"So how do you think you did in the exam today?" Rani asked Clyde, as they walked home from school together.
Clyde feigned a pained voice: "please don't talk about it."
"But you did at least do some revision for this one, right?"
Clyde looked at Rani incredulously. "Are you insane? There was some good stuff on TV."
Rani had learned long ago that 'TV' was Clyde's cover for having done some Art, but she hadn't let on. All, the same, either was ridiculous the night before an A level exam. Rani shook her head despairingly but before she could reply, a familiar green motorcar drove towards them.
"Hey, Sarah Jane!" Clyde shouted.
The car stopped, and an equally familiar face smiled up at them, her green eyes crinkling.
"Hello, you two! I'm afraid I can't stop, I'm going to investigate the source of some suspicious energy traces."
"Can we come?" Rani asked at once. She was an aspiring journalist herself, and loved coming with Sarah Jane on her investigations.
"No, you two have exams! You should be revising," she reprimanded.
"Oh, they're only A levels," Clyde dismissed, but seeing this did not seem to impress Sarah Jane, he added hastily, "and we don't have any until Monday now anyway."
Sarah Jane looked helplessly at the two of them for a moment before relenting – much to their delight and surprise, as she was a stubborn woman. "Oh, all right," she said. "But don't think this will become a regular thing during your exams – tomorrow, Clyde Langer, you will be revising even if the world is about to end."
"Yeah yeah."
"So," Rani started, once they were in, "what is it you're investigating exactly?"
"The West Ealing library shut down recently without any warning – just suddenly one day there was a sign up saying it had closed – but Mr Smith detected very high energy traces from there ever since."
"A library." Clyde looked disgusted. "We're investigating a library. I'd almost rather do revision."
"That can be arranged," Sarah Jane said, skilfully keeping a straight face. "I'll drop you off here then and you can walk home."
"Hey I said almost!" Clyde protested hastily.
Rani laughed. "Come on, Clyde, library or not, Mr Smith detected high energy traces – that could mean aliens, couldn't it, Sarah Jane?"
"Unfortunately, yes it could."
"Not unfortunately," Clyde said, and no one contradicted him.
A contented silence fell and they drove for several more minutes before arriving at a grey concrete building, whose two floors towered above them disapprovingly. The sign above the door read W ST EA ING L BRA Y. The door itself was locked but Sarah Jane, ever equipped, used her sonic lipstick to open it. Rani, even after all the adventures she had had, couldn't help grinning as she did – she was feeling the familiar thrill that gripped her when investigating with Sarah Jane. Clyde, seeing her expression, rolled his eyes.
The interior of the library was no more inviting than the exterior had been; it was dark, the lights flickering feebly, causing the shadows that the bookcases cast to shiver despondently. Sarah Jane flipped open her watch-scanner and walked purposefully down an aisle, with Clyde and Rani behind her.
Suddenly, they stopped short as the line of bookcases they were walking down came to an end. In front of them, a space had been cleared of shelves and instead, looking completely out of place, a great deal of machinery had been arranged in a semi-circle, all humming and whirring.
"This library looks more interesting than the one near us," observed Clyde ironically.
"Don't touch, Clyde," Sarah Jane warned, as he walked towards it. She returned to her scanner. "We don't know what this machinery is for yet."
"Not for cleaning the books, anyway. Surely this proves that this is aliens, Sarah Jane?"
"Oh how very clever you are, working that out so fast." They span round to see the source of the sarcastic voice, and saw, silhouetted against a doorway, a great hulking figure, with long arms trailing at its sides. Arms with three long fingers. As it stepped into the light, their fears were confirmed.
"Slitheen!" Rani gasped, at the same time that Clyde muttered "not again."
"So," the Slitheen began, continuing his sarcastic tone, "we meet at last, Sarah Jane Smith – and this must be Clyde and Rani. How lovely to meet you."
Sarah Jane narrowed her eyes. "What do you want? How do you know who we are?"
The Slitheen laughed. "How? Slitheen have come to earth many times before, as we both know, Sarah Jane Smith, and when none of them ever came back successful, I decided to find out what had happened to them, and in nearly every case, a Sarah Jane Smith was involved. So I resolved to come to this pathetic planet and destroy it, and then to get revenge on Sarah Jane Smith for murdering my family."
