Sarah Jane sighed. This weekend was going to be a nice, normal weekend camping with her son and his two friends. Sarah Jane and Luke were almost packed; they were just waiting for Clyde and Rani.
‘Where are they?’ She murmured, as Luke came in.
‘Aren’t they here yet?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘I’m beginning to get worried.’
Suddenly, the doorbell rang, startling both of them. Luke went to get it.
‘We’re here!’ Came Clyde’s voice from the hall. Sarah Jane marched in, carrying the roll of blankets.
‘Sorry we’re a tad late; Rani wasn’t packed when I arrived.’
‘Sarah Jane?’ Rani asked, ‘How are we going to fit all our bags into the car? We usually have enough trouble getting ourselves in.
‘I’ve sorted that!’ Sarah Jane said excitedly, ‘Come and look!’
They all trooped outside. Instead of looks of surprise, Luke, Rani and Clyde looked confused.
‘What’s different?’ said Clyde, staring at the tiny car in the driveway. Sarah Jane beckoned them over to the boot.
‘Remember how I told you how the Doctor’s TARDIS is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?’ she said, ‘Well, look at this!’ She opened the boot and the three of them gasped.
‘How is that possible?’ Rani spluttered. Sarah Jane grinned.
‘It’s only temporary, of course. This is highly technical stuff, not even a genius like Luke could work out the theory!’ Sarah Jane said. ‘Mr Smith worked out the three different formulas, for three dimensions, and powered up the electric current going from him to this car. You see?’ She pointed round the sides of the boot, ‘Tiny crystals. They’ve been electrolysed by Mr. Smith to expand the area inside them. This is how the Doctor expands his TARDIS.’ All three kids looked confused.
‘Well, as long as it works, I’m happy!’ said Clyde, chucking his rucksack in the boot. Rani went to fetch her bag that she’d left in the hallway. Soon, the boot was full to bursting with bags, blankets and tent. Rani and Clyde were cramped in the back, and Luke and Sarah Jane were in the front.
After half an hour of driving, Clyde started complaining. ‘C’mon, Sarah Jane, we’ve never had to go this far, not even to Goblin’s Copse!’ he moaned. ‘It’s really cramped back here’.
‘Hang on, almost there’ Sarah Jane replied. They turned in at a field with a forest along one side of it. Sarah Jane parked the car next to the fence.
Most of the field was grass, except for the occasional patch of dead grass where a tent had been recently. On the side opposite to the forest was another field with cows in it. Sarah Jane’s car was not the only car in their field, however; at the other side was another car that was full of rust and looked like it had just been abandoned.
The four of them put the tent up next to the car.
Why don’t you and mum go in that room, Rani, and Clyde and I’ll have this one?’ Luke said. Everyone seemed to agree on that. After they’d dropped their bags off in the compartments, Sarah Jane zipped up the doors and turned to the kids.
‘Right, let’s go for a walk.’ She said, which was greeted by a chorus of groans and complaints. However, ten minutes later, the four of them were trudging through mud a little way down the hill.
‘Isn’t this a bit like when we met Kaagh in the woods, Luke?’ said Clyde. ‘When we were looking for Professor Skinner?’
‘Except that we’re not it the woods right now and we’re with Sarah Jane and Rani, yeah.’ Luke replied.
Suddenly, Sarah Jane started sloshing through the mud at-not a run, that was impossible in this amount of mud-a very fast pace.
‘Mum, what is it?’ Luke shouted, as he and the two others ran after Sarah Jane. She came to an abrupt halt at the gate on the other side of the field. The kids gathered round her to stare at what she was looking at.
The creature by the gate was very small, very fat and grey. There were lumps all over its flesh and it was covered in mud. It appeared to be shivering, though it was hard to tell through the mud and rolls of fat protruding from it.
‘What is it?’ asked Rani, crouching down. ‘Is it... alien?’
‘I think so,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘But I’m not sure. We should get it back to the tent, it looks frozen to death.’ Sarah Jane scooped the muddy creature up in her arms like a baby and started heading back to the tent.
Wrapped inside as many blankets as Luke and Clyde could find, the creature waited patiently while it watched the woman kneeling next to it. Sarah Jane was in the middle of scanning it, but after several minutes of looking at a blank screen, she shut the watch with a snap.
‘My watch doesn’t know what it is.’ She sighed, ‘It’s just not saying anything. All this can mean is... this creature isn’t alien.’
‘If it’s not alien, what is it?’ asked Luke. ‘It doesn’t fall into any of the main animal classifications.’
The creature continued to stare at the group with interest. Everyone looked back at it, confused. Its eyes were unblinking and clouded over, so no one was quite sure who it was looking at.
