The Vulpreen Encounter (audio story)

was the first story in the audio anthology Objective: Earth, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Andrew Smith and featured Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart, Ingrid Oliver as Petronella Osgood, Chris Lew Kum Hoi as Jimmy Tan and Tracy Wiles as Jacqui McGee.
== Publisher's summary ==
When a forty-mile-long asteroid drifts into the solar system, Osgood and new UNIT recruit Lt Jimmy Tan are sent to investigate on board the newly-built UK spaceship Starseeker.
Kate Stewart visits a UNIT safe house in Norway where Jacqui McGee is recovering from the trauma of her experiences at the hands of the Vulpreen. She needs Jacqui's help against the Vulpreen threat - but can she be trusted?
== Plot ==
The maiden voyage of Starseeker has been brought forward to investigate a forty-mile-long asteroid. On the third day, as the ship passes Mars, Osgood records an update for UNIT in Geneva and for Kate, who appears to her and Jimmy, now a full member of the organisation, using a hologram projector. The asteroid slows down and seems to throw a smaller asteroid in the direction of the ship, although Kate is not certain that it was an attack and sends Osgood and Jimmy to investigate.
Kate flies by helicopter to the UNIT safe house in Tromsø to check on Jacqui and tells her about the asteroid, which she suspects is under the control of the Vulpreen. When she answers her phone, Jacqui disappears and, whilst looking for her, Kate finds a room full of photos of Jacqui, her friends and family and clippings of newspaper articles that she wrote.
The asteroid uses an energy field to launch about twenty asteroids at Starseeker whilst Osgood, Jimmy and a dozen soldiers take a shuttle towards it. Starseeker is destroyed, killing the hundred people aboard and leaving those aboard the shuttle with only three hours of oxygen. When Kate is notified, she asks that Josh is informed and that Naomi Cross comes to collect her. She finds Jacqui chanting in Old Vulpreen, calling for the Vulpreen with a Dreamstone, before returning to the photos and clippings to remind her of herself, telling Kate that the Vulpreen gave her false memories of a life as one of them.
The shuttle loses power and Jimmy uses an axe to rupture a propellant tank and turn it towards the asteroid. The shuttle lands and Osgood and Jimmy find that it has a breathable atmosphere and a room full of Vulpreen arches which are encased in rocks to be released into the asteroid belt. The Vulpreen awaken from cryostasis and the leader, Commander Krillen, and kills Private Mori and the other soldiers by ageing them to death with a time bubble before subjecting Osgood and Jimmy to a psychic attack. They resist it by putting up mental walls.
With Kate's blessing, Jacqui performs the chant and makes contact with Lord Varliss. He orders her to kill Kate and, after Osgood and Jimmy escape from their cell and flee through an arch, he orders Krillen to leave his escaped prisoners and travel to Earth by arch to kill a new target. Kate shocks Jacqui with an exposed wire in the generator shack, giving her back control of her body. An arch arrives nearby in a meteor and Osgood and Jimmy, having returned to the Vulpreen ship, step out of it, followed by the Vulpreen. Krillen tells his soldiers to find and kill Kate, the defender of Earth.
== Cast ==
* Kate Stewart - Jemma Redgrave
* Osgood - Ingrid Oliver
* Jacqui McGee - Tracy Wiles
* Lieutenant Jimmy Tan - Chris Lew Kum Hoi
* Lord Varliss - Alisdair Simpson
* Commander Krillen - David Holt
== Worldbuilding ==
* Starseeker belongs to the UK Space Agency.
* Starseeker has crystal resonance engines adapted from Black Archive technology.
* Kate uses a hologram projector. Osgood's is squashed in the shuttle crash.
* Kate is in Tromsø in Norway. Jacqui asked to be taken to the safe house there.
* Kate gave Jacqui a UNIT Cloud transmitter.
* Jacqui won a swimming trophy when she was in school and was given a certificate for essay-writing.
* Osgood uses her inhaler.
* Jacqui has a picture of her mother's sister. Jacqui lived with her for over a year once, possibly because her parents were abroad.
* The Vulpreen gave Jacqui a Dreamstone which helps form a connection between her and them.
* Kate asks if Jacqui has made a Freudian slip.
* Private Mori is a UNIT soldier. He is killed by a time bubble.
* Jimmy's mother and father grew up in Shandong Province in China. His mother joked that he only married her father because, unlike her, he could cook. They came to the United Kingdom in the 1980s.
* Jimmy was born in Shoreditch.
* Jimmy has a sister called Sophie who lives in Birmingham. They have not seen each other in a while.
* Osgood mentions that she has a sister.
* Jimmy was in love with fellow soldier Mark, a corporal who died in active service in Iraq. Jimmy never told anybody about him.
== Notes ==
to be added
== Continuity ==
* Jimmy mentions the test of Starseeker's engines. (AUDIO: The Man From Gallifrey)
* Kate uses a hologram projector. Osgood previously used one to appear to Kate and Josh at the West London Safe Deposit Centre. (AUDIO: Eleven's Eleven)
* Kate mentions the Eleven and the "Woolwich business". (AUDIO: Ten Minutes in Hell)
* Jimmy mentions how his father ran a print shop. He previously mentioned this to Josh. (AUDIO: The Man From Gallifrey)
* Osgood tells Jimmy that she has a sister. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
== External links ==
Category:Stories set in Norway
Category:Objective: Earth audio stories