Shade Report (short story)

Shade Report was a Spectrum Shades short story printed in TV Century 21 that contained elements from the Doctor Who universe. It mentioned Unity City, a location first introduced in The Daleks comic story Duel of the Daleks.

Summary
Andrew Melville's brother, who works in Switzerland, sends him a photograph of an unidentified helicopter, stating that neither the Swiss authorities nor anybody else was able to recognise it. For his first report as a SPECTRUM agent, an Acting Shade, Melville seeks the organisation's thoughts on the matter as well as clarification on what exactly a Shade is.

Lieutenant Green replies by quickly putting Melville's concerns to rest, stating the base of the helicopter to be Unity City Experimental Depot and telling him that it was on excercises at the time it was seen in Switzerland. Secondly, Green explains that the word "spectrum" can literally mean the whole range of known colours. He further elaborates all official SPECTRUM personnel have their own codenames and that colours all have particular coded meanings. Consequently, Green says, when this is to be increased to agents in the field, "no colours" are the "order of the day", hence Shades.

Characters

 * Andrew Melville
 * Lieutenant Green

Worldbuilding

 * Green states that any unidentified craft, object, or person is Spectrum's business.
 * Shade asks "S.I.G., Andrew?".

Story notes

 * This was the first Spectrum Shades story to crossover with the Doctor Who universe.
 * Curiously, both spellings for the Mysteron-fighting outfit, "Spectrum" and "SPECTRUM", are used by Green in this story.

Continuity

 * Andrew Melville mentions the recent reorganisation of World Security forces. (PROSE: SPECTRUM is Green)