Aquitaine (audio story)

 was the two hundred and ninth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Simon Barnard and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Janet Fielding as Tegan and Sarah Sutton as Nyssa.

Publisher's summary
Today should be much like every other day for Hargreaves, the computer consciousness that co-ordinates daily life aboard the spaceship Aquitaine, stationed on the outer fringes of a black hole. Water the plants, run the diagnostics, cook the Captain's breakfast; then tidy the plates away, rotate the ship, clean the windows of the observation deck. When at last the day's work is done, Hargreaves will dim the lights in the sleeping quarters. But no-one will sleep aboard the Aquitaine tonight. Because the Aquitaine's crew is missing.

But today will be different. Today, a space/time ship called the TARDIS will materialise in the botanical section, bringing the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan aboard the Aquitaine. Together, they'll seek to discover the truth of what happened to Hargreaves' crew...

... if only the ghosts will let them.

Part one
Hargreaves narrates his daily tasks aboard the ship to himself.

The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan hear a loud distress signal coming through the TARDIS console. They lock on and travel to the source. They arrive and step outside, only to be greeted by a Hargreaves, the ship's computer and valet, in the form of a robot.

Tegan wonders off, and looks outside the ship's large windows. She sees a black hole near-by which frightens her but Hargreaves explains that they are orbiting it. After the momentary distraction, the Doctor asks Hargreaves why he launched the distress signal and Hargreaves reveals that a little while ago his crew just disappeared. They hear a scream but Hargreaves tells them to ignore it as it is an ephemeral echo, so least he claims. They go to investigate anyway.

They arrive at the source of the noise in the botanical garden section of the ship but they meet Hargreaves again and it turns out Hargreaves is the ship's central computer and simply takes over the robot body closest to the person requesting service, in this case the robot gardener's body. They ask him about the noise and he assures them that they are corporeal, not real. They look around and ask him about the plant life, as it seems to be growing at an unrealistically unheard of rate. The Doctor and Tegan go to find something else but Nyssa notices writing on the plants. Tegan and the Doctor are off discussing the origins of the ship when they hear Nyssa scream. They run back and find she has been injured by a plant she was trying to inspect. The Doctor worries about poison and infection and Hargreaves directs Nyssa to the medical bay to get the injury inspected and mended while they hear another scream and the Doctor and Tegan go back to investigate.

The Doctor and Tegan find nothing but they still wonder why there is no one aboard the ship. Nyssa arrives in the medical bay and Hargreaves as the medical robot begins to treat her when suddenly she feels a ripple running through the ship while Tegan and the Doctor feel it too. They hear a voice and think they see a woman running away. They make chase but can't find her. Tegan then sees it again and they trying following her again, finally cornering their "ghost". Before they can catch up, Hargreaves notifies the Doctor over the system speakers that Nyssa has "disappeared". Nyssa awakens somewhere but cannot find Hargreaves. Hargreaves, Tegan and the Doctor discuss what could have happened and decide to retrace steps. Nyssa finds the Hargreaves as the gardener robot but it does not remember her from before. She explains her predicament and it explains that she can use the intercom to contact her friends. She does, and they decide to meet up in the garden but when they do she is not there contrary to her claims. Suddenly, the ship shakes and the power fades causing Hargreaves to shut down. Nyssa, meanwhile, simultaneously feels the shake, and loses all communication with the Doctor. She is found by Hargreaves who again does not recognize her. She argues with him and asks what happened but he claims that nothing she says is true. Suddenly, Nyssa becomes frightened as she is approached by a strange figure...

Part two
Hagreaves narrates his day and then reintroduces himself to the Doctor and Tegan, who inform Hargreaves they already know him. The figure who approaches Nyssa takes off the helmet of his environmental hazard suit and introduces himself as Dr. Sergei Akunin. He asks if she is part of the rescue team to which denies. She explains what had happened and shows him her injury, so he says they will go back to his lab so he can have a better look at it and treat it (Dr. Akunin is a botanist by training who has taught himself medicine), after which they will try and find her companions. Tegan and the Doctor discuss with Hargreaves what to do next, but they are confused as he earlier claimed before the shaking that there was a life-sign which they thought was Nyssa, however, Hargreaves claims he has no recollection of this. Hargreaves prints a list of last known locations of crew members at the Doctor's behest, hoping to visit and see if they can deduce some pattern that may help them find Nyssa. They decide to split up.

