Cassandra: We're all doomed you know, but I have a plan!

<snip>
The second starbug impacted on the deck beneath her, rattling her head against the floor
"Ow!"
She sat up rubbing the back of her skull, looked around and wondered what her next move should be - after all, other than a few tens of other people who had come aboard along with her on the two starbugs, she more or less had the full run of the ship...
</snip>
'Hmmm...' Cass pondered 'Where to go, what to do..?'
Here she was on a nine kilometre long ship with just perhaps 30 to 50 vi-people on board, and a galaxy of possibilities for anyone enterprising enough...
A massive detonation shook the deck beneath her, rattling her from her ruminations, followed almost immediately by a strange howling sound and her ears popping
"What...?"
Cass scrabbled backwards, crabwise away from the still open maintenance hatch, on the off-chance anything heavy, pointy or hot whirled up through it in her general direction, only chancing a quick peek back through a few moments later when nothing of the sort materialised
Her hair began whipping wildly around her face in a stiff wind that had seemingly sprung up from nowhere, as she drew closer to the hatch, immediately giving her a bad feeling about the wisdom of peeking back though into the hangar, but she did it anyway, and was greeted by the sight of open space where the hangar doors had until recently been
"Smeg!" Cassandra's eyes widened in fright; it looked like whatever it was that was affecting the floors had just seen to the hangar doors too...
She hurriedly pulled her head back, expecting the hull breach alarms to go off at any moment, and for the hatch to seal itself as the ships automated systems for this kind of thing kicked in
After a minute or so had passed and nothing had happened, Cass just leaned forward and quietly thumbed the hatch closed on her own
Sighing she got to her feet and wandered down the corridor to an info-point
"Holly?" she asked "There's a hull breach on deck... Uh... four twenty one, sector gamma twelve...ish? Oh I dunno, you're the one with an IQ of six thousand, what's the deck below here?"
There was no reply, the screen remaining resolutely dark
"Hol?" Cass thumbed a few buttons of indeterminate function next to the screen on the off-chance they did anything
Still no response.
Maybe, the info point was broken?
Cass wrinkled her nose, turned and walked further down the corridor feeling wet and cold, but resolutely determined not to strip out of her soaked flight suit, having no desire to start traipsing around in just a grubby bikini with no underwiring again
She walked in shivery silence for ten minutes or so until she found another info-point
"Holly?"
Still no response; it was starting to look like there might be a pattern emerging here
Cass shrugged and turned started to walk further down the corridor before stopping mid-step
What was it that the mining mech had said? "HOLLY COULD NOT BE COMMUNICATED WITH"..?
"Aw, smeg" she breathed, throwing her hands up; the stupid smegging smeggers had probably gone and done something stupid like destroying Holly instead of just reverting it to a previous Mind state, hadn't they?
Cass rubbed her temples, fighting back the urge to scream or kick something
They had probably done something real dumb too; like tossing a couple of packs of Demex 8000 down the core and blowing up the computorium as well, just for good measure!
She took a deep breath, and blew out a heavy sigh
With no computer, a ship this size was pretty screwed: no life support, no weapons, no shields, no navigation, impulse or wormhole drives, nothing! - And especially no access for any of the dozens of stranded, orbiting starbugs...
If they were lucky, they might just get away without one of the drive containment units collapsing, blowing a kilometre sized hole in the side of the ship, and sending them careening into the local sun. Or maybe, Cass thought glumly, a couple of the more vital automated systems would just go offline instead, and they'd drift forever towards a cold death in deep space - Now there was a much happier thought!
If only the Captain had swallowed his stupid male pride and gone for her idea of staying on Little Cheftonia, calling I.T. support and waiting for an assault squad to come and sort Holly out instead - it had seemed like a damn good idea at the time to Cass, and after recent events it was looking hellishly more attractive now.
One thing was certain, though: While it was true that calling in JMC IT support wouldn't have looked so great on the Captains record, destroying the computorium while the ship was eaten through by some strange alien ferrovirus or whatever-the-smeg-it-was, was going to look a damn sight worse!
Cass stood for a moment, arms down by her sides, silently clenching and unclenching her fists, while she figured out the best thing to do.
She wasn't all so bothered about the Captains record, much less his snotty cow of a girlfriend, but after all she had been through recently, she was pretty certain that she didn't want to die in the near future, so even if for her own sake, it was looking like she had better do something - besides, people might thank her, and even like her for doing it!
Abruptly Cass strode off down the corridor towards where she guessed a lift cluster might be located, feet squelching slightly inside her damp boots
She was going to need some pop tarts and an arc-welding kit for a start...
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