Haana relaxed on the sun bed and smiled as the warm rays soaked into her skin.  She looked over at Penny, her travelling companion, and noticed that she was still glaring furiously at her.  “I said I was sorry.”

“You made me think I was some sort of alien robot and you say you’re sorry.  What next?  Am I going to wake up and find you’ve given me breast implants?”

“I just wanted to lighten the air a little to make you feel more relaxed and at home on Gallifrey.  How was I to know that that guy was a psycho and actually believed a simple force field projector was really an Artefact from the Old Times?”

Penny sipped her iced tea and looked at the vast expanse of beach.  “Do you have to get an all over tan?  Can’t you at least wear your bikini briefs?”

“Come on, get them off Penny.  I promise not to hide them again this time.”  Haana sighed.  “This is great isn’t it?  A nice beach holiday, just two friends working on our tans.  I’ll even pretend to be hetro if it makes you feel more comfortable with your natural beauty.”  Haana giggled as she tried to act straight.  “That Brad Pitt’s gorgeous isn’t he?”

Penny looked at Haana.  “I think you’d better stick to what you’re good at don’t you?”  She took off her bikini.  “The first sign of anyone else and I’ll never forgive you.”

“There’s no one else on the entire planet Penny.  We’re quite alone.  Do you think I’d get them out if I weren’t sure?  Now lets just forget about smutty inhibitions and get some serious rays.  We’re not leaving until our tan lines have gone.”

“Something’s going to happen though.”  Penny muttered to herself.  “I can feel it.”

Haana looked at her young friend.  “Will you relax, that’s just the wind.  Look we’re just friends right?  We shouldn’t feel so uptight about being naked around each other.  We’re two women sunbathing ok?  I’m not going to jump you and make love to you.” Haana wanted to cross her fingers but she knew Penny would never be interested in her.

The spaceship was difficult for them to control but somehow they managed to bring it down safely.  The immediate landscape was too hot to sustain them for more than a few minutes in their unaltered form.  They tensed certain parts of their body and concentrated hard until it adopted the shape of something that could live in the searing heat.  The Rutan looked around the desert world and began to walk to the nearest life forms.

“What was that?”  Penny asked Haana.  “I thought I heard something.”

“There’s nothing there Penny.”  Haana repeated for the twenty-third time.  “You’re too tense, you really need to relax.”

“I’m sitting on an alien planet with no clothes on and you tell me to relax.”  Penny gasped when something moved on a distant sand dune.  “There is something there.”  She exclaimed, looking for her discarded bikini.

“Relax, it’s a sidewinder.”  Haana explained.

“That’s an Earth species isn’t it?”  Penny asked rhetorically.

“Hmmm.”  Haana thought to herself.  “It seems to have gone now anyway.”

The Rutan observed the two native life forms and changing its shape once more it transformed itself into the image of one of them.  The body did not seem to be very practical apart from moving.  There were only two limbs for attacking, the other two had atrophied through evolution no doubt, retaining just a single tiny digit.

Penny walked over to the sand dune that served as the ladies and when she came back she found Haana looking oddly at her.  “What’s up?”  She asked her dark haired companion.

“Are you are a typical example of your species?”

“I like to think I’m a nice person, yes.”  Penny wondered why Haana’s voice seemed so cold and unemotional.

“How do we mate?”

“We, don’t.  I thought you said you weren’t going to try it on with me again Haana?”

“How does your species reproduce?  I want a detailed explanation.”

Penny wondered what Haana was on, and then something clicked inside her head.  “How does YOUR species reproduce?  You’re not Haana are you?”

“Tell me.”  The Rutan Haana demanded.

Penny looked around for somewhere to run to but it was sand dunes everywhere and she ran slightly slower than someone standing still.  “I’m a girl right, well a boy puts his thing in me and some stuff comes out of it and nine months later I have a baby.”

“Ah, a primitive manner involving different genders.  We will reproduce now.”  The Rutan took hold of Penny’s arms.

“We can’t.  I’m a girl and so are you.  Are you sure this isn’t another game Haana?”

The real Haana swung a large piece of wood at the copy of herself.  It passed through the copy’s head and out the other side with a slurpy popping noise.  “Leave my friend alone.”

“Haana?”  Penny looked at the two Haana’s.  “I think I’m seeing double.”

“We will reproduce now.”  The Rutan Haana repeated themself.

“Time Lady’s first.”  Haana impaled the Rutan copy with the piece of wood.  “Run Penny.”  Haana looked at the Rutan copy of herself.  “Normally I’m game for a cute ass but I know what you are, Rutan.”

“You know who we are?  How?”  The Rutan sat up.

“I’m from Earth, by way of Gallifrey.  I know your species, your pathetic little feud with the Sontarans and can you stop jiggling them like that when I’m talking?  What are you doing on this planet, Rutan?”

“We crashed here.”  The Rutan Haana explained everything.  “Our ship was damaged by a lucky Sontaran hit.”

“There are Sontarans around here as well?”  Haana feared the worst.  “Well the Doctor once told me she’s helped your side out on occasion so if you want to get to safety maybe we can arrange something but no sneaky dissecting me or my young friend ok?  You know for a Rutan you make a cute woman.”

“We agree.  How will we escape from this world?”

Haana called Penny over and handed the poor frightened girl her clothes while getting dressed herself.  “I think you were right.  Next time I listen to your intuition ok.”

“No more sunbathing, ever.”  Penny stated.  “Next time we go somewhere that involves lots of layers of clothes.”

Haana took the Time Ring off her wrist and held it out in front of her body.  Penny took a hold of it and they got the Rutan copy of Haana to take a hold of it too.  “The Rutan home world will be in its summer when we get there, that’s only twenty below freezing.”

“Twenty below?”  Penny gasped.  “I was kidding about the layers of clothes.”  She felt the tug of the time winds as they slipped into the multi-coloured nothingness of the vortex.

Their goodbyes were brief and they departed almost immediately.  Penny found that they had arrived in some sort of space station.  The walls seemed to be a boring grey metal and things only brightened up when she opened a door to explore and  a dead body fell on top of her.

Haana opened another door and a security guard holding a gun pointed it at her head.  “Hi there.”  She said to the guard.

The guard said nothing and fired point-blank at the black haired female’s head and then the orange haired girl screamed in shock so he raised his gun at her and prepared to fire...