‘I don’t know what it could be,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘it’s certainly a mystery.’
Luke awoke feeling strangely cold. He grabbed a hoody from beside his sleeping mat and put it on while he unzipped his and Clyde’s compartment. What had awoken him? He pondered over that for a moment, then, seeing a light outside the tent, he crept over to the door.
The abandoned car on the other side of the field was silhouetted in the bright light. Luke could see where the glass had broken and stood out from the window frame and the dents on the rusty bonnet. A sudden wind had picked up. Rubbing his hands together for warmth, Luke picked his way across the field to the car and peered round the bulk of the car.
Luke had the shock of his life. 3 creatures, a lot like the creature they had found at the gate, were sitting round a very bright light. They were practically wedged between the fence and the car. One of them leant forward to adjust the angle of the lamp and Luke ducked behind the car. Then they started to talk.
‘I don’t see why we didn’t do this last night! Then we would not be rushed for time.’
‘The woman may have seen the implantation with her wrist-device. We can’t afford her to get suspicious.’
‘Is she not already suspicious? Without his soul, the child is like...like an undead.’
Without his soul? Were they talking about the creature Sarah Jane, Rani, Clyde and himself had found, wondered Luke? He had to get back to the tent, and tell Sarah Jane-
‘The child is ready. Soon the woman and her friends will be, quite literally, blown away!’
‘Mum! MUM!’ Luke hissed through Sarah Jane and Rani’s compartment door. Sarah Jane sat up in her sleeping bag.
‘Who’s there?’ Sarah Jane said in a low voice.
‘It’s me! Luke!’ Luke whispered.
‘Oh.’ Said Sarah Jane sleepily. ‘What’s... what’s wrong?’
Luke unzipped the door as Rani sat up. ‘What’s going on? Luke?’ she said.
‘Mum, there’s... people in the field,’ Said Luke. ‘Not people, strictly speaking. I think they’re aliens. They’re like that creature we found.’
‘Where?’ said Sarah Jane.
‘Behind the car. On the other side of the field.’ Luke paused. ‘I heard them talking.’ Luke told Sarah Jane and Rani what he had heard.
‘Without a soul...’ murmured Sarah Jane. She looked up at Rani and Luke. ‘Were those other creatures you saw like the little one we found, Luke?’
‘No, they were much bigger. And they were sort of blue,’ Luke said, remembering the colour of them. ‘I think they were talking about the child we found, but... I don’t know what the conversation meant.’
‘I think I do.’ Said Sarah Jane. ‘They were talking about that creature we found, yes?’ Luke nodded. ‘But I couldn’t identify it. I don’t know how they did it, but- the creature we found had his soul extracted. That’s why I couldn’t identify it. It’s living but it doesn’t have the soul of whatever alien it is!’
‘So what would they be implanting?’ asked Rani. ‘And why would they take the soul out?’
‘I don’t know.’ Said Sarah Jane, ‘but if it had a soul it wouldn’t be defenceless. A little creature lying next to a gate would be irresistible to a passer-by. The parents would be right behind the fence. I’m amazed we didn’t see them...’
‘Sarah Jane, you’re not making any sense!’ Rani hissed.
Sarah Jane looked up at Luke and Rani. ‘Someone’s laid out a trap for us, knowing that we would take the bait and pick up that child. And they’re going to use the child to get to us!’
‘So what do we do?’ asked Luke. ‘Fight back?’
‘You know I never use weapons, Luke.’ Said Sarah Jane. She was about to say something else when suddenly she put her finger to her lips and mouthed ‘they’re here’. Then the sound of something brushing against the tent material and shuffling footsteps.
All was silent except for the rustling of trees in the wind. Sarah Jane stepped out of the compartment and leant over. Then she looked back at Luke.
‘You were right,’ she whispered, ‘those aliens were talking about the creature- the child.’
‘We should wake up Clyde,’ said Rani, ‘we should’ve done it before, now we’ll have to explain everything to him!’
‘Keep your voice down!’ Sarah Jane said in a low voice. ‘Luke, go and wake up Clyde. Rani, get something warm on. The wind’s picking up again.’
Luke disappeared into the other compartment while Sarah Jane and Rani put on jumpers on top of their pyjamas. After a few minutes, Clyde finally came out of his and Luke’s room.
‘What’s going on, Sarah Jane?’ he groaned, ‘Luke said something about aliens, is this about that thing we found by the gate?’
‘Yes, but there’s no time to explain.’ Said Sarah Jane, ‘if I’m right, those aliens won’t be staying behind that abandoned car. We’ve got to find out who they are and what they’re up to!’
