Evening's Empire (comic story)

Evening's Empire was a Seventh Doctor comic story by Andrew Cartmel and featured art by Richard Piers Rayner. It featured Ace and Muriel Frost, the latter of which was included to introduce a supporting cast for the series.

The story went through delays after the first part was published in DWM 180, with John Freeman referring to it as "the Doctor Who Magazine equivlent of Shada", and it was decided that publications of the latter parts would be delayed until all creative parties had caught up with one another. The story was also an attempt to introduce darker and more complex themes, a natural evolution from the final stories featuring Sylvester McCoy, such as the themes of abuse and bullying explored within this story. Howver, due to its delays, the threads introduced in the story were never able to be further explored.

Summary
Arriving in Middlesbrough, the Doctor, Ace aid Colonel Muriel Frost in an investigation into a plane crash during WWII.

Meanwhile, women are being kidnapped, and UNIT is trapped on a strange world of contemporary Earth building, primitive humans bows and arrows and with two suns in the sky.

How are these events connected? The Doctor is about to find out.

Plot
Saturday. In a world with twin suns, in a majestic city unmistakably built by humans, a group of UNIT personnel are fighting a battle against the primative locals. Corporal Ives and Colonel Muriel Frost have located Ace, and they go to rescue her, with Hammond covering them. Despite the primatives being armed with merely bows and arrows, one arrow breaks through Hammond's body armour, severly wounding him. The primatives begin to retreat, and the UNIT personnel mistakenly think that they're winning the fight; they're sorely mistaken, as the primatives' secret weapon starts decamating the soldiers.

Thursday. Forty-eight hours earlier, in the Burroughs Charted Surveyor in Middlesbrough, clerk Alex Evening is broken from his daydreaming of another world by Ace, requesting access to the local records about any crashes in the area from World War 2. Meanwhile, the Seventh Doctor remarks "A man. A plan. A canal. Panama.", to which Muriel Frost rebutts, whilst preparing to dive into the river alongside two other UNIT personnel. They are trying to recover a crashed Nazi plane, and after they dive to the bottom of the river, the crashed plane is found, and Frost gets the marked feeling that it was waiting for her. Back in the Burroughs Charted Surveyor, Alex retrieves a selection of records on local bombings, simultaneously serving Ace a cup of strong coffee and complimenting her looks. Unbeknownst to Ace, the coffee is spiked with chlormezanone, which sends her crashing to the floor, unconscious.

That evening, more UNIT personnel arrive, extricating the plane from the murky depths. Drying herself with a towel, Frost discusses the pilot, who was little more than a child, with the Doctor. That night, Alex lets himself into his mother's shed, and she scolds him for interrupting the hymns. Ace awakes, in a place she is entirely unfamiliar with, a type of experience she is familiar with, though this time is different. Finding herself, alone, in a cell, she shouts for the Doctor, despite knowing he isn't there.

Friday. Early that morning, Alex drives to work, putting the excitement of Ace out of his mind. At the same time, Frost is preparing herself to enter the dead pilot's mind, using scavenged technology the Doctor built. Within seconds of activation, Frost slips into the mind of the pilot, a sensation similar to dreaming. Reaching the pilot's mind, which takes the form of a rotting cadaver, she continues towards it despite its gruesome appearance. The pilot addresses her, knowing that she has come seeking answers. He tells her to touch him, and she places her hand on his shoulder, and Frost sees the pilot's final memories, of him flying through the fresh summer air, many years prior, before his crash with a "strange air-craft". He asks her if she would like to stay with him, reading her mind and becoming privy to her troubled relationship. He tells her, that even though love is painful, it is nothing compared to death. He wishes her auf wiedersehen.

Now back in reality, Frost is distraught from the experience, She tells the Doctor that she will happily "dismantle" the machine, with a sledgehammer. She tells the Doctor that he was indeed about there being a UFO, and is troubled that is has gone missing. The Doctor tells her that the UFO isn't the only thing that has gone missing. So has Ace.

Ace's cries for the Doctor haven't gone well. Two guards arrived, and one, Uncle Totwald, tries to force Ace, the "slave of honour", to wear revealing clothing to look beautiful for the emperor. Ace kicks the other guard down, stealing his sword and fleeing. In the corridor, she smells something familiar, but she can't quite place the smell. As she exits through a door, two things happen: Ace recognises the smell as the glue used on model airplanes; and that there is a chasm beyond the door. Clinging to the doorhandle, Uncle Totwald finds her, and she concedes, allowing herself to be dressed for the emperor's pleasure in exchange for being helped from her precarious position.

Characters
(In order of appearance)
 * Corporal Ives
 * Colonel Muriel Frost
 * Hammond
 * Slayton
 * Alex Evening
 * Ace
 * Seventh Doctor
 * Pilot
 * Janice Evening
 * Uncle Totwald

Referenced only

 * Muriel Frost's mother

Continuity

 * Muriel Frost previously appeared in COMIC: The Mark of Mandragora.