Katie was now in the second seat of the motorcycle, which would make her job so much easier. It was rather simple, actually. Working together, Ace and she would bring down the second digging 'bot much like the first one. Once it crashed, Katie would throw the Nitro-11 canister into its neck joint, effectively blowing off its head. If it was like any other robot Katie had come across, the main CPU would be there. That would leave just the walking bomb to deal with.

"Going into a weave, take the shot when you're clear."

"Roger that."

Ace made a sharp turn, weaving in and out of the robots legs, trying to give Katie a good shot while making the bike unhittable. Katie planted her feet and gripped the bike between her legs as she stood, her eyes closed. She focused on an ankle joint and lifted the gun. At the last second, she opened her eyes, sighted in a fraction of a second, and fired.

It was a perfect hit. The harpoon went whizzing through the air, landing solidly, creating a stupendous grip. Ace began circling, wrapping the cable around and around. Katie sat down and pulled out the canister of Nitro-11, pre-loaded into a crossbow (one she had NOT told the Doctor about). She didn't want to miss.

A creaking above her made Katie look up. She stood again, eyes locked on the machines neck. Ace drove out in front of it and stopped. Katie took a moment to check the trajectory, and fired.

Another perfect hit. The nitroglycerine made contact and blew off the head of the beast. It wouldn't rise again.

Ace turned the bike back towards where the Doctor was waiting. Katie stuffed the crossbow back into her bag and took the energy cannon from where she had it on her back. There was one more 'bot still left, and she figured the only way to get rid of it was blow the head off.

Unfortunately, the collector robot had the same idea. Swiveling its head around, it shot a laser at Katie from its eye. It hit just behind the back tire instead, simultaneously leaving a good sized crater. Ace and Katie were thrown, both rolling to a stop. Katie lost her grip on the energy cannon and it flew off somewhere. The metal beast shot at it and turned it into a pile of dust.

"Damn bastard blew up my bike!" Katie heard Ace shriek. Katie looked over towards her and saw she was scrabbling up the sides of the crater, looking like she was going to try to tear apart the machine with her bare hands.

"Now Cards, you know you shouldn't swear," Katie admonished, unable to pass up a line, and hoping the distraction would keep Ace from doing something really stupid.

Ace's eyes shot dagger at Katie, and she looked ready to say something, but then all the blood drained from her face as she looked past Katie over the crater rim. "Doctor!"

Katie was up next to her in a flash, and was equally horrified. The Doctor was running down the hill, doing what he did best and coming to help. But the robot had also seen him, and was now taking aim.

Ace and Katie both drew guns and fired at the eye. It must have been made of glass or crystal, because the eye shattered, rendering the laser useless. The force was great enough that a small shard flew through the air, landing deep in the Doctor's shoulder. He tumbled down the side of the crater as the robot stumbled backwards, blinded.

Ace skid down as Katie studied the robot. It was bent over, giving her a perfect shot. Too bad they only had one Nitro-11 canister left.

"Look at my coat! Janis Joplin gave me this coat."

"Shut up Professor. I lost my bike to that Ronodim sucker. Give me your sonic so I can take this out."

Sonic. Robot. Nitro-11. Ronodim.
Katie slid down the side. She reached into Ace's bag and pulled out the last canister of nitroglycerine, snatching the sonic from her hand.

"This thing telepathic?" she asked, holding it up.

"Yes—"

"Steam powered things have gears?"

"Yes—"

Katie opened the Doctor's coat, ignoring his cries of pain, and pulled out a pink box. After pulling out her crossbow and throwing down her bag, she whirled around ran back up the side of the crater without a backward glance. She could hear the Doctor yelling after her.

"Kathryn! Kathryn what are you doing!"

Ace ran up the crater side as the Doctor jerked the crystal shard out of his shoulder. Ace watched as Katie ran forward and stopped abruptly about 300 yards from the beast, which was just starting to straighten. A flash of something blue was visible on its inside before it stood completely straight.

Then Katie did one of the oddest things Ace had ever seen someone do. Katie shook the Nitro-11 canister up like a can of soda pop, loaded it into her crossbow, soniced the whole thing, and fired. The canister hit the thing's chest right in the center, blowing on contact.

Ace ducked in reaction to the anticipated Ronodim explosion. Then she noticed she wasn't dead. The Doctor, who had managed to crawl up beside her, was staring outwards at Katie.

"I think that nutter you brought with you has either just killed us or saved us." Ace said, respect tingeing her voice. She looked back over the edge. Katie had tossed her crossbow aside and was now dumping the contents of the pink box into her hand. Some of the small, pink circles fell on the ground, but Katie ignored that, stuffing what she had in her hand in her mouth. Then she froze, staring at where the metal man had fallen from the explosion.

