It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

A Trip To Wagga Wagga

For Tegan Jovanka it had been a lifetime since she left the TARDIS. It was early December and she was sat alone in her little house. She had long since left Brisbane for greener pastures in Wagga Wagga. Thanks to one Sarah Jane Smith she had been roped into consulting for UNIT periodically. She loved the woman but would have preferred to be left off the UNIT ex-companions list. This was one such situation. There was a persistent pounding on her front door. Not violent but persistent. It was Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, although she generally went by Kate Stewart anyone who had ever known the Brigadier refused to acknowledge this preference. There had been a meeting.

"Kate." Tegan said when she opened the door.

"I need your help."

'Hello Tegan, How's it going? I hope I'm not disturbing you. Hi Kate. No, I wasn't doing anything. How are the kids?"

"Sorry, Hi Tegan, Kids are good, Gordon got engaged last week. Now, I really, really need your help."

"Come in. Why does nobody ever just drop in anymore?"

"It's nearly seventeen thousand kilometres Tegan. What did you think I came here for, tea and cake?"

"Fair cop, what do you need?"

"Tell me about The Terileptils."

"What do you want to know? Hold on, how do you know about them?"

"UNIT took an account from you about your time with The Doctor after you left him the second time."

"Did you? I have no recollection of that."

"No, we wiped your memory afterwards. It's a security measure, can't have the Doctor finding out we're keeping tabs."

"Fair enough."

"You encountered them twice?"

"Yes, the first resulted in the Great Fire of London. The second wreaked havoc on a small village and a church collapsed but that was chiefly some sort of time disturbance from a stray thing."

"You didn't mention the fire of London last time."

"Didn't I?"

"Osgood owes me fifty quid."

"From what I gather The Terileptils are quite reasonable. War is one of their favourite pastimes but they are equally fond of art and beauty. The first lot we went up against were criminals who wanted to take the world for themselves. They reengineered the plague to do it. What's this about?"

"Someone thought it would be a good idea to let a team of Archaeologists excavate the site where the church used to be."

"Who's heading up the team? Because I have an Archaeologist friend. The advantage to using her is she knows about The Doctor."

"Well, that's three on the team."

"What?"

"Professor River Song, Doctor Bernice Summerfield and this friend of yours."

"Doctor Erin Spencer. Jayne can also help, she's an amateur but she excels in the field. That's how she and Erin met, Jayne was Erin's favourite student while she was at University."