Four companions sit around a table in a busy London restaurant.  They’re each very different and yet have so much in common.  Charley is the bubbly one but is quite shy about some things.  Ace is the brazen one who’s been everywhere and shot everything.  Peri is the American one who seems to get the attention of all the men and Nyssa is the geeky one who has seventeen degrees and zero ability to bond with men as they’re all below her minimum intelligence level.

“Last week we were on Skaro.”  Ace said dramatically.  “I’m shooting these Daleks left and right and then suddenly I see the cutest Thal I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Did you give him your phone number?”  Charley asked.

“I bet she shagged him.”  Nyssa said to Peri.

“That’s my guess too.”  Peri replied.

“On a first date?”  Charley was shocked.

Ace grinned.  “I’ll tell you one thing ladies, once you’ve tried Thal you don’t want a human guy ever again.”

Charley stopped eating.  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Are you going to answer his call?”  Peri asked.

“Nah, he was exterminated by a Dalek three hours later.  I got my revenge though, took out an entire platoon of them and one of their forward command posts.”

“I spent the day building a new sonic cannon.”  Nyssa said to the others.  “It can destroy a psychotic robot at ten feet.”

“I’ll take two.”  Ace replied.

“It’s also good for…you know where.”  Nyssa winked to Ace and Peri.

Peri blushed when she caught the meaning.  “It can clean floors and kill robots?”

“Exactly.”  Nyssa had invented the world’s first duel purpose device.

“We had a maid who cleaned the floor.”  Charley said to the others.  “What?  I’m not a spoiled brat just because I grew up in a family that had staff.”

“Poor little rich girl.”  Peri scoffed.  “I’m street.”

“You are not.”  Ace replied.  “I’m more street than all you put together.”

“I was a princess on Traken but we didn’t believe in servants.”  Nyssa said to Charley.

“I am street.”  Peri argued.

“Are not.”  Ace countered.

“My parents divorced when I was twelve.”  Peri announced.

“My father left when I was four.”  Ace played her trump.

“My Uncle Howard was a creepy old pervert.”  Peri top trumped Ace.

“Ok, so you’re street.”  Ace conceded.  “But you’re not council.”

“Well neither are you, not anymore.”  Peri broke the news to Ace.  “We’re all different to how we started out.”  That was the problem Peri reflected.  The Doctor was a great leveller, no matter how different their backgrounds they were all travelling companions, of equal status.  Maybe that’s what the Doctor was all about, he didn’t drive people apart; he brought them together in unity.  Is the TARDIS a Marxist symbol of the triumph of the working class?

Nyssa was meeting her friend Adric for lunch.  Adric was the survivor of a horrific space crash but was recently rescued by the 8^th Doctor who claimed that he could do what he liked.  Nyssa was helping Adric cope with his shock and stress.

“You look great.”  Adric said.

“So do you.”  Nyssa replied as they walked down New Oxford Street.

“I’ve met someone.”  Adric said suddenly.  “He’s very nice, we have so much in common and he understands about my therapy.”

“What’s his name?”  Nyssa asked, eager to hear more.

“He’s called Mike; he’s a little older than me.  He’s ex-army but I don’t hold that against him.  He calls me Adi, I think I like that.”

“That’s so great.”  Nyssa hugged Adric.  “So where do I get to meet him?”

“I know a great coffee bar just down the road. I told him we’d meet him there.  Please like him, remember how much you like me.”

Nyssa wasn’t surprised when she Adric’s new boyfriend.  He was pretty much as advertised, except he tended to look at other guys as if he was mentally undressing them with a lounge lizard stare.  She didn’t want to say anything to her friend now, because it would just hurt him, so she resolved to interfere later, for Adric’s own good of course.

Peri and Charley went shopping for shoes.  Peri hadn’t bought a new pair in a week and already she felt like she had betrayed her core values.  Charley seemed less interested in shoes; Peri felt that it was up to her to teach Charley the importance of good footwear.  “We do so much walking, it’s vital to have the best pair of shoes for the terrain.  Heels may be good for a restaurant or a cocktail party but they’re rubbish for a twenty mile slog over a salt marsh.  Sometimes you need a good pair of sneaker too, they always come in handy.”

“Sneakers?”  Charley wondered why you needed shoes for sneaking about in.

“Running shoes.”  Peri explained further.

“Ah, yes we often end up running a lot too.  Either its running towards some new and interesting thing that catches his eye or its away from some monster of the week that wants to kill me.”

