Operation Dusk (audio story)

Operation Dusk was the first story story in the audio anthology Far from Home, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Alfie Shaw and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor, Christopher Naylor as Harry Sullivan and Eleanor Crooks as Naomi Cross.

Publisher's summary
London during the Blitz, a city covered in darkness. It keeps everyone safe - until the darkness gets hungry. As the questions and victims mount up, the Doctor, Harry and Naomi are called in to investigate.

Why have the Vashta Nerada on Earth started eating people? And, perhaps more importantly, why didn’t they eat the cat?

Part one
After the bones of MI5 agent Harriet Thompson are found in her bombed house, the Doctor, Harry and Naomi are called in by Churchill to help Sebastian Hardcastle investigate. The Doctor deduces that particularly aggressive Vashta Nerada are responsible, although he does not know why they would spare Thompson's cat, and learns from Thompson's handler, Nathaniel Woodcote, that Thompson had come to believe that Georgina Stevens was responsible for defective communications equipment. Wondering if the Nazis are in league with Vashta Nerada, he meets with Georgina.

Harry and Naomi learn from Wilton that journalist Marion Johnstone visited Thompson on the night of her death and, after searching Thompson's house and finding a note about Operation Dusk in a safe, question her at The Gazette. They regroup with the Doctor, who is suspicious of Georgina due to her reaction to him claiming to be from the War Office, and share their suspicion of Marion, who closed her notebook when they visited her.

Whilst Harry and Hardcastle go to speak with Georgina, the Doctor and Naomi go to search Marion's things at The Gazette and break into the office using the sonic screwdriver, finding a glowing man in a gas mask searching Marion's desk. The man points a gun at them. As Harry and Hardcastle make their way to Georgina's factory, they are stopped by men in a van who kidnap Harry and take him before Marion, who demands to know everything he knows about Operation Dusk.

Part two
The glowing man escapes with Marion's notebook and the Doctor and Naomi return to Hardcastle, who was interrogating one of Harry's kidnappers with Woodcote until the kidnapper was devoured by Vashta Nerada. The Doctor and Naomi find an advanced communications device hidden in Georgina's house and use it to call the telephone closest to Harry, which happens to be answered by Woodcote, who has detained Harry and Marion. Regrouping with Harry, Hardcastle and Woodcote, the Doctor identifies a device found at Marion's home as another kind of communications device.

Woodcote answers the telephone despite nobody else being able to hear it ringing and, after speaking with the voice of Thompson, is devoured by Vashta Nerada, leaving glowing bones behind. The voice next warns the Doctor to leave Operation Dusk alone and Harry and Naomi realise that Woodcote was the glowing man when they find a gun and Marion's notebook in his office. When the Doctor sees that the notebook is written in Ambrosian, she admits to being a special investigator from Gorthia and that the device found in her home is an Oblivion Key used to execute criminals with Vashta Nerada and communicate with the voice of one's victims.

The Doctor remains suspicious of Marion despite her claiming that she could not have killed Woodcote as she was not holding the Oblivion Key at the time of his death. He uses the communications device to call Georgina, whom he deduces is an alien wanting to return to her own planet, and goes with Harry and Naomi to meet with her; she admits that she escaped Gorthia, accidentally releasing Vashta Nerada from an Oblivion Gate in the process, and has been being helped by Operation Dusk since her arrival. The Vashta Nerada prepare to devour her, but she starts glowing to save herself, the Doctor, Harry and Naomi.

Part three
Using the Oblivion Key, the Doctor sends away the Vashta Nerada and the terrified Georgina runs back to Operation Dusk as the Luftwaffe attack. The Doctor finds a psychic splitter inside the key, intended to make it work remotely, and uses Georgina's communications device to track her down to one of the Forge's facilities, which he travels to with Harry, Naomi, Hardcastle and Marion in the TARDIS. After they are taken inside by guards, Hardcastle reveals that he is a member of the Forge and has everybody but the Doctor locked up.

Hardcastle confirms the Doctor's belief that Georgina and Woodcote crashed on Earth and believed one another dead, after which the Forge obtained the Oblivion Key and attempted, but failed, to make it work remotely with the psychic splitter. He also admits to being a Nazi and killing Thompson with the Oblivion Key to keep himself from being exposed. Marion reveals that her wedding ring is an Oblivion Key and uses it to try to kill Georgina again to get revenge for the death of her executioner husband, but Georgina glows once again to keep them at bay and escapes the cell with Harry and Naomi, returning to the Doctor.

Hardcastle shoots Marion and offers to let the others go if the Doctor agrees to stay and help perfect the technology, but Marion uses her Oblivion Key to kill Hardcastle and dies before she can try to kill Georgina again. The Doctor then dissipates the Vashta Nerada into Earth's shadows and overloads the facility's power banks to destroy the alien technology from being used further by the Forge. As he suspected, Gorthia has been wiped out by key-resistant Vashta Nerada during a solar eclipse and he leaves the keys there before going to find Georgina a new home and speak with Harry and Naomi about whether they want to go home.

Cast

 * The Doctor – Sylvester McCoy
 * Harry Sullivan – Christopher Naylor
 * Naomi Cross - Eleanor Crooks
 * Sebastian Hardcastle – Nicholas Rowe
 * Marion Johnstone - Emily Raymond
 * Georgina Stevens / Harriet Thompson - Pepter Lunkuse
 * Nathaniel Woodcote - Leon Parris

Worldbuilding

 * Harold Westlake is a newsreader.
 * Matilda is a cat.
 * The TARDIS crew are answering a summons from Winston Churchill.
 * Harry calls the Doctor Columbo.
 * Harry and Naomi question Wilton.
 * Marion works for The Gazette.
 * Georgina's father and brother are dead.
 * Marion claims that her husband died at the Battle of Dunkirk.
 * The Abwehr are German military intelligence.
 * Hardcastle and Woodcote question Mr Hitchens.
 * The TARDIS telephone does not require telephone numbers.
 * Ambrosian is used in the Ornithox galaxy.
 * Marion claims to be from Plymouth.
 * Harry prefers Fleming to Christie.

Continuity

 * The Doctor expects to meet Nimrod, whom he describes as an old acquaintance. (AUDIO: Project: Twilight, etc.)