The Rings of Ikiria (audio story)

The Rings of Ikiria was the twelfth and final story of the sixth series in The Companion Chronicles audio range. It was produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Richard Dinnick and featured Mike Yates.

Publisher's summary
UNIT is accustomed to dealing with visitors from space, but nothing has prepared them for Ikiria, an alien artist bearing gifts. Could Ikiria's designs be something more than aesthetic?

As the Brigadier turns against him, Mike Yates goes on the run. Can he save the world? Or will he just learn an important lesson in betrayal?

Plot
Episode One

Captain Yates and Sergeant Benton are sent on a mission to Sark in the Channel Islands, to investigate a series of large pictograms that have appeared in farm crops over the past several nights.

Yates' driver is Jean Mercer, whom he remembers being his driver during the Silurian incident at Wenley Moor.

The Doctor believes the pictograms are of alien origin, and he and the Brigadier join Yates, Benton and the UNIT soldiers at the farm. While on watch that night, Yates and Benton encounter a blinding light over the farm, that leaves a sixth crop circle in its wake.

This event heralds the arrival of Ikiria, an ethereal alien female humanoid, up to eight-feet in height, who offers the inhabitants of earth the gift of her exceptional artisan talents.

The Brigadier returns to the mainland to alert his superiors, leaving Yates in charge. Yates becomes concerned at the rings Ikiria has given out as gifts to Benton and others. The jewelry appears to have a mildly possessive effect on those who have been given them.

Yates confronts Ikiria in her space craft, who reacts by lashing out with mental energy. Yates blacks out and comes to at the farmhouse. He contacts the Brigadier who appears oddly irritated and dismissive of Yates' alarming report.

Meanwhile the Doctor has gone missing, and the soldier sent to look for him is discovered dead. His face is grotesquely distorted, and not far away a new pictogram has appeared in the grass - a highly detailed depiction of the dead soldier's face.

The Brigadier returns to the island and demands that all resources be redeployed to find the Doctor. Yates protests, saying guarding Ikiria should take priority. To Yate's surprise, the Brigadier responds by dismissing Yates from UNIT entirely.

As a despondent Yates is taken away by helicopter, he realises too late that everyone, including the Brigadier, was wearing gloves - the better to hide the rings of Ikiria. Then, as the helicopter passes over Sark, Yates notices another face has been carved into the fields - the Doctor's!

Episode Two

Cast

 * Mike Yates - Richard Franklin
 * Ikiria - Felicity Duncan

Continuity

 * Corporal Jean Mercer asks Mike if there are "more freaky lizards hell bent on wiping out mankind." He believes that she had been his driver during the Silurian clean-up but, in reality, she was a psychic projection created by Ikiria using his memories as a reference. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians)