'Twelve Angels Weeping' by Dave Rudden

Twelve extraordinary Doctor Who stories, each featuring a monstrous villain from the Doctor Who world.

On every planet that has existed or will exist, there is a winter . . .

Many of the peoples of Old Earth celebrated a winter festival. A time to huddle together against the cold; a time to celebrate being half-way out of the dark.

But shadows are everywhere, and there are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things, lurking in the cold between the stars.

Here are twelve stories - one for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas - to remind you that to come out of the darkness we need to go into it in the first place.

We are not alone. We are not safe. And, whatever you do: don't blink.

Written by popular children's author, and lifelong Doctor Who fan, Dave Rudden.

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12: The Weeping Angels: 'Grey Matter'

In the thirty-fourth century, the hospital planet Gehenna is under siege from a terrible dust storm and a deadly plague. Chief Medical Officer Perinne seals himself inside the Basilica of Wellness with the survivors, all protected by the filters on their Salus masks. To their surprise a man called the Doctor arrives in a Police Box, on a mission to find out why the CMO and his team are hiding instead of treating their patients. Learning that the dust is made of marble particles, the Doctor deduces that it is turning people into Weeping Angels, creatures that are destroying each of the planet’s twelve cities in turn as a perverse countdown. Rebooting the Basilica’s external cameras, Perinne sees the entire population outside, all frozen in the act of advancing on the Basilica; each has been transformed into a Weeping Angel, the marble dust storm their combined exhalations. When Perinne admits that he has an Angel captive, and has been experimenting on it to learn the secret of quantum locking, the Doctor realises that the networked Salus masks have spread the angels like a virus, because the image of an angel becomes an angel. As each person in the Basilica removes their masks to reveal the face of an angel, Perinne realises that he is Patient Zero. He insists that the Doctor leave in the TARDIS, then at last succumb to the Angels’ influence…

Notes:
*Featuring the Twelfth Doctor

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11: Ice Warriors: 'Red Planet'

The Doctor and Leela are captured by the Sycorax and sent to fight in their arena. Here they meet a Catkind named Bathast and Kyrss, the Martian Ice Warrior champion of the arena. With a Desolation Storm approaching the asteroid base, the evacuating Sycorax begin slaughtering their prisoners. When the Doctor observes that Kyrss is a Grand Marshal, the Ice Warrior explains how he is the sole survivor of the Abandonment of Mars, all the Martian World Ships declared missing, presumed destroyed. The tiny Bathast is ordered to fight Kyrss in the arena, but Leela takes her place, easily matching the Ice Warrior in combat. The Doctor uses a key-device stolen from one of the guards, and with Bathast’s help he frees the remaining prisoners, equipping them with weapons seized from the armoury. Gaining control of the Sycorax base’s long-range comms, the Doctor locates the lost Martian World Ships, much to Kyrss’ relief. Bathast elects to stay and help the prisoners’ uprising, so the Doctor, Leela and Kyrss head for the TARDIS, only to find it sealed with a sync lock. With a hoard of Sycorax closing in on them, Kyrss buys the Doctor and Leela time to break the lock; they escape in the TARDIS, leaving Kyrss to revel in the glory of a warrior’s death in the name of Mars.

Notes:
*Featuring the Fourth Doctor and Leela

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10: Time Lords: 'Celestial Intervention- a Gallifreyan Noir'

Formerly of the Celestial Intervention Agency, Detective Maris receives a case from a young boy, to track down an old Type 40 TARDIS that has been stolen from him by a man called the Doctor and his granddaughter. Maris visits the Gallifreyan repair shop where the theft took place, but while questioning the owner she is knocked out by an unseen assailant – and when the detective comes to, she finds the repairman dead. Suspecting that the CIA are also interested in her case, Maris returns to her office and uses a potential engine to view along the Doctor’s timeline; to her surprise the device’s printouts show multiple versions of the Doctor’s history, as his birth, education, and future adventures continually change before her eyes. After investigating the Time Lord Academy, Maris returns to her office once again, and is caught by a chronal mine booby trap. Waking up, Maris finds herself the prisoner of two brats – and when she fails to answer their questions, they shoot her in the head. Maris is saved by the arrival of a TARDIS, which materialises around her; its pilot is the detective’s client, who reveals himself to be a newer model of TARDIS, bitter that the Doctor did not choose him instead. When Maris opines that the Doctor made the right choice, the boy deposits her back in her office, and then departs in a sulk…

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10: Cybermen: 'Ghost in the Machine'

