Doctor Who – The Company of Thieves
Issues: 284-286
Story: Scott Gray
Pencil Art: Adrian Salmon
Inker: Fareed Choudhury
Lettering: Elitta Fell (part one)
Lettering: Roger Langridge (parts two and three)
Editors: Gary Gillatt and Alan Barnes (parts one and two)
Editors: Gary Gillatt & Alan Barnes (part three)
Doctor: Eighth
Companions: Izzy, Kroton
Episodes: 3
Summary:
Off course in the Madrias sector, Qutrusian Cargo Freighter X-703 comes under attack from an unknown pirate vessel. The pirates board and start killing the crew before searching for cargo. In one of the cargo bays, the TARDIS has landed and the Doctor and Izzy are trying to find out where they are (they were expecting to be at the Alexandria Library). One of the pirates finds them and doesn’t buy their story as to how they came to be on board. The pirate leader, Grast Horstrogg, joins the other pirates through use of his personal transmat. The pirates find Kroton in one of the packing cases and he fights off the pirates. The pirate ship detects a power flux coming from the asteroid belt and before they can investigate, the pirate ship is blown up. The shockwave hits the freighter just as Izzy and the Doctor are being taken to meet the pirate captain. They make their escape and as they pass some live cables trailing across the floor, Kroton steps out of the shadows. The Doctor attempts to kill him using the cables and succeeds in knocking him out. However, the delay has allowed the pirates to catch up with them and the only reason the pirates spare their lives is because they believe that the Doctor and Izzy can repair the crippled ship. As they work, an energy beam pulls them towards the asteroid belt. As the majority of the pirates go off to the bridge, the Doctor manages to knock the remaining ones out. The ship heads towards a strange building on the surface of one of the asteroids. Kroton recovers from the attack and introduces himself to the Doctor. The pirates head off to investigate their landing point and the Doctor, Izzy and Kroton head for the cargo bay where they left the TARDIS. It’s no longer there. The Doctor uses his locator to trace the TARDIS and find an insane figure next to it, clutching a weapon. The weapon introduces itself and explains that the man is Tobal Reist. Reist designed and built the weapon fifty years ago but under estimated its power output and the resulting explosion blew the planet up. Reist was the only survivor. The weapon, a multi-function energy manipulator, has been generating the gravity and atmospheric shell to keep Reist alive but the poor man has gone insane. The pirates attack and Kroton fights them off. The Doctor fights the pirate captain and succeeds in removing the power pack of his transmat. However, the captain’s second in command relives the Doctor of the unit. Izzy instructs the weapon to self-destruct and it does so and when it explodes, the gravity fails and the atmosphere shell starts to decay. Kroton manages to get the Doctor and Izzy to the TARDIS and the captain and the second in command are left on two drifting pieces of asteroid, one with the transmat, the other with the power pack and neither trusting the other one inch. They drift slowly apart.
Episode Endings:
One – Kroton lies “dead” on the floor after the Doctor has attacked him
Two – The TARDIS has been taken from the cargo hold and is approached by someone with a very boney arm.
Three – Kroton is welcomed aboard the TARDIS.
Continuity:
The Doctor and Izzy trying to get to the Alexandria library is a reference to the end of Wormwood. The Doctor’s story about being attacked by pirates and losing his identity papers is the same one he told in “The Road to Hell” but with different place names. He carries a TARDIS locator (see “Spearhead from Space” and “The Visitation” amongst others)
Izzy thinks that getting into trouble ninety seconds after leaving the TARDIS has to be a record. She spouts pure technobabble from Star Trek. She’s never met a cyberman before.
Kroton is en route to the Phodosia Space Port. High voltages can kill Cybermen. Kroton has excellent hearing. He once helped out some technosmiths on Baroq VII and in return they made some adaptions to his armour. He can magnetise his staff to his back
Horstrogg was the conqueror of the Vroxius Gulf, the hero of the Destokii Siege and the terror of the Chozway cluster. His ship, the Magpie, is keyed to his gene print.
Reist comes from the planet Trionikus, which was blown into eighteen billion fragments when the weapon experiment went wrong.
There’s a planet called Voggidix Major (though this might be part of the Doctor’s lie about being attacked by pirates)
Comments:
Painful and ugly. The dialogue is almost 100% corn and the eighth Doctor rarely looks anything like Paul McGann. The cybermen have yet another weakness apparently (the most destructible indestructible species ever) and the pirates are simply terrible.
I wouldn’t recommend it.
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