The Heist

"Even Sea Devils can drown."

Writer: Dave Rudden

Format: Short Story

Released: October 2018

Printed in: Twelve Angels Weeping 08

Featuring: Ood

Synopsis 

On every planet that has existed or will exist, there is a winter...

Many of the peoples of Old Earth celebrated a winter festival. A time to huddle together against the cold; a time to celebrate being half-way out of the dark.

But shadows are everywhere, and there are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things, lurking in the cold between the stars.

Here are twelve stories – one for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas – to remind you that to come out of the darkness we need to go into it in the first place.

We are not alone. We are not safe. And, whatever you do: don't blink.

Verdict 

The Heist was another great adventure to continue my reading of the Twelve Angels Weeping collection! There was no familiar character in this one, but more so an assembly of a few familiar villains! That was a fun approach and I was a little surprised that despite being titled as the Ood villain story, something that I was surprised about in the first place, one didn’t appear until near the end! That was not a problem for my enjoyment of the story, but it just felt slightly odd given this was supposed to be an Ood story. It felt more like a Krillitane one! Agrakos felt like a lead character in charge of the trio trying to break into the Maldovarium. The timing of that was fun with Dorium having to leave abruptly as he answered the call of the Eleventh Doctor as depicted in A Good Man Goes to War, leaving his famed institution rarely vulnerable. Agrakos was more than ready to pounce! He had alongside him a Sea Devil in the form of Vertebrae and Kiz a famed but now unwilling assassin. It made for a fun trio and the relationship between them was surprisingly good despite the egos at play. The build up to the attempted robbery was intriguing and it was clear that there were more than credits that the Krillitane was after. Dorium had an extensive DNA collection that the Krillitanes wanted to swallow to help enhance their empire, and the humour that came from the Sea Devil and Kiz going along with it once fifteen million credits each were on offer was good. Kiz was an interesting character throughout though as he didn’t seem interested in killing anymore despite being a highly reputable killer. That wasn’t something that he enjoyed hearing about himself and he actually had a woman to get back to and hopefully rekindle his relationship. He only left to keep her safe which must have been an incredibly rough decision. I liked that at the end he got to see her and his son realising that they were better off without him so he’d leave them be. His ending was brutal though as he was subjected to seeing and hearing the names of every single one of his victims. And it took 33 years to reel them off! That must have been torment. He wanted a normal life now. The Auton duplicate of Dorium was very fun to have featured and it being one left over and reprogrammed from The Pandorica Opens was a nice touch and strong continuity. Its failure to notify the would-be medley of thieves about the Ood turned out to be a slight problem, as the devastation it caused was quite spectacular! I think it’s a little more enhanced than anything we’ve seen from the Ood before, but it’s good to make them a little scarier. There was no sign of silent obedience here! From there, the story kind of petered out with the Ood in full control of defending the Maldovarium and doing so in quite brutal style. The description of the tendrils falling from within was a great nod to Planet of the Ood and strong continuity. Overall, a really great read!

Rating: 8/10