The Fearless Part 4

"We're losing the war with the Daleks and we need a miracle."

Writer: Nicholas Briggs

Format: Audio

Released: January 2008

Series: Dalek Empire 4.04

Featuring: Kade, Landen

Synopsis

The Daleks have devised a plan that will deliver a decisive victory. General Landen and her fleet are all that stand in their way. And then there's Kade...

Verdict

The Fearless conclude in decent style with a really good fourth and final part of what has been a terrific fourth series of Dalek Empire! It was quite different to what I was expecting after the cliffhanger from the previous part, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t good. It was far from it. The story starting with the President of the Earth Alliance expecting an imminent Dalek victory was good and there was definitely an atmosphere of desperation. Landen needing to come up with a bit of magic to defeat the Daleks was good and she quickly came up with the answer which I actually wasn’t expecting. Rather than detailing her tactics in traditional storytelling fashion, the use of the news report explaining how Landen had come up with a temporary victory was excellent. It helped with the pace of the adventure which is always beneficial. She’d hit hard and hit fast which is probably the only way to gain any kind of advantage over the Daleks. The scale of the report was intriguing considering that all the defeat had accomplished was a little time. The arrival of a tran-solar disk seemed like there was going to be a great deal of action right away, but it turned out to be Kade using it as help to get back to Landen. From there, I was expecting him to be ruthless but he was clearly impacted by the duration and extent of his journey. Using the spacer on minimal power was not ideal and finding out that he was the last remaining Fearless was really good. He was the last man standing and that led me to think that would just add to his anger. It an extent it did, but he still wasn’t himself. Mezeran as his doctor and reporting on his endless jogging was intriguing. He was tying to get back up to pace which was admirable so soon after all he’d been through. The plan of the Daleks to bring an artificial asteroid storm to the Solar System and take out the birthplace of all humanity was superb. I really liked that audacity of that. This was the Daleks at their best. They’d take out some of the outer planets in the system and that would be that. With how the previous part ended, I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear him acting as the commander of the Flagship Herald! The cheers he had when appointed showed how much he was appreciated and how well the news of his resurrection of sorts was welcomed. I was amazed that Kade conducted his duties and I was hoping that he was playing a patient game but I really wasn’t sure if that would be the case. His joy at finding Fisk was terrific but I was still frustrated that he wasn’t confronting Landen about what she had done. It honestly had me questioning whether the transmission we heard in part three was actually a dummy and plant by the Daleks to break apart the core of the Earth Alliance. The truth being that Fisk was in a coma set Kade off into what I was hoping for from the start and he had quite an outburst at Landen which was delightful to hear. It was an outpouring and that’s exactly what it should have been. He thought Fisk had been tampered and hearing the echoes of Lajitta was quite sad again. I did hope that some sort of truth regarding this would have been confirmed. The Earth Alliance attempting to clear a path to the central gravity generator of the asteroid storm and turn it off was good and obviously logical and the action that stemmed from that was really good to listen to. Landen being forced into a suit and coming with him on what he’d deemed a suicide mission was sublime. Instead of killing her point blank, he was going to make her suffer and show her what she was commanding her troops into. The drift off course was good and I liked how Kade even knew he should’ve been aborted the mission but just wanted Landen to experience what it was like on the ground. They’d have to improvise and Landen was begging for safety. The scenes at this moment at the centre of the gravity control were immense and full of excitement. Landen surrendering to the Daleks was an interesting move and it was good to highlight just how in control the Daleks were. I was also interested to find that Landen had no answer for what she had done to recruit Kade to the Fearless. That was quite extraordinary. Kade using Susan Mendes and the knowledge he had of her true plan was fantastic and he wasn’t holding back in calling Landen stupid for her mission that called to assassinate the Angel of Mercy. It was a duplicate. The Daleks exterminating all of the survivors apart from Kade and Landen was good and set up a really great dynamic for the rest of the audio. Kade talking to the Dalek Emperor was terrific and I loved Landen’s reaction when he showed up on the hyperlink. I wasn’t expecting Kade to tell the real plan of Suz and Kalendorf but the Emperor knew it anyway. The use of explosives to take out the gravitational centre seemed to come out of nowhere but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. Kade saving Landen was a hugely significant moment but I didn’t like that she was challenging him about not being able to shoot her. That was quite out of order. Him ejecting her from the suit was fantastic and she soon had different thoughts. Kade wanted her to say she was sorry and whilst she was aware that what she did to Kade wasn’t pretty, she seemed to have no remorse which was despicable. The suit distress beacon coming to Landen’s safety was good whilst Kade had been restrained because it was thought that he was mad. From the outside, that wasn’t too much of a surprise to expect. Landen allowed Kade to resign as she finally seemed to realise the torment she had made him endure. He didn’t kill her because he wasn’t a Dalek which was a brilliant line. Hearing the speech of Susan Mendes as the rebellion came into fruition from “Death to the Daleks!” was a really nice moment in the story. That tied things in very nicely. Finding out that Talis Minor was where Kade had gone to get the feel of everything being gone rather than just knowing was somewhat harrowing and emotional. Things ended quite definitively with that but Landen still seemed to think that Kade will realise there is a war to fight. I’m not so sure myself. Overall, a really great audio to conclude what has been a hugely impressive series!

Rating: 8/10