“If only I was that lucky.  Half the deranged maniacs I run into want to make me their significant other.”  Peri shuddered.  “Several have tried genetically modifying me to turn me into their ideal bride.”

“I encountered something like that last year; luckily the Doctor and C’rizz saved me in time.”

“Who’s C’rizz?”  Peri asked playfully.

“He’s just this guy, he’s from Utermarus.  He can change his skin colour to match our surroundings.”

“Sounds like he’d be hard to find in bed.”  Peri frowned.

“It’s nothing like that.  He’s a monk and he had a girlfriend, but she died.”

“The best ones are always emotionally traumatised.”  Peri reflected on her recent lack of dates.

Ace was a busy professional mercenary.  She had offices in all the major population centres on all the major planets in the galaxy.  Most of them were run by her elite staff of three robots and a lot of holograms.  In her London office however she was trying something new out, a real human male and what a specimen he was too.  He had a six pack to die for and biceps the size of Peri’s breasts!  All in all he was a prime example of the male specimen and he was hers, all hers.  If only she made herself promise never to shag any of her staff.  She’d have to fire him by the end of the day or she’d simply explode like a bomb or pop like a balloon.

Jack finished on the telephone to the client.  “Yes sir, I’ll let her know right away.”

“Business?”  Ace asked.

“One of your repeat customers.  She says that the Zarbi are back again.”

“Damn bugs.”  Ace spat.  “Tell Vicki I’ll be there by yesterday.”

“Can I fly the time ship?”  Jack asked.  “I’ve got my license.”

Ace could barely stand to be in the same room as him now, never mind a spaceship for the next hour, with no escape for her wild passion.  “Maybe next time.”

“I understand.”  Jack replied and handed the paperwork to Alice.

Alice took the papers and put them in the big metal paper holding place.  “Does anyone want to see my new yo-yo trick?”  She looked at Ace and Jack.

“Sure.”  Jack sighed.  “I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Alice went to get her yo-yo.  “This is the best trick ever.”

“I won’t be too long.”  Ace said to Jack.  “Try not to miss me while I’m gone.”

“I’ll try but I don’t think I’ll manage it.”  Jack waved as Ace left.

Alice returned to find Jack crying.  “Don’t be sad, my yo-yo trick will cheer you right up.”

Peri and Charley were in the middle of trying on a load of new outfits when suddenly the planet was invaded by the Sontarans!

“We have to get out of here.”  Peri said to Charley as she pulled the figure friendly black jogging pants on.

“Not without putting three layers of clothes on first.”  Charley replied.

Peri helped Charley put her bra on before handing her a skimpy t-shirt and a miniskirt that would really flatter her figure nicely.  “Now will you hurry up?”

Charley finished dressing, if you could this being dressed.  “People can see my knees.”

“Believe me knees are the last things people will be looking at, we’re being invaded by alien’s for frak’s sake!”

“There’s no need for language like that.”  Charley said.  “Good manners maketh the lady.”

“Invading aliens with ray guns will maketh the lady dead if she doesn’t get her ass into gear!”  Peri shouted.  “We have to stop them before they hurt someone.”

Nyssa ran down the street towards the centre of the invasion force.  She spotted a hardware store and rushed inside.

Clete the improbably imported Louisiana owner tipped his hat to the brunette woman who walked into his shop.  “Hello little lady, is there anything I can help you with?”

“I need a tele-biometric gravitational field destabiliser.”  Nyssa replied.

“A what?”

“It disrupts the gravitational beams that are keeping the strange alien spaceships invading this city afloat.  If I can turn them off then the ships will crash and kill the aliens.  True it will all but destroy this city so if you want to live I suggest that you run for your life now.”

“Now don’t go worrying your little head about nothing.”  Clete said.  “I got my here gun to protect me.”

“Firearms are illegal in this country.  If the police see you with it they’ll shoot you dead and then hold a board of enquiry a day later.”  Nyssa gathered up most of what she needed.  “Is there an electronics store nearby?”

“Just down the street there…”

“You call me ‘little lady’ one more time and I’ll sue you for everything you own.”  Nyssa threw a handful of cash at the slack-jawed yokel.  “That’s more than enough for this lot, in spite of your obviously sexist behaviour.”  She left to find the electronic component’s she’d need to build her device in time to save the planet.

Ace was shooing the last of the Zarbi into their new pen when she got the call from Alice.  “I leave the planet for five minutes and it gets invaded.  Now I know how the Doctor feels when we go on holiday.”

