The Dark River (short story)

 was the sixth short story in The Target Storybook.

Publisher's summary
to be added

Plot
While using the TARDIS to rescue the Doctor, Tegan and Richard Mace, Adric and Nyssa accidentally travel forward in time to America’s Deep South. Adric tries to save an escaped slave from his master, but is shot in the process, and both are left for dead. After Adric’s enhanced recuperative powers have ensured his swift recovery, he insists they help the slave, James, to get to safety. Together they embark on a trip down the Mississippi River on a stolen raft. After a few day’s progress, the raft is passed by a steamboat carrying the TARDIS on its lower deck; to Adric and Nyssa’s dismay increases the boat’s boiler overheats - the vessel explodes, killing all aboard and sending the TARDIS sinking into the river’s depths. Later, Adric, Nyssa and James are surprised to see a group of men pull the TARDIS from the water and place it on a cart; entranced like zombies, the men capture the trio and take them and their cargo to a large clapboard house. Adric, Nyssa and James meet a thickset man named Doc Ashberry, who claims to know the Doctor from the Time Lord Academy. Doc’s initial hospitality soon gives way to his true intent: his house is his broken TARDIS, and after being stranded for fifty years he wants to swap it for the Doctor’s TARDIS so he can regain his freedom. Nyssa flatly refuses, but Adric offers to recharge Doc’s ship with energy from their TARDIS. Once his ship’s power has been restored, Doc agrees to James’ request to travel with him, and together they depart in his TARDIS, leaving Doc's assistant Li Cho and his helpers, with control chips in their brains, behind. Inside their TARDIS, Adric and Nyssa work on getting back to the Doctor and Tegan.

Characters

 * Adric
 * Nyssa
 * James
 * Doc Ashberry
 * Li Cho

Continuity
to be added