Lester leads the escape
Who: Lester, Jayne Chrysler and the other escapees
When: Ten seconds after Dysart made his valiant stand
Where: Deep in the bowels of the Hymenoptera hive ship
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Lester flicked a glance over his shoulder one last time. "W-we can't leave him," he whimpered, "yes we can," he
replied, "Dysart knows what he's doing."
"You do realise you're talking to yourself?" Jayne Chrysler said as Lester led them away. "You also know that's not
considered normal or sane?"
"Yes thank you," Lester answered as he checked the corridor junction and signalled to keep moving, "I'm well aware
that I've got an unwanted tenant in my attic. Unwanted? Yes, frankly, because I was here first. That's not very
nice!" Lester sighed. "No, but I'm not a very nice person, now be quiet."
He checked the way ahead and moved on.
"So, are you going to explain it?" Jayne asked eventually. This drew Lester short, he stopped and tilted his head as
he thought about that.
"I was a technician, onboard our Blue Dwarf. We were fixing the problem that was causing multiple Blue Dwarfs to
come through, although now I'm beginning to think we sent a lot of potential reinforcements home. I was injured,
shot, nearly died and that allowed my real personality to resurface. I have a gap in my memory and fake personality
that won't go away. Until my memory returns I thought it would be a good idea to find out what was happening here
and see if I can help. Did I miss anything?" Lester paused, then said: "oh me? Um, no, except the nanites."
"What about the nanites?" Jayne asked but as Lester turned to answer a spider-scorpion-ant thing dropped from the
ceiling and hacked through Lester like a hot-knife through butter. The ex-prisoners backed off in fear as the
Hymenoptera stalked forwards, hissing and dribbling disgusting smelling ooze on the deck. Under its legs, Jayne
could see Lester, a huge gash across his chest. The creature opened its mandibles and... stopped. It looked faintly
puzzled, then it squealed and screeched and thrashed and died.
Jayne peered forward in the eerie silence and then with a wrenching crunching sound, the creature pulled apart and
Lester stood upright, dripping gore, a stolen Hymenoptera claw spike still in his hand. He regarded the makeshift
weapon with a kind of quiet surprise.
"The trick, it would seem, is to get into them. They're surprisingly soft once you get past the shell," Lester mused
quietly. "ARMADILLOS! Crunchy on the outside, smooth on the inside!" Lester froze, his face a mask of anger. "Y-you
know," he continued nervously, "the Dime Bar adverts... Dime... bar?" Silence descended while the alternate Jays
stared at this madman dripping goo and getting really cross with himself. They wondered if he was going to be any
sort of salvation at all, then Jayne stepped forward.
"You're doing fine," she said quietly. "Let's go."
Lester nodded and headed off, holding his Super Soaker at the ready. "The nanites are from a Kryten that my friend Justin apparently killed. He's also the guy who shot me. They seem to have latched on and are working within me."
"Your friend shot you?"
"In the chest. And Dysart shot me in the head."
After a while of trudging through corridors, Jayne spoke up, "I don't even know your name."
"Phelps," he said grimly, "Lester Phelps."
"Thank you Lester... for coming to get us I mean," Jayne continued, but Lester made a shush gesture. He stepped around a corner and was confronted by the angriest looking insect he had ever seen. It looked at him, he looked at it. Then the creature turned and carried on its way. Lester slowly unwound, letting his hand fall to his side. He had a slightly puzzled look, then he spoke.
"I think I know what's going on!" Lester scowled, "I told you to... No really, you have to listen, I saw it on a program about bees, or was it ants? Might have been butterfl- The point, please? Oh, well it said that in a hive or a termite hill, creatures can't really see one another - because it's so dark, so they rely on chemical indicators to find their way."
"You mean smell?" Jayne asked.
"Y-yes, I.. er... " Lester stopped, then sighed, "sorry, he gets like this around women. The m-main senses of the Hymenoptera say you're one of them, so it doesn't argue with a minor sense l-like sight."
One of the Jays raised a hand: "Are you, er, he... er are we suggesting we make ourselves smell like Hymenoptera?"
Lester just smiled and led the way back to the deceased thing whose innards he was currently wearing. Some of the Jays leaped in with abandon, others were more timid. Lester solved this by tripping them up. Jayne however was different, Lester scooped up handfuls of insectoid goo and embraced Jayne in a warm hug before she could protest. Smothering her back in dripping yellow muck she looked up into his eyes.
The moment was spoiled by a whimper from the internal Lester.
"Shouldn't bring him to a party," Jayne smiled and reaching down tore off a section of bug armoured hide and then industriously twisted a limb off. Other Jays did the same, until at least some of them were armed and armoured with insect bits.
They set off again and Lester got the sense they were heading underground. The air grew warm and more stifling and a feeling of pressure built up. The bulkheads were sealed with gelatinous sphinctural valves that slurped apart as they approached, reminding Lester of the some of the more horrible pornographic films he'd seen. Another vile door opened and a gust of warm air breathed over the group, causing some to gag. Lester stepped forward and found himself on a slender viaduct, a spindly bridge, stretching out over a vast chasm. No: it was a shaft extending down and up into infinite darkness. From somewhere below there came the sound of thrumming engines.
"Th-this is an air shaft. Th-they use them to keep cool and circulate air around the ship," Lester told himself, "Jays," he said more firmly, "link hands, let's stay together." He looked down at Jayne Chrysler's hand in his and allowed a light smile.
"Look up there," Jayne whispered after they'd gone a little under halfway. Far in the distance, large shapes were moving around a gaping hole. Lester could see part of a Starbug, presumably the one they had arrived on, being removed from an ugly gash in the wall. Around it, large creatures were regurgitating some sort of grey mush into the gap, sealing it up.
"If that's all it takes to patch this ship up, the Space Corps have no chance of destroying them. We've got to scupper them from the inside. From the inside? Are you mad? We should get out of here! Listen! We're in danger, we're out of booze, we're in the belly of the beast and you're talking about going deeper? Just listen! We're in the fire, we're out of the frying pan, into the fire and now you want to turn the heat up? SHUT UP!" Lester bellowed the last at himself, everyone on the bridge froze and waited, but death didn't come buzzing at them from all directions.
"I need you," Lester said quietly, "w-what? I need you. I don't know enough to shut down the engines, or cause an overload or whatever. I need your help. R-really? Yes. W-what about that unwanted tenant s-stuff? Heat of the moment, I won't say it again. I-I'm scared. I know, so am I. R-really?"
"Lester?" Jayne said softly, she reached up to the tall lanky man and took his face in her hands, "we all need you," she said and kissed him, firmly and gently.
"Wow," both Lesters said.
"Now, can both of you get us out of here?"
"Sure," Lester said and hoisted his near empty super-soaker up onto one shoulder. "We get to a launch bay, then we get you out. I think it's this way." He turned and swaggered across the rest of the bridge.
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