The Fearless Part 3

"They've got Susan Mendes on board and she's our target."

Writer: Nicholas Briggs

Format: Audio

Released: December 2007

Series: Dalek Empire 4.03

Featuring: Kade, Landen, Susan Mendes

Synopsis

On board the star cruiser Amorist, the outcome of the war with the Daleks hangs in the balance.

Kade knows what he has to do, but has he been told the truth?

Verdict

The Fearless continued in superb fashion with this terrific third part! I am really enjoying the fourth series of Dalek Empire thus far and it might just be my favourite yet. It’s a really good tale and very emotional and it’s fair to say that I am invested in the events. The start of this audio was quite intriguing with the Dalek Supreme reporting to what I can only assume was the Dalek Emperor about the scheduled events on the Amorist. I would love for the Emperor to have a big role in the series finale, but I’m not entirely sure that will be the case. The plot for the adventure was brilliant and full of action with the mission regarding the Amorist. The idea of 25 spacers being split across 3 systems and slowly planning to close in on their target was good and well paced. The continuity from the second part with Avers now meeting Ollander was really good and it was great that she was questioning why he was acting in the way he was after she was adoring the Angel of Mercy. Avers and Kenzie were after a hiding spot from the Daleks and it was nice for Suz to actually hide them and powerfully convince the Daleks that they weren’t in her facility. That spoke a lot of volumes and she didn’t seem to be bothered by the control she had over the lowly orders of the Dalek race. The attack of the maniac squad for the Dalek ship being retaliated with an engine strike was good as it took out a significant portion of the squad with just nine remaining. The Daleks shutting down their ship was interesting and I loved that they sent just one out to investigate. Kade clearly being impacted by the strike was good and it was quite hard to listen to him hearing echoes of his wife. He’s missing her incredibly and that’s quite tough. He was then in charge of the attack and wanted to take out the four humans on board because he assumed they were working for the Daleks. That was understandable and provided some interesting thought. The Daleks questioning the presence of the spacers was good and it was terrific to know that they had knowledge of the Fearless. Why wouldn’t they? The Daleks predicting that the maniac squad would target Suz was good and it had me thinking about what whacky plan they were carrying out on this occasion. Fisk discovering some transmission data was really interesting and I loved that it included accounts from Kade and Landen. Avers being killed was quite unexpected as he was a good character, but when the Daleks wanted to exterminate Kenzie and Ollander as well Suz was easily able to convince them not to carry out the death. Kennedy locating the humans was interesting as he had quite a quiet story. Suz realising that she was the target of an assassination squad was an excellent moment. I was hugely surprised when she just left Kenzie to die though despite Ollander’s pleas. There was clearly something different about her. The maniac squad capturing Ollander was a very good story development and they’d carried out quite a successful mission with just one of six Daleks remaining and even that wasn’t in a good way. Kade coming face to face with Susan Mendes was outstanding and I loved how he showed absolutely no remorse. The continuing mentions of Kalendorf are interesting and I have a feeling he might pop up in the finale which would be fantastic. Ollander suggesting that Suz was carrying out a true plan that would involve the Knight of Velyshaa’s telepathic abilities and rising up against the Daleks when the time was right was really interesting. Kade still wasn’t having any of it despite his questions and admitting the possibilities. Fisk refusing to eject Ollander from the ship was good and his challenging of Kade regarding nothing being able to bring his wife back was incredibly powerful. Kade’s reaction was completely warranted! Kade also recalling the Dalek that was captured in part one was superb and I liked how he enjoyed the fact that a lot of useful information had been retrieved from it. Fisk continuing to defy orders and suggest that everything would remain accomplished if they just took Suz and extracted information from her about the Dalek plans and strategies. There was logic to that but he was just enraged about Lajitta and his daughter. Kade knew there was something about Suz which was good and I really liked that he continued to have no sentiment about her situation. He was pretty much putting her on trial and wanting justification for why she was a traitor and on the side of the Daleks. I liked that a lot. He admitted she would be useful, but he was also incredibly clever and knew that the Daleks would also know how useful she would be to the Alliance. So why wouldn’t the lone Dalek kill her if she had the ability to reveal all of their plans? That was a magnificent development! The conclusion of the adventure was sublime and opened up a whole lot of questions whilst answering some others. Fisk retrieved some Dalek data and they had been receiving transmissions from the Earth Alliance. Suz turned out to be a robot copy which I admittedly was a little disappointed by but I could see how it worked logically without impacting the first series. She turned out to be the source of the signal that was being emitted and it all turned out to be a Dalek plan the whole time. They wanted to feed false information to the Alliance whilst knowing their operations was superb with the Daleks now knowing that their plan had failed. But that wasn’t the story, that was all about Landen and Kade. The truth coming out about how Landen had planned everything to recruit Kade for the spacers which was very shocking and something I didn’t see coming. It was an outstanding development and has set things up perfectly for the finale. Not only had she brought the Daleks to Talis Minor to show Kade what he should be fighting for, but she’d also planned for him to lose everything he loved. That was quite phenomenal to be honest and just cruel. He would be prepared to risk everything then, but goodness what he has planned for Landen now. Overall, a fantastic audio!

Rating: 9/10