"I didn't want to kill any of them!" Sarah Jane cried passionately. "But they were going to destroy millions of innocent people and I couldn't let them do that. I'm sorry that that was how it ended out, really I am, and if there had been a way of resolving it all peacefully, I would have."
The Slitheen drew himself up to his considerable height. "Why should I believe that? And even if it is true, you still killed them, so I will get my revenge on you. Flam, Hosteck, Boon? Hold them."
At this command, three more Slitheen – two adults and one child – appeared from the same doorway that the first Slitheen had come through and held the three humans, who struggled in vain.
"But before I carry out my revenge on you, Sarah Jane Smith," the alien continued, "I'm going to tell you exactly how I'm going to destroy this little planet of yours." He paused, as if to give what was to come the suspense he thought it deserved. "Liquid oxygen is a sought-after spaceship fuel, so imagine how much money someone would get if they extracted all the oxygen from this planet – from the atmosphere and the sea!"
Sarah Jane shook her head. "You can't! You'll kill the whole of the human race! Have your revenge on me if you must but you've got to let the rest of the earth live!"
Laughing, the Slitheen said, "but where is the fun in that? Oh Sarah Jane, there is no way to stop me destroying your world, and the best part is that it is all your fault."
"I can still stop you – I have done before!" she declared desperately.
"I'm afraid not – you see, I've organised a little excursion for you using this." The alien held up a small device and advanced towards Sarah Jane. He fitted it on her wrist as he explained. "A vortex manipulator. I thought long and hard about the most fitting way to get revenge on you, and came to the conclusion that, seeing how much you liked travelling through time and space with the Doctor (oh yes, I did my homework), I would send you on one last trip through time and space."
"Well that's not going to work" said Rani contemptuously. "If that device is on her wrist, she'll be able come straight back!"
"Oh no, I don't think so, Rani. You see, this little machine here is taking her to the end of time – 10 seconds before time ends, to be precise. Which although is enough time to be overcome with despair for having been responsible for destroying your race – not to mention being about to die yourself – it is not enough time to reprogram the destination of this machine." The Slitheen leaned conspiratorially towards Rani (who recoiled) as he said "that takes just over a minute.
"So," he straightened up and leered at Sarah Jane, who glared defiantly back, "goodbye Sarah Jane Smith!
Try as she might, Sarah Jane couldn't get free of the alien's grip, but she managed to throw her sonic lipstick to Rani, who caught it, and as the Slitheen pressed a button on the device, Rani aimed the sonic at it.
But she was too late, and Sarah Jane disappeared before their eyes.
"Sarah Jane!" Clyde struggled furiously against his captor and Rani, being so overcome with anguish, barely resisted when a Slitheen pulled the sonic lipstick from her grasp and handed it to their leader.
The leader sauntered over to the machines and pulled a lever. A computer screen flashed '30:00' and immediately began to countdown. "Nice try, little children, but you have failed. You have lost your precious Sarah Jane forever and in 30 minutes, this machinery will be ready to extract all the oxygen from this pitiful, primitive planet. Tie them up."
"You can't do this!" Clyde yelled. "We'll stop you! You may have got rid of Sarah Jane but there's still us – and we're vital members of her team. All the times that Sarah Jane has stopped aliens like Slitheen, we've helped, so we can stop you."
The Slitheen laughed derisively. "You make me laugh, you really do. What do you honestly think you can do? You're just children with no weapons, no plan and no backup!"
Clyde and Rani scowled but the Slitheen chuckled and wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes.
"There's still Torchwood and UNIT – and the Doctor. There's no way you're going to get away with this," Rani stated fiercely.
"I hate to destroy your hopes, you know," the Slitheen began, grinning evilly, "but we've drained the power from both torchwood and UNIT's systems, so they'll have no idea what is happening until it is too late, and as for the Doctor," the Slitheen spat his name contemptuously, "we have trapped him on another planet for the next 24 hours.
"Now I tire of their whining, please put them in the other room. We must make last-minute adjustments to our machinery. In 30 minutes – or rather 29 minutes," he corrected, checking the computer screen, "this planet will be gasping its last."
The other Slitheen dragged Clyde and Rani, struggling furiously, to the other room through the above-mentioned door.
So, here goes: the start of my first uploaded story... please review, sorry if it's rubbish!