Last Man Running
 |
|
| Author | Chris Boucher |
|---|---|
| Series |
Doctor Who book: Past Doctor Adventures |
|
Release number
|
15 |
| Subject | Featuring: Fourth Doctor Leela |
| Set in | Period between The Robots of Death and Corpse Marker |
| Publisher | BBC Books |
|
Publication date
|
7 September 1998 |
| Pages | 251 |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | Dreams of Empire |
| Followed by | Matrix |
Last Man Running is a BBC Books original novel written by Chris Boucher and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Fourth Doctor and Leela.
The Doctor is irritated when Leela attacks the buzzing TARDIS console with her knife, convinced there is a hostile insect inside. When the TARDIS materializes in a pine forest, he sets off for a quiet walk by himself, leaving her locked inside; but moments after leaving the safety of the ship he is targeted and pursued by a predator, something like a giant bird louse. He is forced to climb a tree to escape, but the predator begins to climb the tree as well... Meanwhile, Leela experiments with the TARDIS console and works out how to open the doors and follow the Doctor.
A police squad from the Out-systems Investigation Group has landed nearby in pursuit of an outlaw weapons technologist, a runner from justice. But as the squad advances into the jungle they stop receiving signals from their ship, and Rinandor and Pertandor must return to find out what's happening. They find that the ship has vanished into thin air—and before they can report back they are attacked by a squad snake, a group organism which attacks with crippling sound waves. Meanwhile, the rest of the group finds the crash site of the runner's ship, but no sign of the ship itself; they are then attacked by flying reptiles which instantly kill Investigator Monly. The others escape, but the group's leader, Kley, now knows that the group was not told everything they need to know about this planet. She'd been told that the group had been fully briefed before she joined them, yet nobody else has been told that the runner is a "toody", one of the second-class citizens of the system from the Second Planet.
Rinandor and Pertandor stumble through an invisible boundary between the jungle and the pine forest, and thus meet Leela. Leela uses her hunting skills to kill the squad snake, saving their lives, but Rinandor remains suspicious of her and demands to know why she's on an interdicted world. Leela easily slips away from them and soon finds the Doctor, who is still trapped by the bird-louse predator. Leela also kills this predator and takes the Doctor back to Rinandor and Pertandor, who are forced to concede that they can't survive on this world without Leela's help. They assume that the Doctor is also a toody—probably a duelling agent who's brought Leela to this world to train illegally. Trying to find the rest of their group, they instead find a pool blocking their path—and, impossibly, the equipment packs they discarded during their flight from the snake are on the island in the centre of the pool. Pertandor foolishly tries to swim across to fetch the packs, and is attacked by an aquatic predator. Once again Leela fights and kills the creature, which the Doctor suspects was engineered by a guiding intelligence—as has this entire situation.
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