Nyssa and Dr. Akunin go back to his lab where he explains he has healed his ship mates but suddenly Nyssa's legs begin to feel numb. The Doctor and Hargreaves discuss the crew and the Doctor wonders why the ghost they had seen earlier, revealed by a name-tag to be Lieutenant Freya Jennings, was in pain. Hargreaves mentions that an ergostorm like the one from earlier damaged the ship causing the crewmembers to get injured and go into statsis. Nyssa is taken to the lab and sedated by Dr. Akunin who reveals there is no actual cure and Nyssa falls unconscious. Tegan, who sighted Jenning's ghost again and decided to follow it, informs the Doctor over the intercom what Jennings' ghost is up to but ends up in a dangerous part of the ship. The Doctor warns her to return but she ignores this and pursues the ghost. Nyssa awakens and asks Hargreaves to release her from the restraints but Hargreaves can only do so under Dr. Akunin's orders as he is currently highest ranking officer present aboard the ship. Nyssa, in a feat of immense strength, lets herself out and convinces Hargreaves to help her. The Doctor realizes that the crew is further forward in time than they currently are and informs Hargreaves that he cannot remember because each time an ergo storm occurs he reboots but to the earliest point he can reboot from, which was seven days right before the first ergo storm hit. However due to the mass growth of the plants and the damage to the ship, Hargreaves has been continually rebooting from this same point in a loop for many years.

The Doctor discovers the ship has been orbiting the black hole for fifty years by checking Hargreaves' reboot logs. Just then Tegan realizes the moss is growing on her and the Doctor tells her not to move as it's making it worse, likening it to quicksand. He asks Hargreaves to do something but Hargreaves cannot so the Doctor sets off to rescue her himself. Nyssa tries to escape Dr. Akunin with Hargreaves's help. She hides from him but he continues to look for her. He explains out loud that her fate was sealed the moment she touched the plant. He explains he saw it happen to his crew-mates and that he is just trying to help, albeit in a menacing way. Nyssa escapes the room that he had trapped her in. Tegan, still stuck in the parasitic moss, is approached by a strange creature and she alerts the Doctor over the intercom. Nyssa arrives at one end of the ship, which turns out to be a dead end and has nowhere to escape to and is cornered by Dr. Akunin when suddenly there is a loud noise and another ripple passes through the ship.

The Doctor tries to calm Tegan as the creature draws nearer to her but they all feel another ergo storm coming. It passes and he manages to get to Tegan's location but she is gone. He then checks for the TARDIS since she was near it but that has disappeared as well. Nyssa awakens after the ergo storm and is greeted by a rebooted Hargreaves who does not know her. She notices that Dr. Akunin has disappeared. Hargreaves explains that there is another life-form aboard the ship to Nyssa and reveals it is Captain Anna Maynard (the storm has transported Nyssa to an even earlier time). The Doctor catches Hargreaves up after he reboots again and explains that the black hole outside is collapsing and pulling the ship closer to the event horizon. He calculates that the ship will be destroyed in less than two hours...

Part three
to be added

Part four
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Peter Davison
 * Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
 * Tegan - Janet Fielding
 * Hargreaves - Matthew Cottle
 * Dr Sergei Akunin - Harry Myers
 * Captain Anna Maynard - Nina Sosanya
 * Lt Maurizio Savinio - Gerald Kyd
 * Lt Freya Jennings - Danusia Samal

Robot

 * Hargreaves is described as being tall and having a bowler hat.

Continuity

 * Tegan refers to her aunt Vanessa. (TV: Logopolis)
 * Tegan once again describes herself as a "mouth on legs". (TV: Earthshock)
 * Nyssa obliquely refers to the death of her father Tremas. (TV: Logopolis)
 * Tegan goes to change her shoes, claiming she always wears the wrong shoes for the occasion. (AUDIO: Hexagora)
 * The Doctor will visit other places that orbit black holes like in his tenth incarnation or end up in situations in which the environment is massively effected by a black hole like in his twelfth. (TV: The Impossible Planet, The Satan Pit, World Enough and Time)
 * Just like how Nyssa writes messages to Tegan and the Doctor who are at different points in time than her on the walls of the ship, so will Sally Sparrow write messages to herself in the present at and from other points in time. (TV: Blink) River Song sometimes left messages for the Doctor scattered though time in a similar way. (TV: The Time of Angels, The Pandorica Opens)