Paradox of the Daleks (audio story)

 was the first story in the audio anthology What Lies Inside?, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by John Dorney and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, Nicola Walker as Liv Chenka and Hattie Morahan as Helen Sinclair.

Publisher's summary
When the TARDIS is drawn to a space station running temporal experiments, the crew discover Daleks in control in the aftermath of an invasion. But these are no ordinary Daleks...

To stop his mortal enemies gaining control of the time technology, the Doctor must work out why these Daleks are here and where they came from.

A war fought through time has many fronts - and in this battle, the Doctor, Liv and Helen will face mortal danger in every time and place they find themselves.

Part one
Peetom and Jamash finally succeed in creating a fully-operational time tunnel. An alarm sounds and, detecting an approaching time capsule, Peetom says that they have been trapped by the Daleks.

Liv and Helen get up in the morning to find the Doctor worrying about a temporal helix that the TARDIS has detected in the Time Vortex. Intrigued, he pilots the ship to the source of the helix and materialises on a space station where they receive a temporal SOS and see signs of a battle, but no bodies. They run into and flee from three upgraded Daleks on the command deck, whom the Doctor refuses to leave with the technology on the station. Liv and Helen remain in the TARDIS and record a message for the Time Lords, setting the ship to travel to Gallifrey should they fail to return.

The Doctor encounters one of the Daleks and is taken to the Black Dalek on the command deck, followed by Liv and Helen, who flee when they are detected and are joined by Peetom. Peetom uses a wave front stabiliser capable of stunning the Daleks and leads them through a maintenance tunnel to his hideout. He explains that the Daleks demanded that he and his fellow scientists set up the station as a staging post for a pre-emptive strike as part of a war they are fighting in the future. Whilst Liv explains to Helen who the Daleks are, Peetom contacts somebody and tells them that all is going to plan.

The Doctor meets Jemash and deceives the Daleks into believing that he is one of the station's scientists; they have him identify a primitive temporal compensator and a sealed time portal and task him with stabilising the time fields. He learns about the Daleks and their war and starts discreetly building a disruptor device and sabotaging the time fields. He also begins to wonder whether somebody with advanced temporal knowledge had assisted the Daleks in coming here through the portal.

Liv looks at the station's schematics, trying to find a way to sneak onto the command deck, and Helen has her look up the crew manifest to confirm her suspicions. Although Peetom claimed that two of his colleagues were exterminated by the Daleks, the manifest shows that he and Jemash were the only two crewmembers aboard. Helen spots dead Kaled mutants in the shadows which Peetom claims to have killed and they watch the Daleks on the command deck using the internal camera feed.

The Daleks demand that the Doctor activates the machinery, but he instead activates the disruptor to attack them. It fails, however, and Jemash activates the portal. The Doctor is confused given that he has been sabotaging it and realises that another Time Lord must have been working against him. The invasion force begins to emerge and Peetom leads Liv and Helen to a supposed panic room, locking them inside where they hear hypnotic voices. The Dalek Supreme arrives on the command deck and identifies the Doctor. Jemash is killed first, then the Doctor is shot multiple times to ensure that he is unable to regenerate.

Part two
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Paul McGann
 * Liv - Nicola Walker
 * Helen Sinclair - Hattie Morahan
 * Peetom - Joseph Millson
 * Jemash - Amy Rockson
 * The Daleks - Nicholas Briggs

Continuity

 * It has been five weeks since Baker Street. (AUDIO: Best Year Ever)
 * The Doctor tells Liv that she and Helen might have to go to Gallifrey. Liv says that she "always love[s] seeing those guys". (AUDIO: The Eleven, etc.)