All alone in a small spaceship randomly exploring his empire – the whole galaxy – a big green scientist angrily glared at the computer monitor, which stubbornly showed him the same face. Jess's.

"This is insane," he fumed. "Preposterous. I threw that girl into a star. You hear that, computer? I am Doctor Frank Sloth. I never forget."

The computer did not reply, but still refused to warp Jess's face to make her someone else. Sloth fumed some more.

"She is dead! She died four thousand years ago! She cannot be strolling around the base on Rendal! Don't you understand?"

Of course the computer didn't reply. Why should it have replied?

"I'm taking a visit to the base on Rendal," he declared, setting the co-ordinates. "Done." A large space-time tunnel opened up in front of the evil genius, and his ship was sucked through it.

"Christine," Jess asked curiously, "what would you do if you were given the opportunity to travel back in time?"

"It would depend on what the time was," Christine replied. The two girls were lazily sitting in the canteen, having finished their lunches and everyone else having abandoned the room. "I think it'd be great fun to fight in the wars of the first century."

Jess blinked. "You are a lot like Zoe."

"Thank you," Christine replied, clearly taking the remark as a compliment. Which it was, in a way.

"Do you have time travel here?" she asked.

"You can't still be shaky with your facts," Christine protested.

"Just tell me, please."

"We lost it in the fifth century," she replied.

"What, forever?"

"Yes, forever. Duh."

Jess stretched her arms outwards. "Are you sure time travel is really gone?" she asked. "Is Sloth -"

"The Doctor," Christine corrected automatically.

"Fine. Has the Doctor been conducting any research into it?"

"He would have given us time travel if he'd discovered it," Christine said confidently.

"Well, I'm not so sure abou-"

At that moment, the conversation was cut off by an interruption over the loudspeaker. "The Doctor has arrived on a surprise visit," he announced. "Everyone to the assembly hall."

"The assembly hall?" Jess groaned. "Where's that?"

"I'm not sure the drug worked very well," Christine replied uncertainly. "Follow me. It's not very far."

"All right," Jess sighed.

"Hello there," Sloth beamed at his audience of respectful humans, approximately six hundred people big. "Are you all well?"

"Yes," chorused the crowd.

"Excellent," Sloth beamed. "I would love to be on a social visit with you wonderful people, but unfortunately I have some rather unpleasant business to attend to."

"Unpleasant?" yelled a man from the crowd.

"Yes," Sloth replied solemnly. "My sensors have detected an intruder amongst your mist. She is a master criminal, and must be caught."

"What did she do?" a woman yelled.

"Back when time travel was still in use," Sloth declared, "she travelled here in an effort to defeat me in my complacency."

"She is evil!" another man declared.

"What does she look like?" yelled a woman.

Suddenly, Jess's photo appeared on the wall behind Sloth. Bother.

So, now she had two options. One, she could hide. Or two, she could run.

Judging from the way Christine was jumping and waving her arm excitedly, two was a better bet. So Jess did, for the three seconds before her left arm was twisted behind her back by yet another human guard.

"Let go of me!" Jess shrieked. "I didn't – do – anything!"

Sloth strolled through the overexcited crowd.

"What do we do, Doctor?"

"Do we get our spears?"

"Can we have guns?"

"Will we send her into our sun?"

"Now now now," Sloth chided the audience gently, "there'll be none of that. We shall be merciful, won't we?"

"Why should we be merciful?" a woman spat. "The androids weren't merciful to our ancestors!"

"It is the way we live," Sloth said. "We don't attack without reason, do we?"

"No," admitted some members of the crowd grudgingly.

"She could have been good target practice, though," one man added hopefully.

"Please," Jess begged. "I didn't do anything... and this oaf's twisting my arm!"

"Ungrateful child!" another woman spat.

"Shoot her!"

"Asphyxiate her!"

"Burn her!"

The man who suggested 'burn her' was walloped over the head. Fair enough, too.

"Now, now, now," Sloth soothed the crowd. "You've all loaded up on red cordial again, haven't you? We don't kill for no reason, you lot. We become no better than the enemy. Let me deal with her. You know I will manage more than adequately."

