Katie walked into the console room exactly fifteen minutes later. In truth, she had been ready in eight minutes and twelve seconds, but she didn't wish to seem like she had wanted this ever since she learned TARDIS went through time and space. Well, she had, but that wasn't the point.

There wasn't a single speck of marker ink on her skin, and her hair was up in its usual bun, her common outfit of a solid color t-shirt, jeans, and boots on, and her brown messenger style pouch hanging at her side. The only thing that revealed her nerves and excitement to the world was the way her dark green eyes were glowing.

The Doctor was circling the console as he usually did, one hand in a trouser pocket, occasionally fiddling with something, his expression partially blank, as of one who had been everywhere and done everything, and was now wondering what to repeat. He broke into a grin when he saw Katie. She smirked back, the closest she really ever came to a smile.

"Preparing her for what's coming?"

"Nah, she's gone through so much that it was more of a shock than anything."

"Yeah, she's a strong woman. So, what's step one?"

"A rule that I never want you to forget."

Katie closed her eyes and shook her head lightly, making a light clicking noise. "Another rule? How many have you got?"

"Don't know. I haven't made them all yet. I don't want you flying her on your own. Only when I'm here. Maybe in a hundred years or so you can fly her solo. Until then, you have to be supervised."

"No lone flights. Gotcha."

The Doctor gave Katie a look that said he didn't really believe she had accepted that instruction, but he didn't push the issue. Instead, he turned to the spot where a pilot would input the coordinates of where they wanted to land.

"Pick a number between one and a hundred," he said.

"18.6."

"Another number, same range."

"27."

"One more number."

"Let's go with the answer to everything, and say 42."

The Doctor looked at her quizzically. "The answer to everything?"

"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy…42...never mind."

The Doctor lifted his eyebrows momentarily, then put that number in as well. "You have just-"

"Randomly chosen the spatial coordinates for where we are about to go, though not the temporal ones."

Giving Katie a look, the Doctor said, "Your ability to know exactly what I'm going to say is truly starting to worry me."

Katie's smirk turned mischievous. "Good. Although, in that instance, I just referred back to previous experience. And the TARDIS Manuel that you threw into a star."

"I told you, the book is wrong. Now come here, right now I'm just going to have you turn the wheel, so to speak."

Katie forced herself to only walk to the spot the Doctor meant and grasped the wheel looking device. She gave the Doctor a wink, though it wasn't entirely comforting. He picked up one of the two hammers he kept nearby and took up a spot next to her, seemingly resigned to his fate.

"I only want you to focus on getting to the place. We can worry about time later."

Katie laughed lightly. "We never worry about time, Doctor. Time doesn't mean anything to us."

The Doctor shook his head, humor lacing his words. "I'm sure there was something very profound in what you just said, but we can discuss it later." Grasping a lever, he flipped it up. TARDIS made her signature noise as Katie quivered with excitement. This wasn't like the last time she flew TARDIS; then she had been doing almost nothing but guessing and was happy not to have blown a hole in spacetime. Now though, she had someone who had experience helping her out, and a new adventure coming up. What could be better?

Vworp, vworp, vworp. Thoum. Krrik.

The door to TARDIS opened and Katie stumbled out. She turned to the door and glared as it slammed behind her.

"As if you parked perfectly your second time!"

Her protests went unheard as TARDIS disappeared, then reappeared a few feet to its left. The Doctor walked out, then stood appraising Katie.

"Well, besides the tree you materialized around, that wasn't too bad."

Katie stuck her tongue out at him, then turned around and looked about her. They had landed in a forest that resembled the vast areas of redwood trees on the Pacific West coast. "I'm shocked you didn't land the same way I did."

"Oh, I've just had practice. For the record, I never materialized around a tree. I always landed perfectly. Well, almost. Sometimes I have to turn her."

"You probably had classes on parking properly. Me, you just punched in a few numbers and said go."

"Hang on, you chose it!"

"Not complaining. The place smells like moist earth, there's mist everywhere, I can hear birds, and I think it's near sunrise." Katie started walking forward. "Let's go this way."

"Why that way," the Doctor asked even as he fell into step beside her. She flashed him one of her half grins.

"Because."

"Marvelous reason."

An hour later, the reason wasn't so marvelous. The planet quickly heated, but the mist hung about, making the forest a rather humid place. So while Katie spent half her time trying to breathe in the heavy air, and the other half trying to figure out how trees so similar to a conifer were thriving in a place like that, the Doctor practically bounced along in his suit, looking like the heat didn't bother him in the least. Katie gave him a look.

"Would you please stop doing that?"

"What?"

"Acting so…so…you. How are you not melting in this heat?"

"Time Lord physiology. We can stand up to higher temperatures than most. And lower. And we have a respiratory bypass system."

"Full of yourself, aren't you?"

He grinned at her. "Just being truthful."

Katie gave him another mock glare. She turned her head forward again, then pointed. "Building."

