The Fate of Krelos (audio story)

 was the seventh story in the fourth series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Nicholas Briggs and featured Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, Louise Jameson as Leela and John Leeson as K9.

This is the first of a two-part story, continuing in Return to Telos.

Publisher's summary
There are dark skies on Krelos... and something gigantic is descending.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Leela set off for some fishing in the mountain pools of Krelos. K9 has interfaced with the TARDIS and has reactivated the Architectural Configuration from the days of the Doctor's second incarnation. In passing, the Doctor notes it could do with a good clean. And there's a familiar piece of material snagged on the console.

Far up the mountain, an aged explorer is in trouble. Will the Doctor and Leela be able to save him and his planet? And what is it that K9 has discovered in the TARDIS?

Part one
K9 lands the TARDIS while the Doctor looks for his fishing rods with a bemused Leela who doesn't understand his idea of fishing.

On Krelos the planet has just achieved worldwide connectivity. Geralk and Relly (his house-helper) argue over the uses of technology, while she wants to make food he wants to use a virtually controlled robot to go fishing in a pool at the top of the mountain.

Arriving at the control room with the rods the Doctor and Leela find it to be different, K9 having returned it to a previous configuration for his own amusement (misinterpreting an order from the Doctor). K9 glitches slightly and the Doctor thinks it might be because of dust, contemplating hovering up with an extra-powerful vacuum while dusting the controls with his scarf. K9 glitches, repeatedly talking about calculations. Leela finds a scrap of Jamie’s kilt in the console and the Doctor tells her about him. When asked, K9 is unable to revert the control room to how it should be and the two leave for fishing.

Having landed at the bottom of the mountain, the two begin to climb while K9 keeps talking about calculations. The two observe the city from the mountainside and continue their climb. K9 leaves the TARDIS to warn the Doctor of danger. Seeing and hearing him, the two make to climb down when they hear cries for help from Geralk in his virtually controlled robot, having fallen. Using the Doctor’s scarf they rescue him and he explains how his body is asleep in the city and controlling the robot avatar remotely as he is unable to get about like he used to. Hearing K9 still warning about danger, they give Geralk their rods after seeing he has broken his.

K9 warns of danger and that they should return to the TARDIS but is glitching badly. Once inside, he warns of a TARDIS malfunction and the Doctor momentarily takes off and lands again, "hovering on the spot", to try and fix the problem. Exiting the TARDIS they find it is now night and climb to the top of the mountain to meet Geralk. Once there, they find his robot avatar mumbling about the end of Krelos and all the fish are dead. Geralk talks about the fate of Krelos being sealed forever by an unstoppable force before he "dies", Leela recognising the sounds of death. Looking to the city they see it is destroyed. The Doctor is baffled by how it could have happened so quickly.

In the TARDIS, K9 understands instructions from an unknown source and confirms the first phase has been completed and the next phase can begin.

Part two
Beholding the ruins of the city, Leela suggests the Doctor had unwillingly brought them forward in time when the city was destroyed. The Doctor rejects the idea, saying that, when he was driving the TARDIS, he wasn't using the temporal circuits. In essence, it is therefore impossible they travelled in time. As they discuss, they realise that Geralk's robot is still active. They told K-9, who reached them, to search for the source of the signal and lead them to it. K-9 agrees, but his systems suffer a temporary shutdown, which the Doctor dismisses as a side effect of him tinkering with the TARDIS.

They reach what once was Geralk's villa. Inside it, they find Geralk, apparently alive, but with some metal appendix attached to his head - presumably what he used to control the robot. Leela tries to take it off, but as she touches it, metal tentacles come out of it and grab the Doctor and Leela. The Doctor orders K-9 to shoot them with his laser, but K-9 says he is "unable to comply" and runs off. Eventually, the Doctor can use the sonic screwdriver to release the grip of the tentacles, and they get off the house. Leela wants to come back and help Geralk, but the Doctor reveals to her he is dead, minutes before more people with metal appendages on their heads. The Doctor approaches them and tries to talk to them, but their only answer is "There's nothing to fear". Understanding they are dangerous, the Doctor and Leela run away to the TARDIS.

In the TARDIS' control room, K-9 has reconnected to the TARDIS console, officially to fixing his change. The Doctor checks the console, and to his surprise finds out they did travel forward in time, even though he can't explain why. Leela suggests he mistook the controls, which the Doctor reluctantly accepts as a possibility. He touches the console to disconnect K-9, but an electrical discharge pulls him back: thinking it's a problem of overcharging the console, he decides to go to the power room and diminish the energy. As he and Leela leave, K-9 informs someone they have gone.

As they go to the power room, Leela suggests they go back in time and saves the people of Krelos. Still, the Doctor says he can't do this: he can't cross his timeline, and meddle with the history of the planet. Leela understands but still insists they have to do something for the people on Krelos, even to the point of assembling an army to fight if necessary (another idea the Doctor rejects). The Doctor brusquely cuts off the conversation and goes into the power room, where he diminishes the power.

Back in the control room, the Doctor realises he accomplished nothing: K-9 is still attached to the console, and the TARDIS is being driven elsewhere. The Doctor orders K-9 to stop what he is doing, but he refuses and says that now the Doctor is under "our" influence. The Doctor now is able to see that a form of cybernetic parasite (the same one which controlled the mechanic appendixes on the people of Krelos, and created the snakes which attacked them) has taken over K-9, and it has been feeding him instructions and information about what to do. As the Doctor and Leela watch helplessly, K-9 starts piloting the TARDIS to a new destination.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Tom Baker
 * Leela - Louise Jameson
 * K9 - John Leeson
 * Geralk - Michael Cochrane
 * Relly/Krelos Mayor - Veronica Roberts

Continuity

 * The Doctor previously fished in the River Fleet. He caught a huge salmon, which he shared with the Venerable Bede. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) He would later try fishing again on several occasions. (TV: The Androids of Tara, The Two Doctors; COMIC: Time & Time Again)
 * The Doctor recalls his previous companion, Jamie McCrimmon and how he was sometimes a warrior. (TV: The Highlanders, The War Games)
 * Leela has learned that mechanical men can be dangerous. (TV: The Robots of Death)
 * The Doctor hasn't seen the food machine in years. (TV: The Edge of Destruction)
 * Leela refers to the Tesh. (TV: The Face of Evil)
 * The Doctor recalls the Time Lords' attempts to get him to interfere with Strang (AUDIO: The King of Sontar) and the White Ghosts. (AUDIO: White Ghosts)
 * The Doctor refers to the Celestial Intervention Agency. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
 * The Doctor says that he could not just recruit an army of his friends from across time and space. He would later do so during his eleventh incarnation. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
 * Under the influence of the Cybermen, K9 piloted the TARDIS to Telos. (AUDIO: Return to Telos)