"What are those?" Ace asked the Doctor. He shook his head in disbelief.

"It's bubblegum."

"What!"

"No no, it's alright," the Doctor admonished her gently, his face getting an excited look. "Oh, she's brilliant. If this works, I'm taking her to the World's Fair. Maybe the 500th anniversary."

"Why? What's she doing?"

"Watch."

The robot gave a shudder before righting itself. Ace could see the entire chest plate had been destroyed, the gears that ran the boiler now visible. Katie stayed where she was, sonic clenched in one hand, nothing in the other. The robot must have had other sensors, because it faced Katie and started striding towards her. It would be close enough to step on her in a few moments. Katie still didn't move.

"Come on Kathryn," the Doctor muttered. "What are you waiting for?"

As though she had heard him, Katie pulled her head back and jerked it forward. A pink blob flew from her mouth, landing right in the center of the robot's chest.

The gum lodged in one of the rapidly spinning gears. Suddenly, it and the adjoining 6 stopped. The robot jerked a few times, gave a final shudder, locked, and fell straight forward. Its head landed next to Katie's foot. She glanced down at it, pointed the screwdriver and pressed the button. A few sparks flew out from the neck joint.

Katie looked at the beast, then to the screwdriver. She tossed the screwdriver in the air, caught it, and stuck it in her back pocket.

She turned around calmly and walked sedately back to where Ace and the Doctor were. She pointed past them to the other side of the crater.

"Bike's over there."

It took the three adventurers another day and a half to finally get back to their starting point. It would have taken less time, but they had had to patch up the Doctor and promise to fix his coat, extract the Ronodim holding container from the robots back, and carefully bury the Ronodim so that it would eventually dissolve back into the soil.

It was while they were pulling out the box of Ronodim that Ace and the Doctor found out just how Katie had managed to throw nitroglycerine at the robot and not set off the Ronodim. The entire box was suspended in a field of artificial anti-gravity, or, as the Doctor had put it, "the best padding the universe." Of course, when Katie was asked how she knew, she just said she hadn't. She'd just fired and hoped for the best.

Katie was lost in thought when Ace made the time jump. Then they were back where they had first met Ace; the twisted scraps of metal from the destroyed spacecraft were still there.

"End of the line. Ride. Adventure. However you want to call it."

The Doctor's smile was sad in response to Ace's words. He and Katie got off the bike and turned toAce.

Katie looked at the Doctor out of the corner of her eye. He was standing with his center of gravity back slightly, as though bracing for an impact. His hands were in his pockets, and he had a coaxing look in his eye. She remembered that stance. He had looked exactly like that when he asked her to travel with him.

"You could come with us."

Ace smiled, like she had expected the offer. "Tempting. Oh, so very, very tempting. But I have a life now. And it's not just protecting here. I have a…business of sorts. A charity, actually."

"We'll have to look it up sometime and make a donation," the Doctor said, the cheer in his voice slightly forced. "What's it called?"

Ace's smile became self-depreciating. "A Charitable Earth."

"Not bad. Makes it easy to remember."

"Yep."

Noticing the awkward lull that was about to enter the conversation, Katie spoke up. "Hey, Cards, anyway I can convince you to give me the recipe for Nitro-11?"

"Well sure—"

"NO."

Katie turned to the Doctor, putting a bit of a pleading in her expression. "Why not?"

"No. End of discussion. You've found enough guns and things."

"But Nitro-11 is so useful."

Seeing the Doctor's expression at that, Katie dropped the subject. Ace sat back on her bike, putting a foot on the old-fashioned starter she had.

"Time for me to be off. I've got a lot of clean-up to do."

The Doctor nodded, a smile still on his face, but this one regretful. He seemed like he would say something, but Katie wasn't sure. He stepped forward and gave Ace a hug, one which she returned. They let go after a few moments and the Doctor started walking. Katie turned to follow.

"Hey, Kate, hold a moment."

Katie turned back to Ace. "Yah?"

"Keep him safe."

Katie nodded. "Will do. And get a crossbow for yourself. Helps with targeting."

"Will do." Ace kicked the starter, the engine purring into life. "Take care of yourself Katie. You're going on the trip of your life. Make it all count."

Katie gave a two-fingered salute, raising her voice to be heard over the engine. "Ace trumps all. Enjoy humanity. It's a precious gift."

Ace nodded, and Katie watched as she drove off into her pillar of air.

"Took you awhile."

Katie kept walking past the Doctor. "Just talking."