‘What about- that?’ Rani asked, gesturing at the grey creature, who was lying in the middle of the tent.
‘We’ll leave it behind, I’m not carrying some alien around muddy fields in the middle of the night!’ said Sarah Jane, unzipping the tent door and stepping out. Luke, Rani and Clyde followed, hesitating at the door but decided to go with Sarah Jane.
They stopped as they reached the car at the end of the field. The light, as Luke pointed out, had now gone, so the others assumed the aliens had scarpered too.
Phew, they’re not there.’ Sighed Rani, stepping round the side of the car. ‘Now what?’ she asked, looking at Sarah Jane, who sighed and put her head in her hands.
‘Nothing’s going to happen unless we do something. We have to find out what they’ve done to that poor child and what they’re intending to do to us!’ she said.
‘Sarah Jane- look!’ said Clyde, pointing at the hill in the distance. It took the others a moment to see the speck of light travelling up the hill.
‘How do we know it’s them?’ asked Luke.
‘We’ll just have to assume it is them,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘it’s the only sign of light around and I have a suspicion of what those aliens are up to, anyway.’ And she strode off towards her car.
The country lanes were like a maze in the darkness, but after twenty minutes, several wrong turnings and reminders from Luke that he remembered going along this particular lane, Sarah Jane’s small Figaro reached the bottom of the hill. As soon as Rani and Clyde had squeezed out from the back seats, they all sprinted up the path on the side of the hill, which was a lot longer than they had assumed it would be.
‘I still don’t understand what’s going on, Sarah Jane!’ Clyde panted. ‘It’s not my fault for being asleep, okay? You guys could have woken me up!’
‘There’s no time to explain here,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘the quicker we stop the aliens the better. We need to get to the top of this hill.’
‘But we don’t even know what’s going on!’ protested Rani, started to stride up the hillside again. ‘You’re keeping us in the dark, Sarah Jane.’
Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani and Clyde saw the aliens as soon as they rounded the top of the hill. They were bluer than before, with the low moon shining down upon their shiny flesh. The aliens were just staring up at the sky, as if they were expecting something to happen.
‘What are you?’ Sarah Jane demanded, stepping forwards. The aliens jumped at the sudden voice behind them, then turned around to stare at Sarah Jane.
‘How did you find us?’ the largest one asked. The team couldn’t see his face properly because he was silhouetted against the moon, but they had to assume he had spoken, as the other two edged behind him.
‘We saw your light going up the hill.’ said Clyde simply.
‘You still haven’t told us what you are.’ Sarah Jane said. The alien took his gaze from Clyde to Sarah Jane.
‘We are Bjornicans.’ He said.
‘I’ve never heard of them,’ muttered Sarah Jane. ‘Where are you from, then?’ she said to the Bjornican.
‘Bjornica?’ Clyde hazarded a guess.
‘Raxocoricophalopatorius.’ Said the Bjornican. Sarah Jane gasped.
‘But- but that’s where the Slitheen come from!’ she said. The Bjornican nodded.
‘Is it not possible for two families to dominate a planet? We tried to live in peace with the Slitheen,’ he said, ‘but we argued all the time. It was evident that we could not live near each other. We told them to live with their cousins. This made them angry. So they...’ the Bjornican paused to comfort the smallest of the three aliens, who had started to whimper.
‘They kidnapped us. Took us to their ship- they flew us down to Earth. Wanted Raxocoricophalopatorius to themselves. But that was ten years ago.’ The female Bjornican murmured.
‘But the Slitheen were here a couple of years ago- in the school!’ replied Luke, ‘and again, when they pretended they were my parents! Why would they come back?’
‘Perhaps they never left.’ Said Sarah Jane. ‘But that’s not what’s important. What are you planning to happen to us? Or to happen to Earth?’ she asked the Bjornicans, who glanced at each other. It was almost impossible to see their faces, though, as the setting moon was shining in Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani and Clyde’s faces.
‘I suppose,’ the male Bjornican said to his wife, ‘there is not much harm in telling them now, is there? Now that they are about to die.’
‘Who says we’re gonna die?’ Clyde protested. Rani edged closer to Sarah Jane and Clyde.
‘You don’t have a choice in the matter!’ cackled the female alien. ‘I take it you realised there is something wrong with the child? Or was that not the reason for your presence here?’ The four of them nodded, but looked a bit confused.
‘A device of some sort- as a replacement for the child’s soul?’ said Sarah Jane.
‘Humans are not so thick after all. It took us ten years to perfect the device. Of course, it would have been easier if the Slitheen were not trying to turn the sun blue every other day. They did not have enough money to get back to Raxocoricophalopatorius, that would be why they’ve been here so long.’ The female paused. ‘However, our plan will put the Slitheen to shame!’