Primus Cyberman 9.9P-VIV leads its troops into battle, while testing new equipment for the controlling Cyberiad. During one campaign against the Racnoss, the Cyberman is distracted by a human girl on the battlefield, who disappears into thin air. 9.9P is recalled for repairs, but nothing is found to be wrong with its systems. Sent to the planet Agrippina to fight humans, 9.9P sees the girl again; it pauses its weapons fire, only to be cut down by the enemy forces’ positronic canon. 9.9P is recalled to the Cyberfleet for further repair and investigation, but the Cyberiad is still unable to detect a fault. Stripped of its Primus rank, 9.9 is given new armour and sent to fight in more battles; but it continues to see the girl, who vanishes from the fray each time. Despatched to Space Station New Cadmus, the Cyberman deliberately waits to see the girl and then screams its rage at her; firing its weapon continuously until it overheats, 9.9 is destroyed in the ensuing explosion. Its demise is witnessed by the Doctor, who tells his companion Peri that the poor creature was raging at the final vestiges of its own humanity…

Notes:
*Featuring The Sixth Doctor and Peri

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8: The Silence: 'Student Bodies'

At the Luna University in 5124, student Donovan Claire stays on campus over Christmas to finish writing an important PhD thesis on exoplanets. Using a microbead Donovan records a journal, but the entries record a sinister turn of events: Donovan sees something hideous, and then immediately forgets it; the planet Donovan is studying suddenly vanishes without trace; tutor Professor North is unexpectedly replaced by a strange woman named Madame Kovarian; and fellow student River Song starts talking about seeing creatures at the faculty. When the creatures attack, River bravely holds them off so that Donovan can escape in a shuttle and warn the authorities – but one of the monsters is already aboard…

Notes:
*Featuring River Song

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7: The Sontarans: 'A Soldier’s Education'

Newly-birthed from the cloning tanks and immediately sent into battle in a drop pod, a Sontaran is briefed en route by the Subliminal Education Matrix. As the pod lands on the battlefield, the Sontaran finishes absorbing vital information on his race’s many enemies; he then receives his new name: Strax…

Notes:
*Featuring Strax

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6: Silurians: 'The Red-Eyed League'

While looking for a Christmas present for her wife Jenny, Madame Vastra learns of a sighting of strange symbols in Spitalfields, which she recognises as Silurian words that lead to an abandoned church. Investigating the site Vastra meets Kisimos, a Silurian priestess recently woken by human construction work. Vastra finds herself drawn to the priestess, who encourages her to reawaken the Silurian side she has repressed to fit in with humanity. Meanwhile, Jenny and Strax investigate a case of stolen jewels at Lady Horrinthal’s house, and an arson attack on the Paternoster Gang’s favourite pub; when the landlord is subsequently murdered by masked men, Jenny realises that the crimes are linked by herself, Vastra and Strax. Succumbing to her reptile Vastra ways, Vastra falls out with Jenny, who storms off in anger. Vastra returns to the church and confronts Kisimus over the murder of her friend; the priestess explains how she has been undoing Vastra’s cases to remind her of Silurian heritage, and then turns her lethal raptor servants on her. But Vastra has back-up from Jenny, and with the aid of Strax’s detonation rats and knockout gas the priestess and her minions are quickly subdued. Having contacted the Doctor for help in returning Kisimus into stasis sleep, Vastra makes up with Jenny: she give her with a Christmas present of a blank notebook, promising to turn it into a dictionary by teaching her to speak Silurian.

Notes:
*Featuring Madam Vastra, Jenny Flint and Strax

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5: The Ood: 'The Heist'

The Maldovarium becomes the target of three thieves: Agrakos the Krillitane, Vertebrae Rax the Sea Devil, and assassin Kit the Head-Taker. Using Krillitane bio-pods they pass the planetary sensors, Kit destroys the reprogrammed Cybermen guards and Vertebrae bypasses the locks; when they enter the Maldovarium, they are escorted by an Auton double of the owner, Dorium Maldovar, reprogrammed as a spy by Agrakos. The group make their way to the vault, where the pocket dimension within contains the items they want: DNA samples of rare species for Agrakos, a vortex manipulator to send Vertebrae back in time to when his people roamed the Earth, and secret records that detail the whereabouts of Kit’s estranged family. Unfortunately, ‘Dorium’ has overlooked the final component in the Maldovarium security: an Ood. The creature kills Vertebrae, and sets armed droids to attack the others. Ditching his colleagues Agrakos flees with the DNA samples; but when he ingests one to gain powers that will aid his escape, his Krillitane body transforms into an Ood instead. Kit is captured by the security Ood and subjected to recordings of his many victims, and of his wife and child living happily without him. Knowing that Kit will be tormented by the knowledge of never being reunited with his family, the Ood shows mercy and lets him go free.

