Let\'s make like a tree and get outta here

Who: Lester, Dysart, SNIDEWhen: At the same time that Jay and Evil Jay were doing their Highlander sceneWhere: Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Thorax without a hope
 
Dysart stopped running, mostly because his left leg come undone and detached itself noisily. He hopped one more step, then collapsed, showering the deck with more bits of metal from his frame. Lester fell with him, impacting the deck hard and groaned. As Lester moved slowly, trying to not hurt himself anymore, Dysart's body twitched, its arms tried to pull it up.
"Let him go, SNIDE," Lester said firmly, "he's not a toy."
SNIDE seemed to consider this from his place on Dysart's head, the little spider-robot shook its head vigorously and tried to make Dysart stand again.
"Leave it," Lester said again and put his hand out to the little robot. It pounced into his palm and Lester drew it close. "You did good," he told it, "you always did good." SNIDE curled his limbs around him and Lester gently placed the robot against his temple where it locked into place. The interface was a simple share of information, but it was comforting none-the-less. Lester smirked as he went through the period in which Dysnide rescued him. Then he frowned.
"G-go back," Lester muttered, "t-ten seconds. Stop. Play. Pause."
Lester and Lester stared at the image in their heads, recorded by SNIDE as he catapulted through the corridors.
"Why would that be there?" Lester asked, "who c-cares?" he answered, "it's there. G-get up!" Lester sighed, "I'm really tired, I'm just going to rest a while," he started to close his eyes. "GET UP! Move! SMEG'S SAKE!" Lester's eyes opened, startled, "did you just shout at me?" The other Lester panicked: "Yes. No. Maybe?"
Lester forced himself to a sitting position, "you did, you just shouted at me." Lester shrugged, "well maybe you're a b-bad influence on m-me." Lester smirked and got to his hands and knees. He surveyed the comatose Dysart.
"We can't leave him like this," Lester reached for the spindly leg and turned it this way and that, "s-start b-by opening the s-servo linkages," Lester started, but then the other one stopped him: "No, you do it. R-Really? Yep, I need some sleep." Lester slumped down, chin on his chest, then suddenly snapped up again and took a big gasping breath.
"W-wow, b-breathing again. Th-that's wierd," Lester Seventeen-Dot-Phelps bent to work on Dysart's leg. "H-he's r-really qu-quite nice," Lester commented to SNIDE who dropped from his temple and stretched his limbs like a sunbathing cat. "Couple these neuro-sequencers," he told SNIDE who stepped in with his tiny claws.
Minutes later, Dysart's leg was reattached, "we owe him a r-refit," Lester told SNIDE as he found Dysart's activation button.
The mechanoid sat bolt upright "WOAH! WHAT A RUSH! It 'felt like I was doing every act in circus de ole simtaniously!" His brown eyes rolled over to Lester, a quick snap of lighting and his hologram flickered back into life, "what the smeg are you doing here?! Didn't you get off with Jayne?"Dysart's face harderned as he caustionly looked around. He then leaned in conpriscually. "Are we dead?"
"N-not dead... yet," as Lester spoke there came a terrifying wall of sound. He fell to the deck, clutching his ears as the ship roared and screamed. Something exploded, then something else exploded, then everything else exploded. Lester curled up in a ball and wished it would all just go away. Dysart sprun into action, quickly wrenching his battered legs with a metalic 'crack'. His boney metal arm swooped down grabbed him by the collar, "We're leaving!"
As he dragged Lester by his tattered, shredded labcoat, Dysart swore, "fine time for the one with a backbone to take a holiday!" He stopped, "Look, feet work better with you're standing on them! We have to get you up!" He hauled Lester to his feet.
"Es... Es... Es..." Lester quivered.
"Right on, Lester, escape," Dysart nodded, "now we need a way-"
"-Es... Es... Escape pod!" Lester blurted out. "B-back that way! Y-you passed it when you rescued us."
His hologramatic eyes blinked once. "Are you sure?"
"SNIDE saw it," Lester replied.
They fought their way along the corridor. It was like being in the worst fairground funhouse ever as the ground lurched and reeled and sections of the wall caved in. With a particularly violent jolt Dysart was thrown into Lester. It was like being slapped with a push bike.At one point their way was blocked by an enormous section of blue-painted metal, an enormous arm ploughed through the bulkhead and sliced off the corridor in front of them.