"Well spotted." The Doctor's brow furrowed as the building in the clearing ahead was replaced by forest, then came back. "Odd. It seems to have some kind of camouflage system set up."

Without another word spoken, Katie and the Doctor slowly, quietly, approached the clearing. The camouflage system turned out to be no more than a large holographic dome, projecting a picture of more trees. At least, that's what Katie could gather before the Doctor roughly pulled her down behind a log.

"What was that for," she hissed.

"Shh!" The Doctor peaked over the log, then dropped back down. "They're Twirks."

Katie cautiously looked over the log. A large ship that reminded Katie of a Romulan bird of prey from Star Trek was -for lack of a better term- parked next to a large warehouse. Human sized green tri-peds were carrying crates out of the warehouse and placing them inside the ship, then returning for more. Katie crouched back behind the log.

"What's a Twirk," she asked.

"Poachers mostly. They'll shoot anything they see with a specially created dart that injects just enough tranquilizer to knock it out, then the prey is completely undamaged, along with the hide. Brilliant device actually. It reads the DNA sequence-"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Katie waved her hand at him, motioning him to skip the science lesson. "Later. How do we stop them? Even if the crates are full of already tanned skins, we can stop them from doing the same thing again, right?"

"Wrong. Twirks are the one of the most vicious, cruel, deceitful things in the universe. If you aren't one of them, they'll use you to turn a profit. The second they saw us, we'd be shot."

"Sounds like humans."

"Twirks are even worse than a human." The Doctor glanced at Katie. "No offense."

"None taken. You really should know by now I don't consider myself human Doctor. American yes, human no. When I turned Jahra again, anything human left my body."

Even as Katie said it, she knew the Doctor didn't really believe her. She had returned to her clone form physically, yes, but the Doctor still saw her as a human.

Closing her eyes, Katie moved her vision into 'energy view'. While looking at things that way, she could see the different energy forms, and could see around things she ordinarily couldn't, like the log. Her perception would go out of whack, the coloring of people and objects would resemble a two-year-old's coloring book, but otherwise her vision was unimpaired.

The Twirks were still moving crates. Guards were posted about, and it looked as though they were almost finished.

Two of the Twirks dropped a box. The top burst open and a small animal just barely resembling a squirrel tumbled out. It started to run, but one of the Twirks shot at it. It was vaporized in a millisecond.

Katie opened her eyes and turned to the Doctor again. "There has to be something!"

The Doctor looked like he was about to protest again, when an odd smell filled the air. It was a lot like singed titanium.

Katie and the Doctor looked over the top of the log again. Off to their left, the Twirks right, was a shivering pillar of air. The Twirks were making gravely sounds that seemed worried, and they all started to pile onto their ship.

From the same area as the air came the faint sound of a motor. Then the air pillar collapsed, and from the same spot a motorcycle came shooting out from it. The rider was clad in black leather, the jacket covered in patches and pins, their helmet completely covering their face, the darkened visor preventing Katie from seeing who it was. Katie thought she heard a slight sound of recognition come from the Doctor, but she ignored it.

The motorcycle slid to a controlled halt in front of the ship, which was now starting to fold its landing legs in. The rider pulled a thin, silver canister out of the leather jacket they wore. Hitting something on the top, they threw it at the ship. It struck the hull just as it started to lift off. The ship rose about two feet, then exploded.

Katie watched all this with fascination, and growing admiration. As the faint scent of nitroglycerine drifted towards the log, Katie jumped over it, determined to meet this mysterious someone. The Doctor did nothing to stop her. He seemed glued to the spot.

Katie walked boldly up to the person on the motorcycle, who didn't seem to notice her approach. "Love the smell of nitro in the morning."

The figure turned around to look at Katie, who continued talking.

"I'm guessing you do to, but that must not have been then only reason you decided to pitch that canister at the Twirk ship. Nice pitch by the way."

The person pushed a button on the side of the helmet, causing the visor to disappear. Katie could see tanned skin around brown eyes, with reddish brown strands of hair here and there. The figure looked female, and the voice, which had a very faint English accent, proved that to be true.

"You don't look like you're from Genora."

"Where's that?"

The woman laughed. "Now I know you aren't. That's here! This whole forest planet is Genora."

"You're right, I'm not from here. Judging from the fact you just came out of air, I don't think you are either. What do you use in those things?"

"Bit o' this, bit o' that. Mostly nitro. Call it Nitro-11."

Katie shrugged, as if unimpressed. "Meh, not very exciting. Easy to remember though."

"Used to be Nitro-9, but its gone through two separate upgrades since then. Fits in a thinner container and packs more punch now." The woman cocked her head. "You don't sound like anyone I've met. Where are you from, and how did you get here?"

"I'm from behind that log over there," Katie said, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb. "I got here by walking. I decided I should check you out after the light show." Katie stuck out her hand. "I'm Katie."

The woman pulled off her helmet to reveal short hair and a square face. Tucking her helmet under her arm, she held out her hand.

"Call me Ace."

*Constructive critisisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*