Walking Backwards for Christmas (short story)

Walking Backwards for Christmas was the fifth story in the Bernice Summerfield anthology Something Changed. It was written by Ben Aaronovitch.

Unlike the other stories in the anthology, it was told as a series of flashbacks from Benny's life before travelling with the Seventh Doctor. It is unclear whether all of these events happened in an alternate version of her past caused by the history machine or if the machine simply caused her to relive these past events.

Summary
Bernice Summerfield once ran away from her academy, and spent two years away without them looking for her. Bernice remembers times from her past.

Plot
Looking back on her life with the history machine, Benny remembers how she led Foxtrot India Zulu at the Spacefleet Academy before walking out with a bag full of army surplus. She built a hut out of debris and was visited for the first time by Lucy Amandla and Mariatu Smith, who promised to keep her location a secret and brought her chocolate and gossip.

Years later, Benny helped defend the rights of the Pakhars of the Hib 34598 system before finding that they had arrived in a starship three centuries earlier and ate the natives. She deemed them not only evil for doing so, but also stupid for abandoning their technology and decided to tell the truth, which would lead to the planet being colonised by humans. During the Fifth Axis occupation of the Braxiatel Collection, Benny was told that Peter was dead.

Benny stands unmoving on the lawn only steps away from the lever of the history machine. She pulls the cords from the machine and Irving Braxiatel gives her a wink, but the only person to meet her gaze is Bev Tarrant, who looks as though they have shared something.

Characters

 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Lucy Amandla
 * Mariatu Smith
 * Doggles
 * Irving Braxiatel
 * Bev Tarrant

Worldbuilding

 * Benny is leader of the military section Foxtrot India Zulu. Mariatu Smith replaced her and was killed at Solidad on Monty's Folly. Only three members of the section survived the war.
 * Sapient rights activists argue that the inhabitants of the second planet of the Hib 34598 system deserve protection under Chapter Nine of the Basic Law.
 * A cult group of Pakhars moved the the second planet of the Hib 34598 system in order to escape vegetarianism.
 * Benny uses neutrino counts to determine the age of certain engravings.
 * One of the flashbacks briefly occurs during the Fifth Axis occupation of the Braxiatel Collection.

Continuity
to be added