to kill Ship. Ship overcomes her virus and she becomes a part of Ship and goes back for the Doctor, whom his companions now realise has also been infected, which will allow Ship to read his mind and use the knowledge to open more rifts and process more minds. Refusing to let the Doctor be sacrificed Ace uses one of Kadiatu’s organic time hoppers to follow them to Ship, where she tries to track down the Doctor. All the prisoners and the human guards have been processed and the three people are the only ones aboard. Kadiatu shoots Ace, but she is only badly wounded. The Doctor is connected to the fabric of Ship, but the moment he accesses Ship’s central nervous system, he is able to shut it down directly. As Ship dies, Kadiatu leaps into the rift and disappears. Ace gets the Doctor back to Paris, where he allows himself to die temporarily, thus killing the organic material which Ship had implanted in him. As the TARDIS is about to leave Ace chooses to stay. She knows she can't change history, but actions maybe able to save some lives. She also plans to use the surviving technology to monitor the rifts and protect Earth from any other threats like Ship. The Doctor reveals that he has known where she would end up since soon after he met her. The Epilogue shows Ace, now using the name Dorothee McShane, meeting Denon and telling him that Bernice is safe. She again meets the Doctor in Sydney, 1993 and helps him fight an alien invasion. In the present of 1871, Ace helps defend a barricade until the last moment, then puts down her gun and disappears into history. External links Set Piece Prelude The Cloister Library - Set Piece 1995 British novels 1995 science fiction novels British science fiction novels Novels by Kate Orman Virgin New Adventures Seventh Doctor novels Fiction set in 1798 Fiction set in 1815 Fiction set in 1871 Fiction set in 1995