‘Just tell us, alright?’ demanded Rani. She and the others were growing tired of the Bjornicans waffling on about their plan. The largest Bjornican turned so that the gang could see his face. He smiled menacingly.
‘As a replacement for the child’s soul, we inserted an atra transmitter.’
‘A what?’ Rani and Clyde asked.
‘That translation doesn’t make sense’ muttered Luke. Sarah Jane smiled at him.
‘Bjornicans aren’t the best at languages. They merely needed to cover up the name of the device so no-one would guess what it does.’ She said. ‘Am I right?’
The Bjornican nodded. ‘It has the power to charge up black holes. Such as the Large Hadron Collider.’
Sarah Jane gasped. ‘You can’t!’ she whispered.
‘Mum, what is it?’ said Luke.
‘Remember when you were first in my attic, I showed you K-9?’
‘Yes, I remember. He was stopping up the black hole?’ Suddenly, realisation dawned on Luke’s face. ‘The black hole is the Large Hadron Collider?’
‘Although K-9’s sealing it off, if the force becomes more powerful K-9 will be sucked into it.’ Sarah Jane swallowed. ‘and the rest of the world.’
‘Not entirely.’ Said the Bjornican, ‘you are correct, Miss Smith, apart from one factor. As we are near the transmitter, we will be blasted from the black hole. The rest of the world, however...’
‘Fill me in- why are you doing this?’ asked Clyde.
‘Clyde, can’t you see?’ said Rani, understanding. ‘Those Bjornicans have spent ten years trying to get home. They’re going to be blasted back into space, while the world gets sucked up!’
‘Why are you so desperate to get home?’ inquired Luke. ‘It’s costing you your child and a planet.’
‘This planet is worthless. It is merely being used for us to blast away from it. We did not want to lose our child, but we must get back home.’ The female Bjornican said, sadly.
‘Sarah Jane, what are we going to do?’ hissed Rani.
‘Yeah, I mean- we can hardly stop a massive black hole from swallowing up the Earth, can we?’ said Clyde. Sarah Jane looked desperately at her son. ‘Luke? You’re the only one who’s likely to understand this. Any ideas?’
Luke shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’ But seeing Sarah Jane sigh, he said, ‘what about the Mitre headset? We stopped that. I overloaded the system.’
‘The what headset?’ asked Rani. Rani had only experienced half the amount of adventures as the others, so she was always asking questions about their previous encounters with aliens.
Sarah Jane ignored Rani. ‘Luke that’s it! Overload the system! When I had K-9 to seal off the black hole, Mr Smith said something physics-y that I never understood. But I think that by overloading the system, all that’ll happen is... well, K-9...’ she broke off.
‘Isn’t there a tiny, minor problem?’ said Clyde. ‘We don’t know what the system is! How are we going to overload some system if we don’t know what we’re overloading it with?’
‘The atra transmitter is a replacement soul.’ Said Sarah Jane, ‘it absorbs emotions and converts them into energy.’
‘So...what? We overload this atra transmitter inside the child and stop the black hole?’ Rani said. Luke and Sarah Jane nodded. The four friends looked over at the Bjornicans, who were deep in conversation.
‘Quick, they hardly notice we’re gone!’ whispered Rani, and they crept downhill again, onto the footpath and back to the car. A wind had picked up and blew right in their faces, but that didn’t stop them. As soon as they were inside, Sarah Jane revved up the engine and her little car sped along the country lanes this time.
The child Bjornican was still inside the tent, and it stared at them as they ducked under the door and sat around it.
‘They’d never have expected us to really love it. They won’t know what hit them.’ Muttered Sarah Jane as she picked up the child. No-one said a word as Sarah Jane started hugging the child and patting its back as if it was her own child.
The ground was shaking more than ever now and the wind beat against the tent, but the child had gone limp and Sarah Jane put him down.
‘What’s going to happen?’ said Luke in a voice that was just audible. Suddenly, the rumbling stopped and everything went back to normal.
Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani and Clyde dropped the child off after breakfast that morning. Even though they seemed to have no other way of getting back to Raxocoricophalopatorius, the Bjornicans swore they were on the brink of working out a formula for space fuel that wouldn’t result in the extinction of a planet. And it turned out that K-9’s body was stronger than it looked, for he was still ‘working at full capacity’ when the team got home.
‘Where are they?’ She murmured, as Luke came in.
‘Aren’t they here yet?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘I’m beginning to get worried.’
Suddenly, the doorbell rang, startling both of them. Luke went to get it.
