‘Will? He’ll be fine.’ Ace and Will had agreed that he would pilot Virgil back to Earth on his own, whilst she went with the Doctor in the TARDIS. Sam hadn’t been overly happy about that arrangement but had reluctantly agreed that they needed to find out what information the Doctor had about the UFO as quickly as possible.

Will and Ace had returned to Virgil and collected a series of remote cameras and sensors, positioning them in key positions around the alien ship. That would hopefully give them advance warning if anyone else boarded, or if the ship did anything unexpected. Will was now making his way back to the shuttle to begin his return journey to Earth. As soon as he landed he was going to disconnect the Squidget and propulsion unit and rendezvous with the rest of them at Kirkwood Farm.

Ace felt a sudden pang of guilt. Unbeknownst to Will, whilst he had been occupied collecting the surveillance equipment from the shuttle’s cargo hold, she had taken the opportunity to instruct the Squidget that as soon as Virgil had safely touched down at Devesham it was to shut down and only take further instruction from her.

She knew that he was going to be angry with her for doing so, but she didn’t see that she had any choice. Will might have given her his word that he wouldn’t make any attempt to investigate the Squidget any further, but she wasn’t sure that Sam would give her the same assurance. She’d seen the gleam that had come into the mission controller’s eyes when she’d got her first glimpse of the Squidget. Ace was in no doubt that Sam would almost certainly take the opportunity to make a thorough investigation of the alien technology and, given their relationship, who knew how easily persuaded Will might be to go along with her. The safest thing to do was to simply deny her the opportunity.

‘He’ll probably get back to Earth before we do!’ said Ace with a breeziness she didn’t feel. ‘Given the Professor’s track record of steering the TARDIS that is …’

‘Oi!’ The Doctor looked up from the console with a look of indignation. ‘I’ll have you know that I’m in perfect control of this machine. Now hold on, here we go.’

She threw a lever and Ace’s heart leapt as a familiar wheezing, groaning sound filled the air. Moments later the room lurched alarmingly and Ace hung on to the console for dear life as the TARDIS pitched and rolled its way into the space-time vortex.

Ace looked at the Doctor in alarm at the violent take-off but, far from being concerned, she actually seemed to be enjoying herself. The others just held on to various handholds around the console room with expressions of weary resignation. Obviously this was normal for the TARDIS these days.