The crowd suddenly started cheering. Jess was less cheerful because her arm was still relentlessly held, twisted, behind her back. The human guard then decided to move her, and she was forced to follow Sloth along the boring white corridors to his own ship.

"Why did you save me?" she asked suspiciously of Sloth on the way.

"Save you? I plan to kill you eventually, my dear." Sloth grinned malevolently. "Those apes'd never let you suffer enough first."

So that was his reason. "I didn't think you could change in six thousand years," she told him. "All that protesting about fairness and saving my life... it was all rubbish, wasn't it? You sadist."

Sloth yawned. "I wouldn't be so cheeky if I were you, Miss Smith," he warned. "I could make your death painless... or excruciating. It's up to you."

"I'd rather not die at all, actually," Jess suggested coolly. "I don't suppose that's an option, though, is it."

"Of course not," Sloth smiled. "You're doomed, Miss Smith."

"I know." She sighed impatiently as the group finally turned the corner to the docking bay to see Sloth's ship.

Jess was well-known with people she knew for being impatient. Even when the thing she was waiting for involved being hurt.

But she had a plan. A really brilliant plan, the kind of brilliant plan you can only think of while trying your hardest to fall asleep, as Jess had been doing.

A brilliant plan that involved stealing Sloth's ray gun.

A brilliant plan that involved shooting at herself.

A brilliant plan that involved changing history.

All right, so maybe it wasn't so brilliant. But it was close enough to brilliant and at any rate, it wasn't like she had anything else to do. And if she did have something to do, she doubted it would be as productive as her brilliant plan.

She had planned all of this hours before Sloth suddenly strolled into the dirty, dark, metallic room, bright red ray gun in hand.

"What are you going to do, then?" Jess asked sullenly, not bothering to get up despite the fact that she wasn't even restrained.

"What do you think I should do?"

"Letting me go'd be a nice gesture," Jess replied in the same sullen tone. She looked up briefly to notice that Sloth wasn't remotely in ray-gun-stealing distance. She decided to bait him into it. "Does it give you a thrill, killing innocents?" she asked bitterly.

"Do you think it does?"

"Obviously it does," Jess replied grouchily. "You wouldn't have gotten your empire any other way. Too cowardly to initiate a direct assault."

"Direct assaults always fail," Sloth hissed. "They are, by definition, weak. They have a fault. They can be defended against."

"Exactly," Jess replied mildly. "Cowardly."

"If I am cowardly, you are just stupid!" Sloth decided angrily. Jess grinned. The brilliant plan was working.

"I might be stupid," Jess replied, "but you're pathetic. A lucky coin doesn't help you take over a planet, you know."

"Even you should remember what happened in the Lost Desert!" Jess waved a hand.

"I probably did at some point," she said dismissively. "Wasn't there a beast made out of rock involved?" She shook her head. "Pathetic."

Sloth took a few furious paces forward. "Foolish child."

"Oh, now you're going to pull out the foolish card," Jess remarked, on a roll. "I should have thought as much. You are too predictable."

"Stand."

Jess glared at the ugly green face. "Why?"

"It's a simple enough order. Stand!"

Jess shrugged and obeyed, and Sloth took a few more paces forward.

"You're pushing your luck, you know," Sloth warned.

"I've always been very lucky," Jess smiled. Next thing she knew, a large hand was wrapped tightly around her neck. Jess took that as her cue, and lunged for the gun in Sloth's other hand – hindered by the fact that Sloth's arm was rather blocking off her view of it. She made contact with it, though, and wrenched the metal thing away.

"You can't use it on me," Sloth grinned evilly, not moving his hand from her throat, "that was a very big safety precaution."

"I'm not going to use it on you," she informed him politely. She wrenched herself from Sloth and quickly twisted a knob, then twisted another knob. Lastly, she twisted a third knob and pointed the metal gun at herself. "See your past self, Sloth," she grinned triumphantly. She pulled the trigger and she disappeared with a slow fading motion. The gun clattered to the floor.

Curiously, Sloth retrieved the red metal device from the floor and examined the readings. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," he muttered, smiling all the while. "The Space Station, Swimming, year 7." He grinned wider. "Imbecile." He triumphantly carried the gun away from the grimy room.