‘We’re here!’ Came Clyde’s voice from the hall. Sarah Jane marched in, carrying the roll of blankets.
‘Sorry we’re a tad late; Rani wasn’t packed when I arrived.’
‘Sarah Jane?’ Rani asked, ‘How are we going to fit all our bags into the car? We usually have enough trouble getting ourselves in.
‘I’ve sorted that!’ Sarah Jane said excitedly, ‘Come and look!’
They all trooped outside. Instead of looks of surprise, Luke, Rani and Clyde looked confused.
‘What’s different?’ said Clyde, staring at the tiny car in the driveway. Sarah Jane beckoned them over to the boot.
‘Remember how I told you how the Doctor’s TARDIS is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside?’ she said, ‘Well, look at this!’ She opened the boot and the three of them gasped.
‘How is that possible?’ Rani spluttered. Sarah Jane grinned.
‘It’s only temporary, of course. This is highly technical stuff, not even a genius like Luke could work out the theory!’ Sarah Jane said. ‘Mr Smith worked out the three different formulas, for three dimensions, and powered up the electric current going from him to this car. You see?’ She pointed round the sides of the boot, ‘Tiny crystals. They’ve been electrolysed by Mr. Smith to expand the area inside them. This is how the Doctor expands his TARDIS.’ All three kids looked confused.
‘Well, as long as it works, I’m happy!’ said Clyde, chucking his rucksack in the boot. Rani went to fetch her bag that she’d left in the hallway. Soon, the boot was full to bursting with bags, blankets and tent. Rani and Clyde were cramped in the back, and Luke and Sarah Jane were in the front.
After half an hour of driving, Clyde started complaining. ‘C’mon, Sarah Jane, we’ve never had to go this far, not even to Goblin’s Copse!’ he moaned. ‘It’s really cramped back here’.
‘Hang on, almost there’ Sarah Jane replied. They turned in at a field with a forest along one side of it. Sarah Jane parked the car next to the fence.
Most of the field was grass, except for the occasional patch of dead grass where a tent had been recently. On the side opposite to the forest was another field with cows in it. Sarah Jane’s car was not the only car in their field, however; at the other side was another car that was full of rust and looked like it had just been abandoned.
The four of them put the tent up next to the car.
Why don’t you and mum go in that room, Rani, and Clyde and I’ll have this one?’ Luke said. Everyone seemed to agree on that. After they’d dropped their bags off in the compartments, Sarah Jane zipped up the doors and turned to the kids.
‘Right, let’s go for a walk.’ She said, which was greeted by a chorus of groans and complaints. However, ten minutes later, the four of them were trudging through mud a little way down the hill.
‘Isn’t this a bit like when we met Kaagh in the woods, Luke?’ said Clyde. ‘When we were looking for Professor Skinner?’
‘Except that we’re not it the woods right now and we’re with Sarah Jane and Rani, yeah.’ Luke replied.
Suddenly, Sarah Jane started sloshing through the mud at-not a run, that was impossible in this amount of mud-a very fast pace.
‘Mum, what is it?’ Luke shouted, as he and the two others ran after Sarah Jane. She came to an abrupt halt at the gate on the other side of the field. The kids gathered round her to stare at what she was looking at.
The creature by the gate was very small, very fat and grey. There were lumps all over its flesh and it was covered in mud. It appeared to be shivering, though it was hard to tell through the mud and rolls of fat protruding from it.
‘What is it?’ asked Rani, crouching down. ‘Is it... alien?’
‘I think so,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘But I’m not sure. We should get it back to the tent, it looks frozen to death.’ Sarah Jane scooped the muddy creature up in her arms like a baby and started heading back to the tent.
Wrapped inside as many blankets as Luke and Clyde could find, the creature waited patiently while it watched the woman kneeling next to it. Sarah Jane was in the middle of scanning it, but after several minutes of looking at a blank screen, she shut the watch with a snap.
‘My watch doesn’t know what it is.’ She sighed, ‘It’s just not saying anything. All this can mean is... this creature isn’t alien.’
‘If it’s not alien, what is it?’ asked Luke. ‘It doesn’t fall into any of the main animal classifications.’
The creature continued to stare at the group with interest. Everyone looked back at it, confused. Its eyes were unblinking and clouded over, so no one was quite sure who it was looking at.
‘I don’t know what it could be,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘it’s certainly a mystery.’
Luke awoke feeling strangely cold. He grabbed a hoody from beside his sleeping mat and put it on while he unzipped his and Clyde’s compartment. What had awoken him? He pondered over that for a moment, then, seeing a light outside the tent, he crept over to the door.
