K9 and the Zeta Rescue (novel)

K9 and the Zeta Rescue was a novel published by Sparrow Books. It was written by Dave Martin.

Publisher's summary
There have been great explosions in the galaxy. There is danger that the whole galaxy will be blown apart. The situation is too dangerous for even the Time Lords to handle. And so they call K9 to their aid. It is he who must save their world.

Plot
While flight-testing his new personal spacecraft, the K-NEL, K9 Mark I is called back down to the Control Centre on Gallifrey by the Space Controller. Meeting with the leader of the Time Lords and two other "grim-faced" Time Lords, he learns that massive explosions in Zeta Four Sector have been detected; it is predicted that two of the stars in the triple Zeta cluster will collide if the explosions continue, which could destroy Gallifrey's entire galaxy by causing Zeta Cancri to "go nova". Having received a distress call from the Zeta Four Sector, the Time Lords additionally believe the explosions to be man-made rather than mere byproducts of catastrophe theory. They thus ask K9 to go investigate in order to save their galaxy and the Gallifreyan civilisation.

Approaching his destination, K9 observes immense wreckage, including various ruined rocket fleets, and concludes that it was indeed a war which caused all this devastation. He initially concludes that the distress calls received by the Time Lords must have been automated, as nothing could have survived, but his computers picks up the same signal, a weak but clearly live voice saying "Help me", coming from the very centre of the "whirlpool of gas and molten rock". Plunging into the mass of magma at the centre, which the K-NEL proves able to withstand, K9 finds an intact space-craft at the core — a prison ship of the Megallan Empire.

Though it takes him hours to cut through the hull with his photon-laser, K9 manages to cut his way through the hull into the ship. He finds a girl shackled to the wall of the small cell, as well as a dead Megallan guard on the floor, still holding onto a handheld transmitter, which was what was beaming out the distress signal. She explains that her name is Dea and she was an ambassador from the planet Telios, who met with the Megallans to attempt to prevent the war but was instead captured and imprisoned by them. With negotiations cut off, the Telians and the Megallans declared nuclear war on each other at the same instant; both their planets were destroyed and the blasts created a chain reaction that began destroying the rest of the Zeta Cancri system. The Megallan High Command found refuge aboard the prison ship but were pursued by the surviving Telians; they are, as far as Dea knows, still fighting elsewhere in the ship, and she notes with dread that if the Megallans are all defeated, their ship might self-destruct, pushing the stars of Zeta Cancri over the edge to go nova.

After K9 unties Dea, she hurriedly leads him to the ship's power centre, where they find mounds of dead bodies but also two surviving fighters: the Marshal of Telios and the Megallan warlord. They witness, unable to interfere, the final moments of their struggle to the death, with both soon collapsing of exhaustion and their wounds. The self-destruct device planted by the Megallans to destroy the ship begins ticking, but by linking himself to the ship's systems, K9 is able to defuse it. He offers to take Dea to Gallifrey, but she tells him that she ought to stay to see if there are any survivors of her people after all, or else, any other prisoners of the Megallans that she could free. K9 begins to leave, but thinks better of it; with Dea having indeed found that some of the soldiers were still alive, he helps her convert the ship into a makeshift hospital. He only leaves (with Dea) once the survivors have begun to make a recovery.

Back on Gallifrey, K9 reports to the Space Controller that the system is once again stable. The controller questions why K9 took so long, and he cryptically answers that he was "attempting to understand the minds of humanoids".

Characters

 * K9 Mark I
 * The Space Controller
 * Leader of the Time Lords
 * Dea
 * Marshal of Telios
 * Megallan warlord

Worldbuilding

 * Naming K9 Mark I's space-ship the K-NEL was the Doctor's idea.
 * The leaders of the Megallan Empire once swore to destroy the Time Lords.

Audio release

 * A reading of the story was released as an audiobook on the The Adventures of K9 audio cd read by John Leeson. The audio cd was published by Explore Multimedia. It also included the audio stories: K9 and the Time Trap, K9 and the Beasts of Vega and K9 and the Missing Planet, plus a mulitmedia section with a video interview with John Leeson. The stories were also available as a mp3 download.

Continuity

 * K9 was built by Professor Marius, of Earth, in the year 5000 (TV: The Invisible Enemy) and is now an agent of the Time Lords. (TV: The Invasion of Time)
 * The individual who modified K9 prior to his coming to Gallifrey is referred to as "the Time Lord Theta Sigma". (TV: The Armageddon Factor)
 * The Time Lords have computer systems which predict the future. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
 * The Time Lords are immortal. (TV: The War Games)