Search Worlds Without End

This short story originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 9, March-April 2016.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny Magazine.

The Doctor's been everywhere and everywhen in the whole of the universe and seems to know all the answers. But ask him what happened to the Starship Brilliant and he hasn't the first idea. Did it fall into a sun or black hole? Was it shot down in the first moments of the galactic war? And what's this about a secret experimental drive?

The Doctor is skittish. But if Martha is so keen to find out he'll land the TARDIS on the Brilliant, a few days before it vanishes. Then they can see for themselves...

Soon the Doctor learns the awful truth. And Martha learns that you need to be careful what you wish for. She certainly wasn't hoping for mayhem, death, and badger-faced space pirates

1500BC - King Actaeus and his subjects live in mortal fear of the awesome gods who have come to visit their kingdom in ancient Greece. Except the Doctor, visiting with university student June, knows they're not gods at all. They're aliens.

For the aliens, it's the perfect holiday - they get to tour the sights of a primitive planet and even take part in local customs. Like gladiatorial games, or hunting down and killing humans who won't be missed.

With June's enthusiastic help, the Doctor soon meets the travel agents behind this deadly package holiday company - his old enemies the Slitheen. But can he bring the Slitheen excursion to an end without endangering more lives? And how are events in ancient Greece linked to a modern-day alien plot to destroy what's left of the Parthenon?

When the TARDIS touches down in London, 2006, schoolteachers Ian and Barbara are eager to explore their own future. But they have arrived in the middle of a war, a war that has left London a ruin. Mistaken for vagrants, and with no way of proving otherwise, the Doctor's granddaughter and companions find themselves in the execution block on the Isle of Dogs.

The First Doctor has no choice but to help the military refine its ultimate weapon. The British Army has discovered time travel. And the consequences are already terrible.