Set Piece is an original novel written by Kate Orman and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Seventh Doctor, Ace, Bernice and Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart. It is the last New Adventure to feature Ace as a regular character, although she appeared sporadically throughout the rest of the series. A prelude to the novel, also penned by Orman, appeared in Doctor Who Magazine #222.
Plot
Ms Cohen is travelling on a starliner that falls through a time rift and is boarded by giant mechanical ants. She wakes up on board a vessel known as The Ship, where the ants and human prisoners they use as slaves are slowly processing the captured humans and storing their minds inside Ship's systems. The human guards, however, have a problem. One prisoner, whom they call the "Gingerbread Man", repeatedly escapes from cold storage despite their best efforts. Ms Cohen witnesses several of these escapes and watches the guards brutally beat him to the point where he seems to be suffering a heart attack. As Ms. Cohen tries to start him breathing again, she realises he has two hearts. Eventually she realises that the "Gingerbread Man's" escapes always go to a different part of Ship, therefore he is looking for someone. In his next escape, he reaches the freezers, where Ace is trapped. The Doctor is finally able to summon Bernice to rescue them. But the attempt fails and the Doctor, Ace and Bernice are thrown out into the rift. Ms Cohen is trapped on Ship and eventually processed like the others.
Some months earlier, the Doctor shows Bernice and Ace a mysterious cafe that manifests itself at different locations in time and space, ranging from Glebe, New South Wales to Argolis. The Doctor says this as a result of a Time Rift, which has punched through the fabric of reality. An unknown force is using the rift to snare passenger ships. The Doctor and Ace plan to get captured and learn what is happening having failed, the three travellers are separated.
Ace falls out of the rift in the Egyptian desert during the Akhenaten period, where she is found by nobleman Sedjet and becomes part of his household body guard. Because she is a woman, she has to constantly prove herself. The only person who seems to accept her is the priest, Sesehaten. Although she can still hear Egyptian as English, she eventually accepts that the Doctor will not be coming to rescue her. When Sedjet tries to take her on as his mistress, Ace realises that he will only ever see her as a curiosity. She leaves his house, abandoning the force field generator she used to travel through the rift. Unable to find work as a soldier, she is reduced to working as a waitress. She encounters Sesehaten again, who tells her that odd lights have been seen in the sky. Ace realises that the rift may be opening and rushes back to Sedjet's house. The building is empty and the ants are there looking for the force field generator. Sesehaten reveals that he is part of the cult of Set (also known as Sutekh), which has been outlawed since Pharaoh forced Egypt to accept a single religion and one god Aten. Sesehaten's cult will help Ace leave through the rift, if she helps them kidnap the Pharaoh. Ace agrees, as she sees Akhenaten as another in the long line of fascists she has fought. Ace breaks into Akhenaten's palace and takes him hostage, but Ace realises through talking to him that he is no better or worse than any other ruler. In the courtyard he reveals the TARDIS, which his army recovered when it fell from the sky, explaining how Ace could understand Egyptian. Using the instruments, Ace discovers that Sesehaten is not human, but a machine built by Ship to control the rift.
Bernice lands in France in 1798 and makes friends with Vivant Denon, a founder of modern Egyptology and one of her heroes. Together they travel to Egypt with Napoleon's army and Bernice attempts to find the Amarna Graffito, a mysterious phrase written on a tomb wall in modern English, which she has a strange feeling can help her find the TARDIS. Searching inside a tomb, she is trapped by survivors of Set's cult, who steal her diary thinking it and the message are key to releasing their god from his prison. Denon rescues her and together they lead French troops to the Cultists camp, where Benny recovers her diary and finds the location of the graffiti.