The abandoned car on the other side of the field was silhouetted in the bright light. Luke could see where the glass had broken and stood out from the window frame and the dents on the rusty bonnet. A sudden wind had picked up. Rubbing his hands together for warmth, Luke picked his way across the field to the car and peered round the bulk of the car.
Luke had the shock of his life. 3 creatures, a lot like the creature they had found at the gate, were sitting round a very bright light. They were practically wedged between the fence and the car. One of them leant forward to adjust the angle of the lamp and Luke ducked behind the car. Then they started to talk.
‘I don’t see why we didn’t do this last night! Then we would not be rushed for time.’
‘The woman may have seen the implantation with her wrist-device. We can’t afford her to get suspicious.’
‘Is she not already suspicious? Without his soul, the child is like...like an undead.’
Without his soul? Were they talking about the creature Sarah Jane, Rani, Clyde and himself had found, wondered Luke? He had to get back to the tent, and tell Sarah Jane-
‘The child is ready. Soon the woman and her friends will be, quite literally, blown away!’
‘Mum! MUM!’ Luke hissed through Sarah Jane and Rani’s compartment door. Sarah Jane sat up in her sleeping bag.
‘Who’s there?’ Sarah Jane said in a low voice.
‘It’s me! Luke!’ Luke whispered.
‘Oh.’ Said Sarah Jane sleepily. ‘What’s... what’s wrong?’
Luke unzipped the door as Rani sat up. ‘What’s going on? Luke?’ she said.
‘Mum, there’s... people in the field,’ Said Luke. ‘Not people, strictly speaking. I think they’re aliens. They’re like that creature we found.’
‘Where?’ said Sarah Jane.
‘Behind the car. On the other side of the field.’ Luke paused. ‘I heard them talking.’ Luke told Sarah Jane and Rani what he had heard.
‘Without a soul...’ murmured Sarah Jane. She looked up at Rani and Luke. ‘Were those other creatures you saw like the little one we found, Luke?’
‘No, they were much bigger. And they were sort of blue,’ Luke said, remembering the colour of them. ‘I think they were talking about the child we found, but... I don’t know what the conversation meant.’
‘I think I do.’ Said Sarah Jane. ‘They were talking about that creature we found, yes?’ Luke nodded. ‘But I couldn’t identify it. I don’t know how they did it, but- the creature we found had his soul extracted. That’s why I couldn’t identify it. It’s living but it doesn’t have the soul of whatever alien it is!’
‘So what would they be implanting?’ asked Rani. ‘And why would they take the soul out?’
‘I don’t know.’ Said Sarah Jane, ‘but if it had a soul it wouldn’t be defenceless. A little creature lying next to a gate would be irresistible to a passer-by. The parents would be right behind the fence. I’m amazed we didn’t see them...’
‘Sarah Jane, you’re not making any sense!’ Rani hissed.
Sarah Jane looked up at Luke and Rani. ‘Someone’s laid out a trap for us, knowing that we would take the bait and pick up that child. And they’re going to use the child to get to us!’
‘So what do we do?’ asked Luke. ‘Fight back?’
‘You know I never use weapons, Luke.’ Said Sarah Jane. She was about to say something else when suddenly she put her finger to her lips and mouthed ‘they’re here’. Then the sound of something brushing against the tent material and shuffling footsteps.
All was silent except for the rustling of trees in the wind. Sarah Jane stepped out of the compartment and leant over. Then she looked back at Luke.
‘You were right,’ she whispered, ‘those aliens were talking about the creature- the child.’
‘We should wake up Clyde,’ said Rani, ‘we should’ve done it before, now we’ll have to explain everything to him!’
‘Keep your voice down!’ Sarah Jane said in a low voice. ‘Luke, go and wake up Clyde. Rani, get something warm on. The wind’s picking up again.’
Luke disappeared into the other compartment while Sarah Jane and Rani put on jumpers on top of their pyjamas. After a few minutes, Clyde finally came out of his and Luke’s room.
‘What’s going on, Sarah Jane?’ he groaned, ‘Luke said something about aliens, is this about that thing we found by the gate?’
‘Yes, but there’s no time to explain.’ Said Sarah Jane, ‘if I’m right, those aliens won’t be staying behind that abandoned car. We’ve got to find out who they are and what they’re up to!’
‘What about- that?’ Rani asked, gesturing at the grey creature, who was lying in the middle of the tent.
‘We’ll leave it behind, I’m not carrying some alien around muddy fields in the middle of the night!’ said Sarah Jane, unzipping the tent door and stepping out. Luke, Rani and Clyde followed, hesitating at the door but decided to go with Sarah Jane.
