Rani was right: they were in a lot of trouble. Grol threw open the door and marched in, Flam and Hosteck right behind him.

"It seems I was wrong about you," said Grol. "I thought I didn't need to bother disposing of you, but one can never be too careful."

Flam cut their bonds and they were dragged back into the main room of the library.

"Right. Kill them."

It was all over. They were going to die. Clyde glared defiantly, Rani closed her eyes. Hurry up, Luke! she thought. The earth needs you, even if you're too late for us. And she braced herself for the end.

But instead, she heard a familiar voice, a voice she thought she would never hear again.

"Stop right there!"

Rani's eyes flew open. It was her: Sarah Jane Smith, waistcoat and all, looking angrier than Rani had ever seen her, and holding a bottle of vinegar positioned for attack.

"Impossible," Grol breathed.

"Let. Them. Go. Now. Or I will empty this bottle over you; I think you're familiar with its contents. It's quite neat, really – it's harmless to your prisoners but fatal to you."

Glowering, the Slitheen let go of Clyde and Rani, who ran to Sarah Jane.

"Sarah Jane! How on earth did you escape?" Rani and Clyde noticed the teenage girl standing beside her, who smiled shyly at them. "And who's this?"

"I'll explain later," Sarah Jane promised, and turned back to the Slitheen.

"Now then. Unprogram that machinery."

Flam and Hosteck began to move grudging towards the controls but Grol pulled them towards him and placed Boon, the child Slitheen, in front of him.

"I said unprogram it!"

The Slitheen smiled maliciously. "Or what? You kill a child? Even you wouldn't kill a ten year old, whatever species they were." He looked down at Boon.

"Get it, my daughter," he ordered.

The child approached Sarah Jane, who was shaking visibly with indecision: kill a child, or put the Earth at risk? Either was unthinkable.

"Do it, Sarah Jane!" Clyde shouted.

But she couldn't. She backed away, but Boon only advanced faster. She grabbed the bottle, and Sarah Jane held on. For a few seconds, a silent battle ensued between the self-satisfied child and the white-faced Sarah Jane, but even child Slitheen were stronger than humans, and Boon soon wrenched the vinegar out of her grasp.

Boon held the bottle up in triumph and returned to her family.

"Well done, lass."

Hosteck gingerly took the vinegar from her and threw it in the bin.

"Now," said Grol, "get them!" He made a lunge at them and the humans dodged it, Clyde and Rani going left, Sarah Jane and Anna going right.

"Run!" Sarah Jane cried and, grabbing Anna's hand, tore up the stairs, not daring to look back and see where Clyde and Rani went.

They could hear heavy feet on the stairs behind them, and as just before they disappeared into the labyrinth of bookshelves to their right, Sarah Jane looked over her shoulder to see who was pursuing them. It was Flam and Hosteck.

Sarah Jane – although, of course, she would never have admitted it to anyone – was beginning to panic. They were trapped upstairs with no means of defence, with the aliens with the best sense of smell in the galaxy: they couldn't fight, they couldn't hide, and they couldn't run forever. Behind them, they could hear Hosteck pushing bookcases over in order to get to them.

After several minutes of hard sprinting, making random turns as they went, the two humans emerged from the maze perpendicular to the stairs, several metres to the right of the top of the stairs – they had done a big U. Flam had been guarding the top of the stairs while Hosteck had followed them, and now both advanced. Around the hole in the floor that the stairs made was a waist high wall of glass, and it was towards this that the trapped humans backed. There was no way out.


When they had been separated from Sarah Jane and Anna, Clyde and Rani realised there was only one way they could go: towards the room where they had been tied up earlier. They slammed the door shut behind them and Clyde wedged a chair under the doorknob, but they knew this wouldn't hold the Slitheen for long. They looked around frantically for something to help them as Grol and Boon began to bang on the door. The room had one small window, which they would just about be able to squeeze out of – hopefully – and so they rushed for it. Rani fumbled with the catch and tried to open the window, but it was jammed.

"Let me try." Clyde gently pushed Rani out of the way and pushed the window with all his strength.

"Come on!" urged Rani. The force of the Slitheen's bangs was causing the whole room to shake.

"I'm trying!" Clyde replied.

Eventually the window opened, just as the door broke off its hinges. They wouldn't have enough time to climb out of the window... but then, as they looked upon the two aliens with teeth bared, Clyde had a brainwave. He drew the stink-bombs from his pocket and aimed them into the mouths of the Slitheen.

