Power of the Dominators (audio story)

Power of the Dominators was the second story in the audio anthology Agents of the Vulpreen, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Kenneth Grant and featured Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart, Ingrid Oliver as Petronella Osgood, Christopher Naylor as Harry Sullivan, Eleanor Crooks as Naomi Cross and James Joyce as Josh Carter.

Publisher's summary
Portstone New Town is a living space for the future. A dream community, or so the advertising promises. But UNIT discovers the developers are alien Dominators. Which means there’s a more sinister purpose behind Portstone, and the Dominators' deadly killer robots - the Quarks - can’t be far away.

Plot
Naomi keeps an eye on the news for any clues as to what the Eleven is up to and recognises Director Prast of Interplan Properties, the company behind Portstone New Town, as a Dominator. She shows the news story, that being of Junaid Mirza's claims of Prast making people who go into Portstone New Town disappear, to Kate and Harry. Nick Probin of the East Barnet Council sees the news story and visits Prast to tell him that the Portstone New Town project will be stalled. Prast has a Quark kill him.

Whilst Kate and Harry go to visit Interplan Properties undercover as journalists, Osgood and Naomi go to find a place in the hills to observe the enclosed new town using an omniscope acquired from the Cybermen. They find Junaid nearby, watching the town with his telescope, and detect that there is a radiation leak. Engineer Sabo takes Kate and Harry to his office in the basement and refuses to allow them to visit Portstone. Once they have left, he tells Prast about them and the plans are accelerated as a result.

Kate and Harry regroup with Osgood and Naomi and go to Junaid's hideout. Junaid explains that he suspected that radiation was leaking from Portstone New Town as plants grow strangely and animals become sick when they get close and that he intends to go in and save Jack and Alison by glider. Osgood and Naomi join him and find that the construction site is empty aside from piles of rocks and a single round structure from which the radiation is leaking. They decapitate a Quark and Osgood reprograms it.

Kate and Harry return to Sabo's office and learn from a hidden screen that humans are being used as slaves. When they try to leave, Sabo has his Quarks detain them before the office, which also functions as a travel capsule, moves to Portstone New Town where they meet Prast. Prast reveals that the Dominators intend to destroy Earth and leaves them with Sabo when he is alerted to the fact that a Quark has been deactivated, although it it soon reactivated. Sabo goes to inform Prast, leaving Kate and Harry with the Quarks. By resisting the Quarks' molecular force keeping them attached to the wall, Kate and Harry force the Quarks to increase their pulse until they run out of power and await new orders.

The reprogramed Quark, given the name Quentin, shows Osgood, Naomi and Junaid to a nuclear reactor and forces Sabo to give them access. They have Sabo call off several Quarks surrounding Kate and Harry before sending all of the Quarks to their storage pods. He tells Junaid that his friends were rejected and killed and confirms that the Dominators are going to cause the reactor to go critical before ejecting the mass into the planet's core, giving them enough radiation to fuel the First Dominator Fleet for an entire campaign.

Prast sets the nuclear reactor to go into meltdown in an hour. Naomi and Junaid help evacuate the people and Kate, Osgood and Harry board the Dominators' ship with Sabo and have Quentin destroy the ship's controls. With no way to escape, Prast stops the reactor and he and Sabo are imprisoned. The Quarks are disassembled and placed in the Black Archive, although Osgood and Naomi miss Quentin and believe that he could have been handy in the office.

Cast

 * Kate Stewart - Jemma Redgrave
 * Osgood - Ingrid Oliver
 * Harry Sullivan - Christopher Naylor
 * Naomi Cross - Eleanor Crooks
 * Junaid - Homer Todiwala
 * Director Prast - Gareth Armstrong
 * Engineer Sabo - Andrew James Spooner
 * Quarks - Beth Chalmers
 * Captain Josh Carter - James Joyce

Worldbuilding

 * The Dominators run Interplan Properties.
 * Portstone New Town is on the Hampshire coast.
 * Josh is training Jimmy.
 * Jacqui has discharged herself. Harry believes that she seems fine, but distracted.
 * Jack and Alison are environmental activists like Junaid.
 * Junaid accuses Interplan Properties of greenwashing.
 * Junaid compares Prast and his shoulder pads to Steve Jobs and his roll-necks.
 * Nick Probin works for the East Barnet Council.
 * Sabo is chief operating engineer.
 * Osgood has an omniscope, a Cyber device which functions as a telescope, spectrograph, long-wave Geiger counter, X-ray and infrared viewer and microwave transmitter.
 * Junaid knows about UNIT through blogs.
 * Junaid compares the construction site to Fort Knox.
 * Junaid used to make gliders.
 * The Dominators are masters of the Ten Galaxies.
 * The Quarks are put in the Black Archive.

Continuity

 * Harry and Naomi fought the Dominators and the Quarks in their final adventure with the Fourth Doctor before being left in the 21st century. (AUDIO: London Orbital)