Strintas Prime was not a pretty world. Mostly full of rocks, dust and long dead volcanoes. But it is a world the humans and Sontaran's had been killing each other for for decades now. For at it's core was a mineral that when mined and refined could power an entire city for a lifetime with just a small piece.
The war had been brutal and until recently it had looked as though the humans were going to win, but then the day came when hundreds of thousands of Sontaran reenforcements had arrived and the human armies found themselves out manned and seriously out numbered.

Lieutenant Kara Grant had been on Strintas Prime for a year now and that in itself was a record. No other soldier had stayed on this hell hole for that long. Now her time was up. She had volunteered to lead a suicide mission deep into Sontaran territory, to plant explosives on their energy station which would cause an explosion large enough to wipe out their entire base. Everyone knew this was the only way the human forces would have any chance of winning.

The three man team had managed to get onto the Sontaran base without being spotted, this was the first part of their impossible mission complete. This was the last place Kara had ever imagined to find herself. Growing up she expected to live a long happy life, get married, have children and then one day grandchildren and then die peacefully after a long, happy fulfilling life. As soon as she had arrived on this planet she had realised quite quickly this was probably not likely to happen. She had no problem walking to her death, not when it meant that thousands of people would live on and the conflict would finally be over. As they stepped into the energy station they were met with a sole Sontaran guard. Kara, without even thinking about it, pulled the trigger of her weapon and the strange looking alien vaporized in front of her. All three soldiers kept walking deeper into the station. The heat was getting unbarebly hot. Kara chose to ignore it, in the scheme of things it didn't really matter, well it wouldn't really matter for much longer.

"I can't do this." Corporal Simon Jones said standing still.

"What?" Kara replied.

"I'm sorry I can't do this." he replied starting to cry.

"This isn't the best time to decide you want to change your mind!" Kara replied.

"Corporal you're going to shut the hell up, man up and continue with the mission YOU volunteered for." Sergeant Harry Yates said.

"I CAN'T" Simon replied.

"Keep your god damn voice down." Kara replied, "We really don't have time for this."

Harry grabbed Simon by the shoulder and dragged the much smaller soldier behind him.

"Take your damn hands off me." Simon replied taking out his knife and stabbing Harry in the neck with it. He tore the knife out and blood sprayed everywhere.

Kara only had moments to react.

"I'm sorry." Simon replied, "I'm not going to die here." and he lunged at Kara.

She pulled the trigger again and killed the younger man before turning and carrying on to her objective, not letting herself even think about what had just happened.
Minutes later she found herself closer to her target. She took out the small explosive device and looked at it for a moment. It was hard to think that something so small was about to cause so much damage. As she took a deep breath alarms started to blare all around her. Damn she thought, they must have found Harry's body, she knew she didn't have much time so she started to run. When she reached the main power core it was massive, they could have put three aircraft carriers in here. She took a deep breath and set the small bomb. Everything was done, all she had to do now was wait, wait thirty seconds, thirty seconds that would last for an eternity but at the same time go so quickly. Kara sat down and took a photograph out of her pocket. She looked at the small picture and smiled. Taken last time she had been home of her with her parents and sister. Despite the fact she knew what she was doing was right, she hoped that they would be able to understand that too. She closed her eyes and kissed the picture. Seconds later as she opened her eyes everything her vision felt as though it was starting to blur. A strange noise rang in her ears. The energy core was starting to blur and mix with what looked like an old museum. Was she already dead? Everything seemed to start to come into focus and the core was gone, instead she was somewhere completely different, somewhere unlike anything she'd ever seen before. On one side were rows of books from floor to ceiling and the ceiling was almost too high for her to see. Spiral staircases lined the sides. On the other there were artefacts, things she'd never even seen before, but a lot of it looked so old. In front of her in the middle was a raised platform with a control panel on top of it that looked completely out of place. It was so technologically advanced, again unlike things she had ever seen before. Tubes and Spirals ran out of the top of it heading off towards the ceiling and the ceiling it was beautiful. It was like the most beautiful sky she had ever seen. Fluffy white clouds and what looked like birds flying through them.

"Well this is certainly unexpected!" she heard a male voice say.

She brought her attention back to the raised control panel in front of her. Stepping out from behind the console was a young man with short brown hair and stubble that made him look as though he hadn't shaved for a few days. The black suit, black shirt and black tie he was wearing were extremely smart and looked very very expensive. His black shoes looked as though they had been polished to within an inch of their lives, you could almost see the whole room in them.

"Am I dead?" Kara stuttered.

"I shouldn't think so, unless you're a ghost? Oh you're not a ghost are you? I really don't have a good track record with ghosts!" He dashed down the stairs from the platform to Kara and poked her on the arm, "No you're definitely not a ghost." He took out a hand-held device from his pocket and pressed a control on it that made a purple light flash as he waved it in front of her. When it stopped he looked at the strange pen shaped device, "Nope you're definitely human. Hang on who are you and how did you get here?"

Kara looked at him as though she had lost her mind. The strange man had started to walk around her with a quizzical look on his face.

"I'm Lieutenant Kara Grant of the United Earth Forces."

"Hello Lieutenant Kara Grant of the United Earth Forces, what are you doing here?"

"I don't know where I am, I was on Strintas Prime, I'd just set a bomb off. Where am I?"

"Why would you be on Stintas Prime? Who in their right mind would go there and why would you set off a bomb?" Suddenly a look of realisation appeared on his face, "Oh yes, there was that little incident wasn't there. Oh a bomb OH Kara Grant, OH dear!"

"Oh dear what? What do you mean little incident?! Where the hell am I?!" Kara shouted.

"Right okay, you, well you really shouldn't be here, neither should I. You see I'd set course for Earth and it would seem the destination was taken out of my hands." He stopped in front of her, "My name is the Curator and I'm a Time Lord, you may not have heard of us."

Kara laughed, "You're a Time Lord? I thought they were all dead?"

"Well most of them are, some of made it out, it's a long story, anyway this is my TARDIS you've found yourself in and it would appear it decided to save you."

"What?!" she said utterly confused.

The Curator took hold of her hand and ran with her to the large wooden doors in the corner of the room. As they reached the end of the gangway where the doors sat the Curator turned for a moment.

"Okay not Lieutenant Kara Grant you've done wonderfully so far so please keep it up and don't freak out." he said before opening the doors.

Kara's mouth fell open. Outside the two doors was utter destruction. The tiny bomb she had set off had caused so much devastation and yet somehow they were looking at it, alive.

"But how are we? You're really a Time Lord, this is really a TARDIS?" she asked.

The Curator smiled and nodded his head.

"You have to take me back to headquarters, they have to know I'm alive." Kara said.

"About that, I can't." he replied as he closed the doors.

"You have too."

"I really can't. You see in coming here, my TARDIS," he said through gritted teeth looking at the console for a moment, "has done something that shouldn't have happened."

"What are you talking about?"

"You died here today. History has you recorded as being dead."

"What?"

"That's why I recognised your name. You ended the war here on this planet today with your sacrifice. The TARDIS seems to have taken it upon itself to save you. So Lieutenant Kara Grant, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're stuck with me!" he said.

"What?"