The Power of River Song (audio story)

was the third and final story in the audio anthology Incursions, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Guy Adams and featured Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart, Ingrid Oliver as Petronella Osgood, James Joyce as Josh Carter, Warren Brown as Sam Bishop, Tracy Wiles as Jacqui McGee and Alex Kingston as River Song.
== Publisher's summary ==
=== Part one ===
UNIT has been assigned to monitor the switch-on of a revolutionary new power system – they know from experience such things can be tricky.
Nearby, Osgood and Lieutenant Bishop investigate mysterious disappearances – and appearances of trans-temporal phenomena. Kate would like to ask the Director some questions, but she's proving strangely elusive...until there's a murder.
=== Part two ===
There's a dead body in the power station. River Song is the prime suspect. And Kate is most concerned by the identity of the victim.
Meanwhile, Sam and Jacqui chase Vikings, while Osgood finds herself out of time. As deadly predators focus their attention on Earth, it seems activating the power of River Song could spell the end of everything...
== Plot ==
=== Part one ===
Whilst Kate and Josh observe the goings-on of Exousia Solutions' new power station, Sam investigates reported monster sightings with Jacqui and Osgood examines a Cro-Magnon who appears to have been killed recently. Mr Chant informs Kate and Josh of a murder and they find the corpse of the victim of an energy weapon, identical to Kate, and the Director of Exousia, River Song, finally emerges from her office. Kate leaves the body there in order to frustrate River and Mr Chant.
On the moors, Sam and Jacqui encounter a Baryonyx in the dark and decide to trap it. Sam calls Josh, who tells Kate about it; she reasons that the dinosaur, the missing people, the Cro-Magnon and her own body must be the result of time slippage. Vikings with flaming arrows appear and chase Sam and Jacqui before Leif, leader of the Clan of War Bears, knocks Sam out.
The Cro-Magnon body is moved to a cold storage facility in Grave's End where Osgood finds that they died of carbon dioxide poisoning. She measures chronon energy where the body was found and sees an apparition of River as the chronon level soars. Osgood is displaced in time and finds herself alone in the early 1970s where she meets the Director and Mr Chant, who say that they have just eaten two people who also slipped through time.
At the launch of the new power system, the Director and Mr Chant transform into monsters and kill the employees. Kate and Josh return to the power station where the Director admits to killing the staff and the chronon tracker identifies her as Kate's killer. The Director points her gun at Kate and, talking about how annoying predestination is, she shoots at her.
=== Part two ===
The laser shot slows and several potential Kates appear. They manage to drag Josh into their time and he plugs the chronon scanner into a multi-level vortex mapper, allowing them to find and communicate with Sam and Jacqui, who are escaping whilst the Vikings hunt the Baryonyx.
Osgood is saved from the Director and Mr Chant by River, who appeared to her earlier. River explains that the Battle-Queen of the Wampeerix has taken her form and intends to drain Earth of its natural resources with isolation fields again and again using vortex manipulator technology. The potential of this paradox is what has caused the temporal slippage. Osgood and River are transported to 2091 and are contacted by Kate. They put on space suits and transmat to the Exousia array in the exosphere and sabotage it.
In 1971, Sam and Jacqui make allies of Leif and his warriors, who defeat the Wampeerix. Josh uses the Wampeerix technology to return Sam, Jacqui, the Vikings and the Baryonyx to their own times and bring the Wampeerix to the 2010s. Jacqui bemoans the fact that she will not be able to write about anything that has happened to her. In 2091, the array is destroyed and River uses her vortex manipulator to take her and Osgood back to the 2010s.
With the Wampeerix defeated and bound with polycarbide manacles, the Kates merge and she steps back into the path of the laser shot despite Josh's protests, but Osgood prevents her from sacrificing herself and the shot hits the wall. River leaves by vortex manipulator, admitting that she did not know that saving Kate would not damage the causal nexus.
== Cast ==
* Kate Stewart - Jemma Redgrave
* Osgood - Ingrid Oliver
* River Song - Alex Kingston
* Captain Josh Carter - James Joyce
* Jacqui McGee - Tracy Wiles
* Lieutenant Sam Bishop - Warren Brown
* Mr Chant - Enzo Squillino Jnr
* Leif / Wampeerix - Leighton Pugh
=== Uncredited ===
* Drones - Leighton Pugh (BFX: Incursions)
== Worldbuilding ==
* Kate struggles with the coffee machine.
* Colonel Shindi is covering for Kate in Geneva.
* Patrick Murray and Michael Reddings are missing.
* The Secretary of State for Energy will not let Kate leave Exousia.
* River has fond memories with Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, and remarks, "We'll always have Cromer."
* Kate has built a chronon frequency isolator.
* Jacqui assumes Leif is LARPing as a Viking, but quickly comes to realise his appearance is genuine, and not related to roleplaying at all.
* River claims to have directed the film Never Hunt the Moon, which was part of the New Exploitation cinema movement of the 2040s. She recorded over Nestene-controlled film canisters to make this movie.
* River and Osgood are both interested in nominative determinism, with regards to alien species names and their inclinations towards hostility.
* River uses her sonic trowel.
* River mentions Marie Curie.
* Vibranium alloy is light and conductive but easily destroyed.
* River says that she hates exposition.
== Notes ==
* River's remark that she and the Brigadier will "always have Cromer" is a reference to the famous line in Casablanca: "We'll always have Paris." In the original context, this line carries the significance of a prior romance.
== Continuity ==
* Jacqui correctly guesses this isn't UNIT's first encounter with dinosaurs. (TV: Invasion of the Dinosaurs)
* River Song says that she is the actual River Song and that she is "the definite article, you might say", mimicking the Doctor on his regeneration into his fourth incarnation. (TV: Robot)
* Kate Stewart says she can't change history, '"not one line". The Doctor also said the same thing to Barbara Wright in his first incarnation. (TV: The Aztecs)
* River has met the Brigadier. (AUDIO: The Blood Woods, Rivers of Light)
== External links ==
Category:Incursions audio stories
Category:River Song audio stories
Category:Stories set in 2091
Category:Stories set in the 2010s
Category:Stories set in 1971
Category:Stories set in London