"HOLY **** ON A **** SANDWITCH!!" Dysart yelled over the sound of escaping air.
"Th-that looks like the B-Blue Dwarf r-ramscoops!"
"If I had pants I've have soiled them by now- LET'S GO!!" Dysart growled, grabbing Lester once more by the lapel. Pumping their legs as best they can they managed to escape the vaccume, retracing their steps until they could find another way around.
Huge cracks and gashes were appearing in the ceiling and the walls as the Thorax was consumed by the fireball that used to be Alota's Blue Dwarf. Occasionally they saw scampering Hymenoptera and the odd human figure in the smoke, but no-one was going to stop them as they reached the escape pod, Dysart bundled Lester in. With a quick swivel of his head for any targets the mechanoid followed, snugly fitting into the tiny compartment.
"Don't look at my arse," The JMC suited AI told him cheekily as he reached over to fire the release mechanism. With a single punch he activated the button.Nothing happened.
"P-press it, please?" Lester whined.
"I am!" Dysart began to hammer the button like a boxer harder and harder until his finger cracked. Stil nothing happened, well, Dysart swore loudly but that was about it.
"L-let me see," Lester shifted in the cramped space and used SNIDE to pry the control panel open. "I-it's fused solid," he said, mortified, "th-there's no way to f-fire it from in here."
The Series ten's eyes narrowed, still cradling his damaged apendage which had snapped in half like a frozen dog. "...You make it sound like there's somewhere else to fire it from..."
"Th-this is similar to st-standard es-escape pods used by Space Corps," he told the robot, "there's a panel on the top of the pod th-that can be tripped."His metal compatriat slapped his face (making a sound like a oil drum hit with a metal rake) and then sighed deeply, "show me."
As the Thorax ripped apart around them they manually released the pod so that it started to slip down the launch tube. Lester handed the robot a miraculously untouched screwdriver.
"J-just p-poke it into the unit," he said helpfully.
"Great- SMEG! Get back in the pod!!" Dysart said as another hunk of ship came down around them, plowing into the wall just beyond. Lester had only just managed to climb back in, slamming the door shut giving Dysart an apologetic smile and a thumbs up. Jamming the screw driver in between his finger tips the robot let the pod slide further down before clambering on top. Dysart gripped the mechanisms there as best he could, he unsheaved the screwdriver and then jammed it in where Lester had shown him. A light flashed amber, then went to a solid red and Dysart found himself staring at some sort of funnel or cone shape. His head tilted sightly. Three of them in fact. Three, upturned funnels staring him in the face and now glowing yellow. Right now...
"Oh... SHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII......"
Dysart's cry was lost as the pod's rocket motors fired directly into his face. Within seconds his hands were welded to the top of the pod as it roared out of the Thorax. The sensors in his CPU screamed and cried out for information that it didn't have while the rocket jets relentlessly enveloped his skull. Just in time too, thirty seconds later the final part of the Thorax exploded in gradutious hollywood fashion. It would be three months before they fully clear the gunk off the space stations.
In the silence of space the engines cut out. Dysart's body went from white to red to amber as he cooled in space. The Series 10's head was reduced to slag but fortunatly his mind was still located in his chest- his light bee remained intact. Only now he was effectivly blind and paralzyed. Nevertheless his hologram flickered back on wearing an impressive mix of shock, awe and pure undiluted fury.
Inside the pod Lester suddenly remembered something about the positioning of the pod's rocket motors and his face went through horror, then back to normal fear at Dysart's no doubt overblown reaction."O-oh well... it's a-always easier fix things that b-b-broken, right SNIDE?"SNIDE only gave a token chirp as he stared out of the Escape pod window.
Inside the former war zone, just as many damaged ships floated around as functional. SNIDE seriously doubted that this would be easy to fix. The pointless war, the pointless descrution and what for? Power? Honour? All the little AI could do was ask himself why. All those servers... all that porn... gone...It was enough to make a robot weep.
<The End of this plot for Lester and Lester>Get Windows Live Messenger on your Mobile. Click Here!