Jayne:- 'Clone-dition' Red

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!" Screamed Jayne as she toppled out of the
escape hatch of the wrecked front section of the Starbug.
She lay, face down on the ground amid the wreckage, her face warm
from the crackling flames sent up by the burning shuttle-fuel.
She tried push herself up, but her right let buckled under her
weight and she screamed again in agony. Rolling over she looked down
at her leg.
A large piece of green-painted titanium from the ships hull was
embedded painfully in her thigh, where it made a large gash which
was filled with a deep reddish-black liquid. She bit down on the
fabric of her flight-suit's shoulder and using both hands yanked the
shrapnel out of the wound, letting out another, albeit muffled,
scream as tears ran down her cheeks, leaving dark coloured lines on
her face as the dust that caked her skin became wet, and her mascara
ran. Her eyes now blurry, she wiped her face with her sleeve and
looked down at her leg properly. The blood poured freely, and with
the shrapnel now out of the way she could see the jagged form of her
thigh bone jutting out painfully from her flesh. There was no way
she was walking home.
She unbuttoned the top half of her flight suit, and slipped it off
so that it hung from the waistband, her vest beneath it torn and
bloodstained from other, less serious wounds. Tearing the sleeve
from her flight suit she wrapped it around the top of her thigh and
pulled it tight, tying it into a secure knot thus creating a simple,
but effective tourniquet in the hope of stemming the blood flow.
Satisfied that it would hold she rolled back onto her front and half-
crawled, half dragged her way back to the cockpit. The navigator lay
on the ground near her. She checked for a pulse and found none, same
for the engineer who's body was twisted over one of the broken-off
landing legs of the spacecraft.
"Dammit…" Jayne muttered, as she passed a hand over each corpse,
closing their eyes. It was funny, no matter how grisly the scene of
death was, the dead always looked so peaceful once their eyelids
were closed.
"…anyone there?" came a quiet voice from the distance. "…hello!!
Someone help me! I want my mummy!!" the voice was barely audible
above the distant rumble of weapons fire from the battles being
fought.
Jayne looked in the direction from which the voice had come, it was
the midsection, the ship had separated into it's separate components
upon impact, and the midsection lay about 20 metres from the
cockpit, embedded in the side of a house. The house, like the rest
of the city seemed to be abandonded, presumably evacuated by the
Mollopods at the outbreak of hostilities. The clone winced as she
dragged herself toward it.
Arriving at the buckled sphere that was once the midsection she
dragged herself inside through the open embarkation ramp, the
section had landed at a step angle and she had to pull herself
upwards across the deckplate, inserting her fingers into the metal
grating that made the floor and dragging herself up.
"Where are you?" she asked
"Over here!!"
"Is anyone with you?"
"No…they're all dead!!"
Jayne glanced around, sure enough, the midsection was no occupied by
nothing but corpses…she cursed under her breath, this wasn't going
to do her No Claims Discount any favours.
From the corner of her eye she saw movement, a pair of legs stuck
out from beneath a collapsed support beam, debris from the ships
interior lying on top of it, obscuring the owner of the feet. "Is
this you?" she said, placing a hand on one of the ankles.
"Yes! Yes that's me, I'm trapped, please help me.."
"Can you lift the beam?"
"Maybe…hold on…"
Jayne heard the whirring of machinery and the beam shook. "Ugh..no
it..it's too heavy…"
"Ok..stay there…" Jayne's eyes flicked around the room, looking for
a lever, a steel pipe lay on the floor which she grabbed and shoved
one end of under the beam and dragging a metal chair over, wedged it
under the pipe.
"Right…I'm gonna try to lift it off you, you push at the same time!"
she said, as she struggled to stand, trying to keep her weight off
her injured leg.
She pushed down on the pipe as hard as she could, screaming in pain
as her leg erupted in agony. The beam lifted, and the trapped
crewman rolled away, his metal arm clanking on the deckplate.
"Mickey?" Jayne said as she let go of the pipe, sending the beam
crashing back down to the ground as she collapsed onto the floor,
clutching her leg.
"Jayne!" Mickey said "Hey! I need a word with you..wait..what's that
smell?"
Jayne sniffed the air…"Smells like…shuttle fuel…"
"Oh.."
"And…burning…"
"Oh….wait.."
The two looked at each other, and then to across the midsection at
the trickling line of leaking fuel, then at the other end, at the
flames that were trailing along it, in the opposite direction to the
flow, toward the punctured fuel tank.
"That's…" said Mickey
"Not…" said Jayne
"GOOD!" they said together, Mickey grabbed Jayne, hurled her over
his shoulder and leapt out of the boarding hatch, a good 10 foot
drop to the ground, Mickey landed on his feet, and stumbled forward,
going into a roll and dropping Jayne who once more, yelled out in
agony as the midsection erupted into a fireball behind them.
"Well…" said Jayne " rolling over, sitting up and clutching her
leg. "You really know how to show a girl a good time….."
<tag mickey, or anyone else who survived the crash>