Warmonger

Terrance Dicks

2002

Peri's been feeling the pressure and demands that the Doctor take her somewhere where they won't find themselves threatened. The Doctor's agreeable and the pair soon find themselves in a primitive idyll. Unfortunately, a member of the local wildlife sees Peri as a good source of food. The creature failed to carry Peri off but once the Doctor had killed the beast, he could see that her life hung by a thread narrower than her nearly severed arm. Thinking with speed and desperation, the TARDIS is programmed for the Galactically renowned Hospice on Karn and its equally renowned Director, Solon who the Doctor had met a regeneration ago, but who was yet to meet him.

Intending to minimise the damage his presence was doing to the time stream, the Doctor finds himself caught up in the plotting surrounding Solon and his aides and is befriended by the Hospice's Security Commander. When the Doctor and the Commander find they are both doubtful about the motives of General Rombusi and his ragtag collection of confederates, supposedly discussing peace, the pair agree to work together and hear that far from wanting peace, the pirates are planning Galactic Conquest. The Doctor tries to stop Peri from accepting the General's dinner invitation, but only persuades her that the General was really OK for she had already fallen prey to his unnatural allure.

The General's plans are revealed and in a desperate battle he is shown to have more of a following with him than he had admitted to. Although forced from Karn, the General does not leave empty handed, taking a thoroughly terrified Peri with him. The Doctor is persuaded that he needs to act as Karn's representative to the Outer Galaxy to build an Alliance against Rombusi's burgeoning empire.

What would Peri's fate be? The traditional Fate Worse Than Death, or something even worse? And what of the Doctor's attempts to build his alliances with such proud peoples as the Sontarans and the Draconians?

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