The aliens reeled back as the stench reached their highly-sensitive noses and nearly suffocated them. Rani, noticing, that Grol still had Sarah Jane's sonic lipstick, snatched it out of his grasp before following Clyde threw the window, and out into the car park.

"That was brilliant, Clyde!" exclaimed Rani, as soon as she had her breath back.

"Why do you have to be so surprised?" Clyde grumbled, and Rani kissed him, full on the lips.

For a moment, Clyde forgot everything. He forgot about the Slitheen, about the plan to kill the human race, about Sarah Jane trapped upstairs, and just thought about the beautiful girl he loved. He was aware of her hair tickling his face and he could smell her perfume. His Rani.

But, just as suddenly as she had begun, Rani pulled away, looking embarrassed, and Clyde reluctantly returned to reality.

"Sarah Jane," she reminded him, and ran towards the entrance on the building.


As the Slitheen advanced, Sarah Jane and Anna suddenly heard Rani's voice calling up the stairs.

"Slitheen? It's over. We've beaten your leader, and we have the sonic lipstick."

"And vinegar!" Clyde's voice added.

Flam and Hosteck exchanged glances, and then Flam raised his voice so that Clyde and Rani would be able to hear.

"Over? No, it's not over, because we have your precious Sarah Jane cornered. If you destroy our machines, we'll kill her."

They were right, Sarah Jane realised, as the aliens leered at her. They were cornered.

But Anna darted forwards, towards Hosteck, to grab the heaviest book within reach – a hardback copy of The Order of the Phoenix – and threw it at the glass wall behind them, creating a gap wide enough for the two of them to jump onto the stairs. They landed halfway down, the impact jarring their knees, but they carried on running down them, Flam and Hosteck right behind them.

Rani was positioned next to the Slitheen's machinery with the sonic lipstick pointed at it, and Clyde had retrieved the vinegar from the bin.

"Did you just..." Clyde began, as Sarah Jane ran towards them.

"It was Anna's idea. How did you escape? Where are the other Slitheen?"

Before Clyde or Rani could answer her question, Grol and Boon staggered towards them, coughing and retching.

"Stink-bomb," Clyde said casually, grinning with success.

"Clyde threw stink-bombs right in their mouths, and their still recovering," Rani explained, laughing.

Flam and Hosteck reached the humans and Grol and Boon joined them. Clyde opened the bottle of vinegar.

"Don't you move a step."

"Clyde," Sarah Jane warned. Clyde rolled his eyes: even now she didn't want them to die.

Rani gave Sarah Jane her lipstick, who stepped towards the machinery.

"I think we've had quite enough of that," she remarked to the Slitheen, and soniced the machinery. The countdown stopped with 10 seconds to go.

Flam howled in rage.

"What are we going to do with them?" asked Clyde. "They won't just go quietly.

Sarah Jane gave him a look that showed she knew what he was thinking.

"Please, Sarah Jane, let us leave now in our spaceship, and we promise not to come back!

"We can't trust them."

"I know. I wasn't born yesterday, Rani." She sighed. "I'm left with no choice but to call in the Judoon. The Slitheen family have been sentenced guilty by Raxacoricofallapatorius," (Clyde couldn't help grinning at the name) "and these lot planned to destroy a level 5 planet, anyway."

"No, please! They'll kill us." The Slitheen's ferocity was replaced with panic.

"They might, but that's not my fault. If I don't hand you over, then I put 6 billion people at risk."

"We could use your vortex manipulator," Anna said quietly.

Sarah Jane looked at her. This girl would sacrifice being able to get back home to show mercy to murdering aliens. "No. We need that. We can't let Ruby get away with what she's planning either."

"Ruby? As in Ruby White?" Clyde and Rani exchanged bewildered glances.

"Yes," Sarah Jane confirmed grimly. "She's 20 years in the future, where Anna is from – she has the future Luke and Maria captive."

"What?"

"I'll explain later," Sarah Jane promised, her eyes flicking towards the Slitheen.

"But how can we get hold of the Judoon?" asked Rani, changing the subject back.

"Well, Mr Smith can contact anyone, and I thought their number might come in useful one day so I asked Mr Smith for it and put it in my phone. We can call them like any other number.

Clyde laughed. "Imagine having Judoon on your contacts list..."

"Not so fast!"

They jumped as Ruby White materialised in front of them.