Dust Devil (audio story)

 was the first story in the audio anthology Genesis, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by John Dorney and introduced Colin Baker as the Warrior and Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown.

This was the first story in the Doctor Who Unbound series for 14 years and the first in the Doctor of War sub series.

Publisher's summary
The TARDIS crew are on the run, pursued by an unstoppable force. But who is hunting them? And why? Will they find the answers on Aridius? Or just more questions?

Plot
On the planet Skaro, during the events of the Creation of the Daleks, the Fourth Doctor has set up explosives to destroy the incubator chamber of the Daleks. All he has to do is touch two wires together and the Daleks are finished. But, does he have the right? Sarah Jane Smith is certain he must do this, and complete his mission for the Time Lords. Thinking it over, the Doctor realises his life has led him to this moment, and that maybe this is his punishment for his constant interfering in the universe. Now certain that Sarah is right and that he must do this, he sends Sarah and Harry Sullivan to the laboratory to retrieve the Time Ring and the tapes of the Doctor's interrogation. He waits until the two leave, before touching the wires together. The incubation chamber is destroyed, and time reels from what has just happened.

In the lab, Harry finds the Time Ring, but Sarah feels off, realising her memories are warping and distorting. A prototype Dalek arrives, and so does the Doctor, having realised the trio need to leave now, with the temporal shockwave being greater than he expected. The Dalek immediately exterminates both Sarah and Harry, before turning its gun on the Doctor. The Doctor tells the Dalek it has lost. With the incubation chamber destroyed and the Dalek being only a prototype, the Daleks have no future anymore. With his friends dead, the Doctor accepts his death at the hands of the Dalek, who shoots him.

The Doctor finds himself in an infirmary on Gallifrey, talking to Narvin, who welcomes him home and offers him a drink. Narvin has extracted the Doctor from time, a second before he would've been exterminated by the Dalek. The Doctor remembers what happened and realises that Narvin knows what a Dalek is, despite what he had just done on Skaro. He is certain he destroyed the Daleks, but realises he had felt something wrong immediately afterward, like the cycle of cause and effect was tearing itself apart, opening up a gap in causality. Narvin reveals that what he felt was the Time War. The Time Lords sent the Doctor to avert the creation of the Daleks, but the Doctor's efforts failed. The Daleks still exist and the Time War is still going on. However, as the Doctor realises, the attempted change to history had terrible consequences, making the War even worse than it was before. As the Doctor puts it, it's like the universe decided to punish the Doctor for his crime as soon as he committed it.

Knowing he has to do something to fix things, the Doctor gets up, only to realise he's in pain. The Time Lords extracted him a bit too late. The Doctor is alive, but is slowly dying from his wounds from the Dalek. Narvin offers the Doctor an alternative. He tells the Doctor of the Sisterhood of Karn and their Elixir of Life. While the Sisterhood was wiped out when the Daleks devastated Karn, the Time Lords were able to retrieve one Elixir. If the Doctor uses it, he will regenerate, but it would not be a conventional one, as it would potentially change the Doctor's very nature.

Full of guilt over the deaths of his friends, the Doctor is determined to not let it all be in vain, and asks Narvin to use the Elixir on him to make him a warrior. Except, Narvin has already done it. The drink he offered the Doctor earlier was the Elixir, and it is now taking effect. The regeneration triggers, restoring the Doctor fully to life with a new body. Once the process finishes, Narvin asks the Doctor how he feels. The Doctor goes over to a mirror and examines his new face, proclaiming himself to be a warrior at last.

more to be added

Cast
to be added
 * The Warrior - Colin Baker
 * Peri Brown / Miss Brown - Nicola Bryant
 * Fourth Doctor - Tom Baker
 * Narvin - Seán Carlsen
 * Sarah Jane Smith - Sadie Miller
 * Harry Sullivan - Christopher Naylor
 * The Daleks - Nicholas Briggs
 * Talarn / Bullet 2 / Thayla - Sasha Behar
 * Chooban / Bullet 1 / Driver - David Holt

Continuity
to be added