Ed Cowley Ed Cowley was a trader who once piloted his spacecraft near what the thought was a kind of black hole . Like all vessel masters of his era , he had consulted with the ADF prior to disembarkation , and had been assured by their people that his path was well outside Dalek - controlled space . Unfortunately , the ADF ' s data had been wrong . Several Dalek ships lay along his route as he neared the anomaly . The Daleks immediately began pummelling his ship with firepower . Cowley ' s only hope for survival was to enter the anomaly . When he did so , he was transported to another part of space entirely . The extreme stresses inside the anomaly knocked him unconscious . He awoke to find that he was on a collision course with a planet that was slightly smaller than Earth . Acting quickly , Cowley initiated his vessel ' s landing sequence . His action wasn ' t quite quick enough : he still crashed into the planet ' s surface , but he crashed " gently " enough to avoid his death . He was immediately greeted by the native inhabitants of that world — a race of feline humanoids who seemed peaceful enough . They immediately began picking over his ship , and Crowley was impressed by their energy and physical dexterity . He believed , briefly , that he had happened upon the most naturally gifted race of workers he had ever seen . He was just beginning to think of ways to harness them to a business purpose — a way to use them to become the richest man in the universe — when his daydreams were interrupted by the arrival of pursuing Daleks . When the Daleks made planetfall , Cowley took off for this own ship . He had no way to communicate with the apparently friendly race he had just met , no way to warn them of the evil the Daleks represented . All he could hope to do , he thought , was to save himself . When he boarded his vessel , he discovered that the feline species had not only completely repaired it , they had effectively " redesigned " it . It was now vastly upgraded from its previous configuration . He headed for the entrance of the anomaly that had brought him to the felines ' world . By his reckoning , two Dalek ships had landed on that world — meaning that one was still guarding the entrance to the anomaly . He went through cautiously , expecting , and receiving , an immediate Dalek attack . What he didn ' t expect was the massive upgrade the felines had given to his weapons array . He instantly destroyed the previously - formidable Dalek vessel . Instead of being happy , however , he became intensely worried . If the felines were now equipping the other Dalek vessels with similar weapons , the universe was almost certain to fall under Dalek control . He lay in wait outside the anomaly ' s entrance . One Dalek vessel came through , and he engaged it . Cowley confirmed it had indeed been upgraded , then sent a message to the ADF to warn them , and all sentients opposed to the Daleks , of the new threat . He was able to destroy the ship , though , because the Daleks were still affected by the disorientation of travelling across the threshold of the anomaly . The second ship came through , and he began to fire again , as the anomaly closed forever behind the escaping Dalek craft . When Cowley ' s ship was discovered by Joel Shaw of the ADF , Cowley ' s hands were still wrapped around the firing controls . He was dead . There was no obvious reason why he was dead . Listening back to Cowley ' s comm - set , which had been openly recording the battle , Shaw was only able to determine that there were only two explosions . Shaw feared that Cowley had not been able to destroy the second Dalek craft . ( PROSE : " Blockade " )