never encountered, made the humans forget things and create a state of panic which allowed them to invade and conquer Earth, converting some humans into Greloids to spread disinformation. The Amnes, who have no memories at all, have been put to work whilst a group of those who retain some of their old knowledge have formed a rebellion.

Benny finds an injured Greloid who is killed by a Grel who emerges from the sea. She sees that Jason is missing and hides in the Oceanarium when a Grel spaceship passes overhead, but she is soon discovered and forced to jump from a balcony and run. After slipping on otter faeces and tricking a Grel into hitting a squid tank, she is cornered and observed by Davina being taken to the Grel ship and imprisoned.

Davina returns to Jason and Kerrigan and suggests that they fight the Grel to free Benny, whose information could be of use to the rebel cause. Armed with an experimental fact bomb, Davina and Kerrigan take Jason to the Oceanarium to find him a wheelchair and then head to the ship, using Jason's simsuit and a dead squid to make Kerrigan look like a Greloid. They are quickly discovered and Davina uses the fact bomb to cause disarray, but she is captured and Jason and Kerrigan do not manage to get aboard before the door is closed. The two men take a hot air balloon and weld it to the ship so as to be taken with them.

Benny meets Davina in the cell and they are taken to Dunstable, where they escape by correctly answering the fact lock's questions and learn that the Grel's slaves are being made to dig into the Earth's core so that it can be used as transport. When a Grel queries the point of this given that the Grel already have interstellar and intertemporal travel, he is told that it is because a flying planet is "really cool" and enviable. Benny finds Extra-Strong Fact-Removal Gas and threatens to unleash it, but Jason arrives and begs her not to make them forget one another. Davina shoots Jason and, unwilling to live with the memory of his death, Benny releases the gas.

Benny wakes up and is told by Jason that Kerrigan was wearing his simsuit to stop Benny from releasing the gas and making him forget his father, whom he saw at the dig site. In fact, the release of the gas brought back the humans' memories in addition to erasing the memories of the Grel; Benny and Jason are unaffected due to their medical implants from "you know who". The two of them confront the Grel Supreme Controller and promise to tell him about his race and how to return to Grellor in return for him leaving Earth and allowing them to use his technology to return home.

Davina reveals that her weapon was set to stun when she shot Kerrigan and that he is actually her son. The Kerrigans are reunited and the Grel take Benny and Jason back to St Oscar's where they find their Time Rings. Jason asks for coffee, but Benny says that they are not going to get their happy ending, at least not at this point in time, and that they both need to move forwards. She closes the door on him.

Cast

 * Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
 * Jason Kane - Stephen Fewell
 * The Grel - Liam Hourican
 * Davina - Ellie Darvill
 * Kerrigan - Jonny Green

Worldbuilding

 * Benny lives at Garland College.
 * Jason pretends to be a milkman.
 * Jason uses a simsuit to disguise himself as a deliveryman and then to make it look like he is wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He briefly takes the forms of Davina and Kerrigan.
 * Jason twists his ankle.
 * Jason mentions La Belle Époque and Moulin Rouge.
 * It is forbidden to dump bodies in the Oceanarium penguin pool.
 * Benny once drank a yard of ale during Freshers' Week.
 * The Greloids are servants of the Grel.
 * Davina remembers how to make jam.
 * The Grel use dataxes.
 * The Grel are led by the Grel Supreme Controller.
 * The Grel define compassion as "sympathy, concern or pity for the suffering of others".
 * Davina has created fact bombs.
 * Davina adds a number of facts from Fun Facts for Children: Volume S-T, a book found by Dennis Kerrigan, to a fact bomb:
 * The biggest extant fish on Earth is the whale shark.
 * Saturn's rings are made of ice.
 * Lantern sharks glow in the dark.
 * The first passengers of the Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon were a duck, a sheep and a cockerel.
 * Sharks must swim continuously in order to breathe.
 * A shark may grow as many as 20,000 teeth during its lifetime.
 * Jason proves his use by listing a number of facts;:
 * Brazil nuts are radioactive.
 * Young hedgehogs are called hoglets.
 * A banana is a berry.
 * Jason asks for a wheelchair.
 * Greloids are not programmed to express gratitude.
 * According to Jason, Bedfordshire is 150 miles from Bournemouth.
 * The fact lock asks Benny and Davina several questions. The answers are as follows:
 * Neanderthals had bigger brains than humans.
 * Butterflies taste using their feet.
 * The capital of Brazil is Brasília and not Rio de Janeiro.
 * Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system because of its dense clouds which keep in the heat.
 * Henry VIII had six knives.
 * Benny finds Extra-Strong Fact-Removal Gas.

Continuity

 * Benny mentions her and Jason's divorce. (PROSE: Eternity Weeps)
 * Benny mentions not wanting to use her Time Ring again. (AUDIO: Just War)
 * The year 2164 reminds Benny of something. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
 * Jason was on the Moon a few years ago. (PROSE: Eternity Weeps)
 * Benny has told Jason about her experiences with the Grel. (PROSE: Oh No It Isn't!)