They stopped as they reached the car at the end of the field. The light, as Luke pointed out, had now gone, so the others assumed the aliens had scarpered too.
Phew, they’re not there.’ Sighed Rani, stepping round the side of the car. ‘Now what?’ she asked, looking at Sarah Jane, who sighed and put her head in her hands.
‘Nothing’s going to happen unless we do something. We have to find out what they’ve done to that poor child and what they’re intending to do to us!’ she said.
‘Sarah Jane- look!’ said Clyde, pointing at the hill in the distance. It took the others a moment to see the speck of light travelling up the hill.
‘How do we know it’s them?’ asked Luke.
‘We’ll just have to assume it is them,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘it’s the only sign of light around and I have a suspicion of what those aliens are up to, anyway.’ And she strode off towards her car.
The country lanes were like a maze in the darkness, but after twenty minutes, several wrong turnings and reminders from Luke that he remembered going along this particular lane, Sarah Jane’s small Figaro reached the bottom of the hill. As soon as Rani and Clyde had squeezed out from the back seats, they all sprinted up the path on the side of the hill, which was a lot longer than they had assumed it would be.
‘I still don’t understand what’s going on, Sarah Jane!’ Clyde panted. ‘It’s not my fault for being asleep, okay? You guys could have woken me up!’
‘There’s no time to explain here,’ said Sarah Jane, ‘the quicker we stop the aliens the better. We need to get to the top of this hill.’
‘But we don’t even know what’s going on!’ protested Rani, started to stride up the hillside again. ‘You’re keeping us in the dark, Sarah Jane.’
Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani and Clyde saw the aliens as soon as they rounded the top of the hill. They were bluer than before, with the low moon shining down upon their shiny flesh. The aliens were just staring up at the sky, as if they were expecting something to happen.
‘What are you?’ Sarah Jane demanded, stepping forwards. The aliens jumped at the sudden voice behind them, then turned around to stare at Sarah Jane.
‘How did you find us?’ the largest one asked. The team couldn’t see his face properly because he was silhouetted against the moon, but they had to assume he had spoken, as the other two edged behind him.
‘We saw your light going up the hill.’ said Clyde simply.
‘You still haven’t told us what you are.’ Sarah Jane said. The alien took his gaze from Clyde to Sarah Jane.
‘We are Bjornicans.’ He said.
‘I’ve never heard of them,’ muttered Sarah Jane. ‘Where are you from, then?’ she said to the Bjornican.
‘Bjornica?’ Clyde hazarded a guess.
‘Raxocoricophalopatorius.’ Said the Bjornican. Sarah Jane gasped.
‘But- but that’s where the Slitheen come from!’ she said. The Bjornican nodded.
‘Is it not possible for two families to dominate a planet? We tried to live in peace with the Slitheen,’ he said, ‘but we argued all the time. It was evident that we could not live near each other. We told them to live with their cousins. This made them angry. So they...’ the Bjornican paused to comfort the smallest of the three aliens, who had started to whimper.
‘They kidnapped us. Took us to their ship- they flew us down to Earth. Wanted Raxocoricophalopatorius to themselves. But that was ten years ago.’ The female Bjornican murmured.
‘But the Slitheen were here a couple of years ago- in the school!’ replied Luke, ‘and again, when they pretended they were my parents! Why would they come back?’
‘Perhaps they never left.’ Said Sarah Jane. ‘But that’s not what’s important. What are you planning to happen to us? Or to happen to Earth?’ she asked the Bjornicans, who glanced at each other. It was almost impossible to see their faces, though, as the setting moon was shining in Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani and Clyde’s faces.
‘I suppose,’ the male Bjornican said to his wife, ‘there is not much harm in telling them now, is there? Now that they are about to die.’
‘Who says we’re gonna die?’ Clyde protested. Rani edged closer to Sarah Jane and Clyde.
‘You don’t have a choice in the matter!’ cackled the female alien. ‘I take it you realised there is something wrong with the child? Or was that not the reason for your presence here?’ The four of them nodded, but looked a bit confused.
‘A device of some sort- as a replacement for the child’s soul?’ said Sarah Jane.
‘Humans are not so thick after all. It took us ten years to perfect the device. Of course, it would have been easier if the Slitheen were not trying to turn the sun blue every other day. They did not have enough money to get back to Raxocoricophalopatorius, that would be why they’ve been here so long.’ The female paused. ‘However, our plan will put the Slitheen to shame!’
‘Just tell us, alright?’ demanded Rani. She and the others were growing tired of the Bjornicans waffling on about their plan. The largest Bjornican turned so that the gang could see his face. He smiled menacingly.
