She had read a whole lot on New Thal before deciding to visit. Well, perhaps it wasn't what most people would consider 'a whole lot' but considering Jenny's penchant to just run off to a planet, she considered it a whole lot. It was apparently settled by the remnants of a long lost planet that sought to redeem its citizens. The paradise planet claimed to have lived in absolute peace and had since they left Skaros before, they claimed, the advent of the Daleks.

When Jenny had read both words which sitting in the cockpit of her shuttle and absently playing with the psychic paper, she had shivered unexpectedly. The words were foreign to her and yet, some part of her seemed to know them.

Overall, talk of sparkling beaches and diverse tidal pools and huge expanses had sounded more than promising. It sounded like a fun planet to check out, maybe even to take Bart to on a romantic getaway like she had read about in one of her Earth books. And then there was that nagging in the back of her head, the nagging voice that said she should avoid New Thal and anything with roots to Skaros at all cost.

Of course, that meant she had to go find out for herself.

Maybe the first clue that should have told the young and adventurous Gallifreyan that this wasn't the paradise planet she was looking for should have been the lack of a docking bay. But she had ignored such a fact. Clearly shuttles were just meant to land in the nearest rock cropping and blend in with the rest of the beautiful planet.

It had made sense then.

Perhaps the second clue ought to have been the ruined buildings she first came across as she made her way to the beach. They could have been gorgeous once: something resembling coral reefs washed ashore and the sparkling mountains in the distance. But there were holes where holes ought not to be now, large gaps of infrastructure missing and rubble everywhere. These weren’t hotels and spas for tourists.

It was a theme, quite clearly and these were hotels and spas for tourists! Jenny laughed, feeling herself quite clever as she figured it out. The idea of paradise lost almost seemed too perfect for this planet to be true. Her blue eyes sparkled as she ducked her head into one of the doorway like openings. Oh, Bart would love this.

“Hello?” Her voice echoed in the chamber. “Hello, I’d like to talk to someone about renting a room here!”

“Quiet!”

A hand covered her mouth as the voice hissed at her. With less than a second’s reaction time, Jenny reached for the stranger’s wrist and yanked his hand away from her mouth, flipping him on to the ground with a strength she didn’t realise she possessed. She straddled his back; pulling his arm tightly behind him and pressing his face to the ground (cheek down) with her other hand.

Jenny blinked a few times, looking down at the man. Even in the shadows of the building interior (which on second glance, really didn’t look like a themed hotel at all), he appeared rather young. She loosened her grip a little, feeling oddly guilty when fear flashed across the man’s face. He didn’t seem to be much older than Cline and, for a moment, Jenny wondered if she wandered to Messaline by accident. Would terraformation make it into a planet this pretty?

Just as she was about to question the man, he spoke. “We’ve gotta get out of here. I don’t know who you are, but the Kaled-sympathizers are coming and they’re going to kill us if they find us.”

A strange image of an old and wrinkled man in a hover chair with a blue sensor implanted to the middle of his forehead suddenly appeared in her mind when the soldier mentioned Kaleds. Jenny blinked in confusion, chewing on her lip as she tried to make sense of the image.

“Please,” the man begged, interrupting Jenny from her quandary. “Please, I promise you won’t even be a Thal prisoner. We just need to get out of here before we’re caught.”

“Yeah, alright,” she finally answered, albeit a bit reluctantly. “But I get your weapon, got it?”