"Kathryn."

Katie turned around. The Doctor had a more serious look on his face than she usually saw. "How did you know?"

Katie seemed to shrink into herself. She knew exactly what he meant. Katie swallowed before answering. "I don't know. I just did. It's like a memory I know I never had."

"When did they start?"

Katie was silent for a few moments. "The first robot we faced down. That was when they filtered in the first time, but in the form of conjectures, like I was taking the stuff I had seen and putting it to good use. Then at the second digging robot, I knew precisely where the weakest spot on its legs were, the best place to put the harpoon and cable. And for the third one…" Katie took a deep breath before continuing, her voice just a bit shaky. "Doctor, I knew that the Ronodim wouldn't explode. I knew that it was in an anti-gravity field. I knew that if I fired one of the canisters at the very center of its chest, only the chest plate would come off. I've never even seen those things before, never even heard of them, but I knew."

Katie rubbed one of her arms as if cold. "It's as if someone is invading my brain, putting in facts and things. It makes me feel…violated."

The Doctor looked at her with compassion. "It's the locked center of your mind. The Rahki locked away all the things other Jahra know from the moment they're created. Half of your brain isn't accessible by your conscious mind, but your subconscious can go in and out at will."

"If my conscious mind doesn't see it, how can I use that knowledge?"

"Sometimes the conscious need is great enough to make the subconscious work for it."

"It doesn't make sense."

The Doctor sighed. "You're right. It doesn't. The Rahki force the knowledge of their race on any Jahra clone they may make. But you seem to have been made to not know."

Katie shook her head in an irritated fashion. "Then why give me those thoughts at all? It isn't just now; it happens all the time."

"This happened before?"

Katie nodded. "It's just never been this much before. Always I get these little sparks of thought, small facts about things anyone might get by watching closely. But I barely need to glance at something for it to make sense. Whenever I'm in front of anything that's a computer, I know exactly how to make it do whatever I want, but forget how I did it moments later. I've been learning languages at a ridiculous speed, just by reading a single language book. I see the words and know precisely how they're pronounced."

Katie had been looking away until this point, but now locked eyes with the Doctor. He could see the underlying layer of fear in her face. "But whenever I look at you, there's absolutely nothing. At all. No brain sparks, no prior knowledge. Just this weird feeling that I have to stay with you, protect you. Why would I know everything about everything, but nothing about someone like you?"

The Doctor had no good response. Katie had been slowly moving towards him throughout the conversation, and now hugged him. She held him like a small child might hug an older brother or father. The Doctor returned the hug, hoping it would make her feel safe.

"Doctor, it bothers me."

Terrifies her is more like it. That's how I would feel if something like that was in my brain. The Doctor only thought this, knowing to give the thought voice would be a bad idea.

They stood that way for a few more moments. Then Katie said, "I want my bag back."

The Doctor pulled away and gave her an incredulous look. "Your bag? You stole it from me."

"We talked about this. I take good care of the stuff you never touch. Give."

He held out his hand. "Sonic."

"Didn't I earn it? I took down an explosive robot with bubblegum!"

"And a crossbow."

For a nanosecond, Katie looked just like a teenager that's been told to give back money they took from their parent's wallet. Then she sighed and pulled the screwdriver out of her pocket, heavily placing it in the Doctor's hand. In return, he took off her bag, which he had been carrying, and handed it to her. She immediately looked inside, then shot him a look.

"You took out half my stuff!"

"Only the weapons."

"It took me weeks to make those things."

"Don't make them again."

Katie and the Doctor stared at each other. Once again, the Doctor was intrigued, yet slightly horrified, at the way Katie's moods shifted so quickly. What also worried him was her obsession with weapons.

Katie nodded a quick assent. "Fine. But I'm keeping my dagger with me. And lock pick. And a few elements and seasonings."

"Seasonings?"

Her smile was enigmatic. "Yep. Now, come on. TARDIS is still a 45 minute walk, maybe a 20 minute run, and I want to see where we're going next."

Katie bounded away. The Doctor paused for a moment and then joined her. Running with a friend, and not away from something. Life was good.

*There. Finished. As usual, unanswered questions, including one that was in just the last few lines. It's not said, but it's certainly there. You'll all just have to wait. I'll put up more stories as fast as possible, but there will be no set sheduale. My next one is currently in the works, the title being "Teacher Doctor Scientist." What kind of things do you think should be in Kaite's bag now that the DOctor won't let her carry weapons? Send me a PM with your suggestion! The better ones will make it into my next few episodes. No promises your idea will make it in, but if the idea is good, I'll make it work.*