‘As a replacement for the child’s soul, we inserted an atra transmitter.’
‘A what?’ Rani and Clyde asked.
‘That translation doesn’t make sense’ muttered Luke. Sarah Jane smiled at him.
‘Bjornicans aren’t the best at languages. They merely needed to cover up the name of the device so no-one would guess what it does.’ She said. ‘Am I right?’
The Bjornican nodded. ‘It has the power to charge up black holes. Such as the Large Hadron Collider.’
Sarah Jane gasped. ‘You can’t!’ she whispered.
‘Mum, what is it?’ said Luke.
‘Remember when you were first in my attic, I showed you K-9?’
‘Yes, I remember. He was stopping up the black hole?’ Suddenly, realisation dawned on Luke’s face. ‘The black hole is the Large Hadron Collider?’
‘Although K-9’s sealing it off, if the force becomes more powerful K-9 will be sucked into it.’ Sarah Jane swallowed. ‘and the rest of the world.’
‘Not entirely.’ Said the Bjornican, ‘you are correct, Miss Smith, apart from one factor. As we are near the transmitter, we will be blasted from the black hole. The rest of the world, however...’
‘Fill me in- why are you doing this?’ asked Clyde.
‘Clyde, can’t you see?’ said Rani, understanding. ‘Those Bjornicans have spent ten years trying to get home. They’re going to be blasted back into space, while the world gets sucked up!’
‘Why are you so desperate to get home?’ inquired Luke. ‘It’s costing you your child and a planet.’
‘This planet is worthless. It is merely being used for us to blast away from it. We did not want to lose our child, but we must get back home.’ The female Bjornican said, sadly.
‘Sarah Jane, what are we going to do?’ hissed Rani.
‘Yeah, I mean- we can hardly stop a massive black hole from swallowing up the Earth, can we?’ said Clyde. Sarah Jane looked desperately at her son. ‘Luke? You’re the only one who’s likely to understand this. Any ideas?’
Luke shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’ But seeing Sarah Jane sigh, he said, ‘what about the Mitre headset? We stopped that. I overloaded the system.’
‘The what headset?’ asked Rani. Rani had only experienced half the amount of adventures as the others, so she was always asking questions about their previous encounters with aliens.
Sarah Jane ignored Rani. ‘Luke that’s it! Overload the system! When I had K-9 to seal off the black hole, Mr Smith said something physics-y that I never understood. But I think that by overloading the system, all that’ll happen is... well, K-9...’ she broke off.
‘Isn’t there a tiny, minor problem?’ said Clyde. ‘We don’t know what the system is! How are we going to overload some system if we don’t know what we’re overloading it with?’
‘The atra transmitter is a replacement soul.’ Said Sarah Jane, ‘it absorbs emotions and converts them into energy.’
‘So...what? We overload this atra transmitter inside the child and stop the black hole?’ Rani said. Luke and Sarah Jane nodded. The four friends looked over at the Bjornicans, who were deep in conversation.
‘Quick, they hardly notice we’re gone!’ whispered Rani, and they crept downhill again, onto the footpath and back to the car. A wind had picked up and blew right in their faces, but that didn’t stop them. As soon as they were inside, Sarah Jane revved up the engine and her little car sped along the country lanes this time.
The child Bjornican was still inside the tent, and it stared at them as they ducked under the door and sat around it.
‘They’d never have expected us to really love it. They won’t know what hit them.’ Muttered Sarah Jane as she picked up the child. No-one said a word as Sarah Jane started hugging the child and patting its back as if it was her own child.
The ground was shaking more than ever now and the wind beat against the tent, but the child had gone limp and Sarah Jane put him down.
‘What’s going to happen?’ said Luke in a voice that was just audible. Suddenly, the rumbling stopped and everything went back to normal.
Sarah Jane, Luke, Rani and Clyde dropped the child off after breakfast that morning. Even though they seemed to have no other way of getting back to Raxocoricophalopatorius, the Bjornicans swore they were on the brink of working out a formula for space fuel that wouldn’t result in the extinction of a planet. And it turned out that K-9’s body was stronger than it looked, for he was still ‘working at full capacity’ when the team got home.
Entry 1
The series regulars' voices could be clearly heard (especially Luke's literal interpretations). And they were used very well in a fun plot. The aliens' fate could have been explored further, but all the same, good stuff!
I love the idea of the gang on a camping trip, and the rapport and banter between them here is great. The ending is terrific, very fitting.
Some superb references to the gang's past adventures. The writer obviously knows their SJA episodes! Great humour, well-written, well-structured and I have to say, a rather sweet ending.