Jack looked at the alien ships from the rooftop.  “Geez, there must be a whole platoon of them.”

Ace appeared back in the office, just in time to swap her light laser pistol for a heavy duty rocket launcher.  “Thanks Alice.”

“I cleaned and polished it, like you said.”  Alice smiled.  “Do the alien invaders hate robots as well as people?”

“They’re Meticulons, of course they hate robots.”

“Oh my.”  Alice began to panic.  “I’d better go to the shelter.”

“We don’t have a shelter.”

“I made one.”  Alice showed Ace the cardboard box with the toy animal for comfort.  “It should protect us in a disaster.”

“Jack is on the roof, I think he has his sonic cannon with him.”

“That’s all we need, a trigger happy shoot to kill gunslinger with a Captain Kirk complex.”

“You hired him.”  Alice showed Ace the contract.

“I know.  I’ll just have to fire him if we survive and then let him ravish me.”

“Don’t fire me, please.”  Alice begged Ace for her job.

Peri and Charley found themselves under the flight path of the command cruiser.  Peri took out her portable grapple gun and fired it at one of the airlocks.  She put her arm around Charley’s waist before they were catapulted up into the air.  “Keep your knees together!”  Peri shouted as Charley’s skirt caught undue attention.

Charley stopped screaming once they were inside the airlock.  “I’m alive?”

“You sure are.”  Peri replied.  “I’ve always wanted to try that. Next time I’ll wearing trousers and lingerie though.”

Charley tried to ignore her strange American friend; she was so crude at times and far too open about ‘secret’ things.  “So what do we do now?”

“Now we find out what’s going on and put a stop to it.  Didn’t your Doctor teach you anything?”

Charley had the biggest crush on her Doctor.  She spent more time admiring him than listening to his wise words of wisdom however.  Instead of following his example, she’d been following her hormones, never a good thing with a 1000 year old prude.  “Some things.  Mainly though we’d sort of come up with something at the last minute.”

“You never argued at all, did you?”  Peri sighed.  “No wonder you didn’t learn anything.  How can you learn anything if you don’t share ideas and work out who’s right?”

Nyssa was nearly completed now, despite the handicap of the strange and silly people who insisted on payment for good when their planet was being invaded by aliens!  What was with this planet?  Why was this world invaded more times in one month than most planets were ever invaded in their whole existence?  She stood on top of what passed for a tall building and aimed the tele-biometric gravitational field destabiliser at one of the smaller ships.  She fired and seconds later it pitched down and spiralled into the streets below.  A huge fireball burst upwards and took out another three ships.  She considered this a great success.  She took out her fuzzy pink mobile phone and called Ace.  “Where are you?  I’ve already taken four of these things out.”

Ace was standing on top of the dome of St. Paul’s.  “I saw, too bad for Canary Warf.  Take out everything but the big command ship; Peri and Charley are inside of it, making their move.”  Ace put her mobile away.

Alice tugged Ace’s t-shirt sleeve.  “I’m scared; do we have to be up here?”

“Yes, I need a clear shot at the aliens.”

“Can I have a turn?”  Alice asked.

“No, you’re a terrible shot, remember the catapult incident?  If you can’t hit a tin can at twenty feet you can’t hit a spaceship.”

“It’s a big spaceship.  I might get lucky.  Luckier than I got with that computer I met at the Millennium Dome.”

“That was a popcorn machine and it was on Regula 4, which is halfway across the universe.”  Ace wondered if her robot secretary’s memory file was corrupted.

Jack streaked across the sky in the time ship.  He felt more at home in here than he did anywhere on this planet in this time.  True the ship didn’t have armaments per se, but there was the gravity field generator, which he could use to deflect the path of the command ship or stage a rescue to get Ace’s friends out of there before they got themselves killed.  “Vodka martini, please.”  He smiled as the ship produced his favourite drink, with an olive.  “Nothing to do now but wait.”

Peri and Charley made their way through the ship.  It was unusually empty for an alien invasion command ship.  Maybe they were all busy somewhere else?  What could aliens be doing in the middle of an invasion that was more important?  “Usually this is the point where I’m captured by some weird psychotic sociopath with a degree in applied genetics and no credit cards.”

“Your words are strange, and ill comforting.”

“Relax, they rarely go for the British girl, it’s always the American who gets the weirdo’s.”  Just to confirm Peri’s theory a weirdo who looked like a giant caterpillar grabbed hold of her and injected her with a serum that would transform her into his perfect mate.