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4: The Zygons: 'The King in Glass'

Leaving Amy behind to do some sunbathing on Gauss Electra, the Doctor takes Rory to the planet Numina Vitri to party at the coronation of the King in Crystal. Arriving just as the crystalline High Vizier Camadaras finds a human lying dead in the throne room, the duo use the Doctor’s psychic paper to pose as investigators. The Vizier explains that the Crown Prince Maanaster will become king by donning the Mantle, a self-sustaining life support suit that will keep him alive for a millennium. The Doctor deduces that the human thief is was a patsy, carrying in a team of Zygons disguised as tools; the four Zygons have since disguised themselves as glass statues, and they now come to life, planning to kill the prince so one of them can take on the Mantle in his place. The Doctor tries holding back the Zygons using his sonic screwdriver, but the invaders compensate by changing out of their crystal forms; during the confrontation the prince puts on the Mantle suit, using its power to deal with all but one of the invaders. A party is held to celebrate the new King in Crystal, but the Doctor and Rory elect to go in search of the final rogue Zygon instead…

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor and Rory

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3: The Daleks: 'The Third Wise Man'

In the first year of the Time War, a Time Lord captain is placed in command of fleet of battle TARDIses in the Scaveline System. Amongst the remains of a Dalek fleet they encounter the Renegade, the Time Lord who once called himself the Doctor. Detecting a distress call, they track it to the Gates of Elysium, a huge antimatter cloud cascading from a black hole, where a Dalek space station is impossibly situated. A mass of Daleks are firing upon a Dalek saucer, the source of the distress call, which was sent by the Daleks’ creator, Davros. When a huge swarm of particles indiscriminately destroys Daleks and Time Lord TARDIses alike, Davros reveals that he has created a new type of Dalek, the Nightmare Child, and has brought the Renegade here to watch it feed and grow. Knowing that his creation will not stop until it has destroyed everything, Davros uses his ship to draw the Nightmare Child into the Gates of Elysium; the Renegade attempts to intervene, but his TARDIS is held back by a tractor beam at the order of the Battle TARDIS captain. Despite watching the apparent demise of his old enemy, the Renegade is far from grateful; he carries a grudge that will last until much later in the Time War, when the captain has become a general…

Notes:
*Featuring the War Doctor

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2: Judoon: 'The Rhino of Twenty-Three Strand Street'

In Ringsend, Dublin in 1966, ten-year-old Patricia Kiernan sees a white rhino in her late neighbour’s garden. Investigating the empty house, Patricia passes through a ‘bubble’ that show a different view of the property, with a large spaceship crashed into it. In the living room Patricia finds the rhino, an injured humanoid creature from space. Over the coming days Patricia nurses the alien rhino back to health; she decides to tell the nuns at her convent school, but changes her mind when she overhears them belittling her. That night Patricia runs away from home, and helps the rhino escape from a strange woman in a police box. As the two friends go on the run, a large spaceship lands before them; the little rhino runs into the arms of a larger rhino, and they fly off into space. Upset that her friend left without saying goodbye, Patricia meets the woman again; she explains that the rhino was a Judoon child caught up in a terrible war, and had been left on Earth for safety. Praising Patricia for helping the child when others wouldn’t, the woman encourages her to follow her own path through life, instead of being what others want her to be.

Notes:
*Featuring the Thirteenth Doctor

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1: The Master: 'Anything You Can Do'

Wanting to prove himself better than the Doctor, the Master pretends to be his enemy in name and deed. After finally convincing someone to be his companion, he tries saving Nu-Paris from invading Cybermen, but compromises its atmosphere in the process. Now with a new set of companions, the ‘Doctor’ embarks on a series of adventures; but when they ask to return home, he leaves them on a space station falling into a sun. The ‘Doctor’ then helps a nurse named Ocelot to bring peace to the warring planet of Lauchmhar - but only by blowing up everyone. The ‘Doctor’ forces Ocelot to join him, but when she attempts to escape him on Eleventh Century Earth, he unleashes an alien multiform on her. Now assisting the crew of the spaceship Nowhere’s Eye on an exploration of nonspace, a place outside the universe, the Master receives a call from the real Doctor: he is displeased at having his good name tarnished, and has undone all of his enemy’s deeds. The Master reveals that his actions have been part of a trap for the Doctor, and that he now plans lead a nest of Caliginosity monsters back into the real universe. But the Doctor in turn has seen through the Master’s scheme: he also saved his nemesis’ companions, and together they drive back the Caliginosity and then go after the Master…

Notes:
*Featuring the Fourth Doctor (?)

*The Master has a goatee beard, and later disguises his TARDIS as a grandfather clock, so I'm placing this in his timeline between the television stories 'Frontier in Space' and 'The Deadly Assassin'. It is difficult to identify the specific incarnation of the Doctor (Fourth? Eighth? Tenth?), so I am choosing to align him with the Master's timeline, and attribute it to the Fourth Doctor

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Publication Date:
11th October 2018

Notes:
*A BBC Children's Book