The Dalek Trap (audio story)

The Dalek Trap was the first story in The Eighth Doctor: The Further Adventures of Lucie Miller: Volume One, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Nicholas Briggs and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and Sheridan Smith as Lucie Miller.

Publisher's summary
The thing about black holes is, they're big and they're black and they're deadly, and you'd have to be mad to go anywhere near them. Because anything that falls inside a black hole ends up crushed in the singularity.

Unfortunately, the Doctor just went mad, or so it seems, and flew his TARDIS beyond a black hole's event horizon, causing him and his companion Lucie Miller to end up marooned on a planetoid just inside the event horizon. Along with a Dalek saucer... and something else. Because this is no ordinary black hole...

This is the Cradle of the Darkness.

Plot
Having recently fought the Cybermen and decided to stay with the Doctor in the TARDIS, Lucie feels that she is at the start of something exciting and starts keeping a tape recorder diary. They have several adventures, including meeting people with at least five heads, running through mucus rain and having to concentrate to keep every atom within a billion miles from vaporising.

The Daleks arrive at the Canthares supernova and begin testing a weapon, but they detect the Doctor's TARDIS and watch it launch an object into the supernova, which collapses into a black hole. The Daleks attempt to escape the gravitational pull without success and pass through the event horizon.

The Doctor begins singing a song which he cannot recall the origin of and detects a distress signal sent out by Jik and Raz, who crashed on a planet some time ago and are now under the protection of the Daleks. After setting the coordinates, the Doctor stops speaking until they near a black hole, into which he accelerates the TARDIS. He hits Lucie when she tries to stop him and remains a zombie when they land, prompting Lucie to force him out with her to meet Jik and Raz.

Jik and Raz tell Lucie about the Daleks and are surprised at her fear of them. When a Dalek approaches, the Doctor leaves the spot where Lucie, Jik and Raz have hidden and joins it. Lucie goes with Jik and Raz to their ship to plan how to rescue the Doctor, who has been declared the Daleks' saviour. There, she sees Jik and Raz's collection of species to populate a colony world and learns from the AI that they are on a planetoid within a black hole.

The Daleks link the Doctor to the Darkness just as they are to it. They order him to take the Darkness, which is within a box, into his TARDIS and link to the telepathic circuits before using the energy to free the Daleks from the black hole. Lucie, Jik and Raz leave the ship and confront the Daleks, with Lucie threatening to destroy the TARDIS before escaping into the TARDIS with the Doctor when the creatures that the Daleks have been protecting Jik and Raz from approach. The Doctor comes to and gives Lucie the choice between saving everybody on the planetoid or allowing them to die.

Lucie decides that nobody will die. Later, she wakes up on the floor with limited memory of her experiences. She does, however, recognise Jik and Raz's ship leaving the black hole, which has now reverted to a supernova. The Doctor only remembers the distress call and cannot account for the box which Lucie remembers him bringing aboard. They quickly forget all about the box and leave, the Doctor singing again.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Paul McGann
 * Lucie Miller - Sheridan Smith
 * Jik Gelliska - Matt Lloyd Davies
 * Raz Kalisto - Amanda Hurwitz
 * The Daleks - Nicholas Briggs

Continuity

 * Lucie mentions her last adventure with the Cybermen and the Time Lords' witness-protection program. (AUDIO: Human Resources)
 * Lucie mentions her Auntie Pat in passing. She last met her in AUDIO: Horror of Glam Rock.
 * The Doctor once again suffers from memory issues, a common occurrence through his eighth incarnation. (TV: Doctor Who, PROSE: Unnatural History, Vanishing Point, The Burning, Wolfsbane; AUDIO: Minuet in Hell, Terror Firma, Orbis, The Girl Who Never Was, One Life, In the Garden of Death)
 * The Daleks observe the Doctor ejecting an item from his TARDIS into the Canthares supernova. This is in fact the Fourth Doctor in his initial attempt to destroy the Fendahl. (TV: Image of the Fendahl, AUDIO: Island of the Fendahl)