Charley screamed as she punched the attacker.  She followed up with kicks and another punch that left the metal case unconscious on the floor.  “The Doctor taught me Venusian Karate.”  She helped Peri to her feet.  “Are you hurt?  You seem to have two legs less than before.

Peri screamed as she looked down.  Below her hips her body had mutated into that of a giant caterpillar.  “This is worse than usual.  This time I’m a bug for goodness sake.  Don’t let me start eating leaves.”

“You’ll be fine.”  Charley reassured Peri.  “We’ll find you the anti-dote and you still have your looks.”

“Small comfort when I’m laying my eggs.”  Peri sighed.  “I think I preferred being the Bird Woman of Varos.”

Nyssa sat in the café, sipping a fruity blend of tea as she watched the last ship lurch about overhead.  She’d done her part; it was up to the others to do their bit.  She nodded as Ace joined her, beer in hand.  “It’s up to Peri and Charley now.”

“I’ve got Jack hanging about in case they need a last second rescue.  It keeps him out of my hair.”  Ace took a swig of beer.  “So, how was your friend?”

“Adric?  He’s got a new boyfriend.”

“Does he have any straight brothers?”

“He’s a little older.”

“A nephew perhaps?”

“I didn’t ask.”  Nyssa replied.  “It’s so weird asking a stranger about family.  “I always stick to the simple stuff, job, hobbies and favourite TV show.  He said he prefers the radio.”

“Never a good sign.”

“How true.  Remember that spaceport guy I was involved with?”

“Vaguely.  You never gave us much juicy detail.”

“He wasn’t really good in the lab or in bed.  In the end I had to let him go.  He hadn’t even heard of TV.  I think the lack of television stunts the growth, it must awaken some key gene in men that otherwise makes them repetitive and dreary.”

Ace took another sip of beer.  “The first guy I shagged only watched those police chase programmes.  They were so lame, I’ve seen better outside my own flat.”

Charley had to leave Peri behind when her friend’s new bulk was too big to squeeze through the doors.  Peri was now like a huge caterpillar with a woman’s face at one end.  She made her way through the ship hoping to find a cure for Peri and also defeat the aliens controlling the ship.  She was shocked to discover that the aliens were all miniature versions of Peri’s new form.  They ignored her as she rifled through cupboards and drawers and filing cabinets, before finding a cure.  It was a single large blue pill the size of an egg.  She rushed back only to find the aliens making love to Peri!  “Leave her alone!”  She shouted and shooed them away.

Peri sighed as the male left her, but he’d fertilised the hundred eggs inside of her and with a pop of slimy mucus they emerged rapidly from her body.  She felt so happy to be laying the next generation of children.

“Swallow this.”  Charley forced the pill into Peri’s mouth.  “It’s the antidote.”

Peri managed to swallow the bitter medicine and within minutes she had finished laying her eggs and was feeling her old self again, while Charley forced her into clothes.

“Let’s never talk about this, to anyone.”  Charley said to Peri.

“That’s no way to speak to the mother of a species.”  Peri joked playfully.  “We should leave though.  They’ve got what they came here for.”

Jack hovered next to the alien ship’s airlock.  He smiled when it opened and he saw Charley and Peri.

Peri and then Charley hopped over into Jack’s ship.  “Take us away from here, please.”  Charley said to the good captain.  “I need a good strong drink.”

“I need a cigarette.”  Peri muttered.

“You don’t smoke.”  Charley said to Peri.

“I always have a smoke after I get laid.”  Peri grinned.  "I need an entire packet."

“Must have been some trip.”  Jack joked.

“You had sex with an alien?”  Nyssa asked, hoping that hearing out loud would make it sink into her brain easier.

“Yeah.”  Peri replied.

“She was technically an alien too.”  Ace pointed out.  “That makes it ok.  So how was it?”

“Different.”  Peri said after a second.  “Nice.”

“I never want to see anything of the like ever again.”  Charley replied.

“I didn’t mind.”  Peri replied.  “Being the queen of a different species gave me a different perspective on things.  When sex is only for reproductive purposes there’s no place for modesty or shame.  It’s only a biological function, like eating or breathing.  Is it the theoretically unnecessary act of lovemaking without procreation that defines what a relationship with a guy really is?”

No, Ace replied with a wide smile.  “It’s the size of his appendage.”

They all laughed, even Charley.